Tony Randle: Wellington City Councillor on the possibility of rates going up by 15.9 percent

A city councillor says more can be done to stop Wellington's rates rising further.

Draft council budget figures predict 15.9 percent rises for the 2025-26 financial year - with a portion for wastewater treatment included, dubbed the sludge levy.

Councillor Tony Randle says there's still time to make cuts, or ratepayers will feel the pain.

"This is just bad news for a council, really, that says it's trying to make hard decisions - but it hasn't made hard decisions."

Mayor Tory Whanau is promising staff are aiming to reduce the increase.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A rude wake up for Wellingtonians this morning with news
that their rates are set to increase by fifteen point
nine percent next year. That's up more than three percent
higher than previously promised. It's a result of Wellington Council
not selling its airport shares, we all know about that,
but then also not making enough savings. Otherwise, Wellington City
councilor Tony randalls with me, Tony, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good evening.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
So the mayor now saying, actually, I will stick to
the original promise of twelve point four. Do we believe that.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, we've already been through this whole process of saying
we're making enough savings when in fact we spent most
of the meeting putting money back in the budget. And
then there's a surprise that rates have gone up by more.
And that's also gone up as well.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
So if you're a Wellingtonian listening to this, who do
you believe? Who do you listen to? How much will
the rates go up by twelve point four or fifteen
point nine or maybe more? Do we actually know?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, the officers have said that they're going to go
up by fifteen point nine percent, and that's the average.
Of course, We're also going to have new valuations out
for the next rates time, so those people who are
in the wrong end of the valuation shift are going
to have even higher rates than fifteen nine point nine percent.
That's that's not good. But the reality is we're going

(01:19):
to have to make more cuts, and that's what officers said.
They're going to come back in February to do it,
but my goodness, we should have done it already for good.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
So you've had one round of cuts and they because
they haven't gone deep enough, you're going to have to
have another round of cuts. Do you think we're finally
going to get rid of that Golden Mill or is that?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Are there certain projects that people are just not willing
to relent on.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
That the Mirror has got her agenda? It includes us
spending more rate power funds on psych aways, spending more
rate power funds on the gold and Mile project. And
actually she last time she even increased the budget for
the organics processing by eleven million dollars. And so it's
no surprise to me that their costs haven't been cuts

(02:05):
haven't been made, and so rape payers are going to
wear it really hard. And I really feel for them
really do.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
And not only are they wearing it, but the council's
debt limits wearing it too. It's at two hundred and
twenty six percent, the limits two hundred and twenty five.
Is this Crown observer giving you any of what are
they doing?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well? He has been a positive influence and given us
some advice and listening, but mainly he's reporting back. I
think actually his first report is going to go to
the Minister very soon. I'll be interested to see what
it says. It's still it's still time to make cuts.
Perhaps we can make some cuts even on Tuesday. But

(02:45):
really this is just bad news for a council really
that says it trying to make hard decisions, but it
hasn't made the hard decisions, really hasn't, and people are
holding on to this party agenda stuff. We need to
move on and focus on the basics and that means
more cut.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Sorry Tony Randall, Wellington City councilor thanks for your time.
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