Agreement from Wellington's Mayor over council rates needing to be kept in check.
The Government's proposing to cap rates increases at 4% a year, with only water rates and other non-rates revenue to be excluded.
Wellington Mayor Andrew Little says rates increases are due to decades of under-spending.
However, he told Ryan Bridge the Government's tapped into a justified concern.
Little says a lot of people are watching rates rise astronomically along side other costs, and councils need to do a better job at controlling this.
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Episode Transcript
No more disco lose for Wellington or any council. Actually,
this is what the rates cap is coming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I want to be clear with councils that they should
not wait for the enactment of the rates capping model
before controlling rates increases to their constituents.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
The band two to four percent unless you get sign
off from a government regulator not included water and other fees.
Andrew Little as the Wellington mayor joining us this morning.
Good morning, Andrew right, So no more disco lose in
the future. Will you live with that?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I don't well. Right now our council is doing the
very thing that the government talked about to line by
line review. Winsteron City Council no doubt, like many others,
has to get its financial controls in order and getting
expending under control, and that's what we're doing. But in
terms of the specialized disabled toilets in a Courtney place,
(00:56):
there is a facility that is aimed at providing a
facility for some of the most profoundly disabled people who
do go to Courtney plasification.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So you're the cost that is this whole thing just
misnoma that the cost of it, how much of it
was on the lights and the design as opposed to
practical things like disability access.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Look, I don't know, I wasn't involved in the project.
I haven't here tod it. It's there now. But two
things that they were it was aimed to do. One
was more secure toilets because the ones that were there
previously were the scene of well it was pretty insecure,
pretty unsafe, but also a facility for particularly highly immobile
(01:37):
and disabled people to get exteitute that one of toilets
got to hoist in it. Another toilet's got a shower
in it when accidents happened. So it provides those facilities
very expensive. That is correct, And I don't know why
it's got the light show on the front of it,
but that's what the previous council proved.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Will there be no more light shows under Andrew Livel.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well, we're root, we're cutting spending and we'll do It's
not a no, there's not a no. Come on, we're
not putting right shows on tour.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
All right, very good and is two to four percent reasonable.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
The problem with things like that is a lot of
a lot of the rates increases in the last few
years have been because of decades of underspending or under
waiting residents to look after infrastructure that sits under the ground,
and that's reality Wellington to the Count's borrowed to do
a lot of infrastructure infrastructure upgrades. The reality a lot
(02:35):
of that is water that gets shifted off to water
entities are not covered by the restriction, So we'll see
that how that happens. I think that the main thing
is what the governments tepped into is justified consume with
a lot of people seeing their rates going up at
an astronomical rate. At the same time it's going to
costs as well, but rates for councilors. They should do
(02:55):
a bit of job at keeping the spinning out of
control and we need to do that, isn't that questaper?
All right?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
We will see you go Andrew Little Wellington meet.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Listen live to News Talks it be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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