Andrew Little: Wellington mayor on the growing calls for the Government to pay its 'fair share' of council rates

There's growing calls for the Government to pay rates on Crown land.

Wellington mayor Andrew Little has announced he'll lobby for changes to the Local Government Act to repeal the measure as part of his council’s triennium plan.

Currently, most property owned by central Government, such as schools and hospitals, is exempt from paying rates.

Little says local councils provide a lot of infrastructure to Crown-owned buildings - and more revenue is needed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Labor is considering changing the law to force government buildings
to pay rates to city councils. This is obviously if
they win the November election. At the moment, none of
the government buildings, Parliament, schools, hospitals pay any rates. Wellington
has been agitating for this to change. In the mayor
is Andrew Little Hi Andrew, how much would it bring
in for Wellington City Council for.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Willington look, depending on whether they pay the residential rate
or the commercial rate, could be anywhere between five million
dollars and nearly seventeen million dollars. And they'll probably be
a mix of residential, commercial, or possibly a special rate.
But the gains would be significant for a council of
our size.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Why wouldn't you just check them all on commercial rates
if they are in the commercial precinct.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
If some are in residentially. If you think about schools
they used for what forty weeks a year type of
thing and residential areas, so you could justify something there.
Many of the other buildings are in the city areas,
so commercial rates might be justified. I think the point
is that there's a lot of infrastructure that we're providing
to crownd known buildings that that are not paying their way.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Is it a point of frustration for you?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh, when when you look at the value that it represents.
You know, we're in the process of doing the work
to set our budget. We're trying to cut as much
cost out of the budget and find other sources of revenue.
There ain't much other sources of revenue, so we're all
sort of cost cutting that is sensitive. But if we
can find other sources of revenue, that stuff makes a difference.
So what it ends up doing is bringing down rates

(01:29):
for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, well, I was going to ask, is this would
you use it to pay down debt or would you
actually drop the rates increases for residents.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
To go towards keeping the rates increase levels as low
as possible. Think so everybody gets to share the benefit
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Okay, Now, I see the Labor Party is considering this
is a serious thing.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
As far as I know. I saw saw the spokesperson
telling you particularly saying that that. I understand they're doing
their policy development because they keep telling us that they
will have announcement soon. But good on them if they are.
I think this is something that should be considered. I'm
not the only mea saying this. There are the other
mes saying this as indeed they have been for many years.
I just think it's a question we have to step
up to. I don't think councils can go much longer

(02:12):
caring the cost of infrastructure for these Crown buildings without
getting something back for it.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Have you raised it with the current government and what
have they said.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I haven't had a discussion with them about it, but
it will no doubt came up in future discussions.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Andrew, thank you very much in bestive luck with that.
That's Andrew Little, Wellington City Met. For more from Hither
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