The minister of two different views on rates

By ANNE BESTON

Auckland Issues Minister Judith Tizard has two views on the region's deeply divisive rates issue.

As a member of the country's ruling Executive she has mostly backed the party line, saying it is not for Parliament to interfere in local government decisions.

As a citizen of Auckland she has a different view, one more in tune with the outrage felt by thousands of ratepayers.

The minister, who until now has stuck to the Government's line that the Beehive should keep out of local body affairs, said the Auckland Regional Council's decision to hit ratepayers with big increases when the council was direct-rating for the first time was a mistake.

"I deeply disagree with the process of implementation. I think it's ridiculous to have brought increases in all at once," she said.

She also said the first year of direct rating by the ARC "was not the time to do away with the business differential" - a reference to the ARC decision not to use the differential whereby businesses pay double or more the rates of householders.

Mindful she was breaking ranks on the issue, Ms Tizard added she was speaking as "a citizen, not as minister".

The Auckland Central MP has been wavering on the rates issue all week, saying in Parliament she did not "necessarily agree" with the way the rates were struck and the next day saying they could have been "stepped in more progressively".

But back on the official Government line by the end of the week, she said: "It is not for Parliament to start to attack [the ARC's] decision."

Ms Tizard and Local Government Minister Chris Carter were absent from a gathering of Auckland MPs hosted by the ARC yesterday.

In a public relations exercise, ARC chair Gwen Bull explained the new rating system to 12 MPs from Act, New Zealand First, Labour, National and the Greens.

Direct rating by the ARC is a change from before, when its levy was an easily overlooked line at the bottom of other councils' rates demands because the councils collected the money for the ARC.

At the same time the regional council upped its rate-take by 34 per cent, introduced a controversial new transport rate that hit areas with poor or no transport services, decided on a capital value rating system that can end up costing poorer ratepayers more and decided against the business differential.

Ms Tizard has been under fire on the issue from Auckland ratepayers and Opposition MPs. In Parliament Act MP Deborah Coddington grilled her over the case of an 88-year-old Takapuna widow faced with a combined rates bill of $8500.

For 64 years, Janie Farquharson has lived in her beachfront house, bought in 1939 for £605. Now, with multimillion-dollar houses all around, her property is worth around $2.7 million and her rates bill for the ARC alone is $2000.

Ms Tizard said in Parliament that Mrs Farquharson, who cares for her blind son, had more choices than many Auckland families.

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