During these elections, the Go-Whangarei team brought up concerns about holding the rates increases for three years. It’s a sensitive issue which resulted in lots of debate on our web platforms.

Why hold the rates?  Over the past 6 years your rates in Whangarei have jumped up significantly – but if you’re a ratepayer, you might not even have noticed.  My rates went from $1600 to $2200, that’s a rise of 37%, yet I can’t justify what I’m getting for that money.  If you don’t think that is bad, then how about owning a commercial property in Whangarei. Let’s say you are paying $10,000 per year in rates. If you then decide to have two tenants you now have to pay $20,000, yet Whangarei’s Mayor doesn’t believe that there is a problem.

I hear people tell me that Whangarei’s rates are not that bad compared to other regions, yet Whangarei has one of the highest levels of unemployment and also has one of the lowest median wages.  So comparing us to Auckland, Tauranga, or even Palmerston North is not what we should be doing in my view.  We are our own district, so let’s look into our rates.

Go-Whangarei wants to strip apart the rating system and get the district rates on a more level playing field.  How can this be done if every year the goal posts keep changing and the rates keep going up?

Whangarei commercial businesses presently are on a 5 to 1 ratio, this means they pay 5 times the normal rates.  Most other regions around New Zealand pay around 3 to 1 for commercial land, however Whangarei has then added the additional feature of an extra rating per tenant.  You might say That’s not fair – and you would be absolutely right.

Past Whangarei District Council employee Bill Harris, who worked in the Rating department, claimed that the Rating system needed an overhaul, yet nothing was done.  Even past Whangarei District Council councillors Frank Newman and Wally Yovich stated that the rating system was not fair and needed to be re-configured, yet still nothing has been done.

So where does all this money go?  Several millions of dollars goes on our roading network and infrastructure, wages, consultants, and debt.  These are all items that I have covered in earlier blogs.

My concerns, shared with other Go-Whangarei candidates, are that rates are increasing at 9-30% every year, yet inflation is only around 0.4%.  So when you vote this year, think about your rates, think about the extra costs that have been lumped on you over the past 6 years, and think about the Go-Whangarei Team who want to put a stop to this.