The 10% average rates rise adopted by MacKenzie District Council in June has been met with anger by local ratepayers. At a recent meeting, the Chair of Fairlie Ratepayers, Simon Abbott, said the increase was not justified. “People are struggling to make ends meet. While new requirements imposed by government on councils without sufficient funding is a factor, councils can’t just keep using ratepayers as a bank.”

Fairlie Ratepayers welcomed rates rebates for pensioners introduced by NZ First. However, they noted it might not help returned service people or sickness or disability beneficiaries on fixed incomes.

Chair Abbott acknowledged that high immigration rates under the previous government had worsened unaffordable housing costs, but said: “Rates increases add to the financial pressure that households already face. Rates rebates don’t help those with mortgages, or renters. Around one in three mortgage-paying households spend over a third of their pay on mortgages and around half of all renters spend over a third of their pay on rent. Spending more than a third of your income on housing means that for close to a million households, housing costs are driving them into debt, overcrowding, and poverty.”

Disgruntled ratepayer members also spoke about money spent on tourism infrastructure and Council overspending. “Tourism infrastructure needs to be majority taxpayer-funded, not ratepayer funded” said Chair Abbott. “There are less than 5000 households in the whole of MacKenzie District. The cost of tourism to our District far exceeds the income generated from it. A lot of tourist income is spent outside the District.”

“Our last two Councils have mismanaged funds. We used to have over eight million dollars in reserve, now we are more than 20 million dollars in debt. Ratepayers should not be servicing huge debts.” said Chair Abbott. “The fiscal insanity has to stop. Our Council needs to get back to basics.”

“Fairlie Ratepayers recommends government introduce a rates cap based on the definition of affordable rates. Rates are generally defined as being ‘affordable’ when no more than 5% of household income is spent on rates.”

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