New Zealand Parliamentary Debate

Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill [4472]

RODNEY HIDE

: Sorry?

Maryan Street

: It's your defence of people that's making us shake our heads. And this is a surprise!

RODNEY HIDE

: Who is this member? I have never heard a contribution quite like it. It is true, contrary to what New Zealand First members might be asserting, that there are people in every electorate in this country who are struggling. I was rung up last week by a Roger Beauchamp. He has been hit. He is a pensioner who has lived in his house since 1960- it is a family home. This story is repeated up and down New Zealand. He has been hit with a rates demand of 2, 800. I say to Mr Donnelly that it is true that Mr Beauchamp does not live in Epsom, but he is getting hit with rates of 2, 800 and he cannot afford it. Mr Beauchamp asked me what he gets from the Porirua City Council that is worth 2, 800 in a year. The answer is not much. So he went to the council and said: I can't afford this. Do members know what he was told by the caring people in local government, which is supported by the Labour Party and now New Zealand First? He was told to sell his House if he could not afford his rates.

Even the Sheriff of Nottingham did not do that to the peasants. But this Labour Government, in association with New Zealand First, expects pensioners to have to sell their houses to pump up local government so it can have its flash offices and build its monuments while the poor people of New Zealand lose their family homes.

Hon Brian Donnelly

: Is this bill going to reduce his rates?

RODNEY HIDE

: No, it is not, but I will tell the member what it will do. It will stop them going up at more than plus 2 percent inflation a year, and that has to be a good start. Why are New Zealand First members going around supporting rates increases of 10 percent and 20 percent a year-which New Zealand First's own supporters cannot afford and are complaining about to them-and saying: We don't care.? Why does New Zealand First not care? Because it has the baubles of office.

Members should think about the inequity of this situation-they can look it up. Helen Clark's rates as Prime Minister are 1, 600 for the year. The rates of this poor pensioner in Porirua City are 2, 800. Where is the equity and fairness in that situation, which this Labour Government with New Zealand First is defending?

Mark Blumsky

: She doesn't pay rates for the one she lives in up in Thorndon, either.

RODNEY HIDE

: Well, I do not know. I am sure that Taito Phillip Field pays enough rates for half the country when one adds up all the houses he has. But that has to be iniquitous.

I heard of a farmer who has a farm amongst the vineyards. His rates bill is 50, 000 in a year. The answer is not more subsidies from taxpayers; the answer is in getting local government spending under control, because we see the waste and excess of local government every which way we look. When one sees what some of these city councils are up to one could say it even makes central government look quite reasonable in how it wastes its money.

Members should understand that cities like Sydney and London have caps on how much they can increase their rates by in a year. The Hutt City Council has a strategy to raise rates by no more than half a percent above inflation. I remind the House how generous my bill is. It is saying that councils can put up rates in any year by inflation plus 2 percent. Even that is outrageous, but I thought I would be generous, because I would get the big spenders in New Zealand First-the big Government defenders-and the Labour Party to say that 2 percent plus inflation is quite reasonable. But, oh no, they are happy to vote for the rates of the poor people of New Zealand to go up by 14 percent or so a year.