Queen St protest at rates leap

By REBECCA WALSH

Several hundred angry ratepayers marched in central Auckland at the weekend to protest against Auckland Regional Council rates.

Don Chapman, national vice-president of Grey Power, estimated that around the region several thousand people had taken to the streets to voice their opposition to rate increases - some as high as 657 per cent - but he would have liked to see 10 times that number.

"If we could have filled one end of Queen St to the other, that would have made a much bigger impact."

John Drury, president of the Orewa Residents and Ratepayers Association, had hoped for a turnout of 25,000 people on Saturday but said it appeared "apathy reigned supreme".

Despite that, he said it was pleasing to see a scattering of younger people among the mostly older faces.

A strategy meeting today would determine further action and another march was possible, Mr Drury said.

The crowd made its way from Queen Elizabeth Square to the Auckland Town Hall where four resolutions drafted by the Auckland Regional Ratepayers Delegates' Association were passed.

They expressed a vote of no confidence in the council and called for a commissioner to run its affairs until new elections could be held.

They demanded the current rates be withdrawn and that new rates be set in accordance with people's ability to pay.

Mr Chapman said the council did not realise that many ratepayers' only income was national super.

"There is just no way for these people to get any more money. Then they [the ARC] turn around and say, 'Sell your house and move away'. What sort of thinking is that?"

The crowd demanded a return to city and district councils collecting the ARC rates and restrictions on local bodies' ability to increase rates.

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