The Government's plan to cap council rates is a recipe for asset sell-offs, job losses and higher user charges that will hit households and communities harder than rates ever did.
"Rates caps will backfire and hurt the very communities they are supposed to help," said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi, which represents local government workers.
"Rates caps are lazy politics that will damage New Zealand. International evidence is clear. Rates caps starve councils of revenue, forcing them to privatise community assets, slash staff and impose new charges for services that used to be covered by rates.
"The only winners are private companies which get to buy up public assets on the cheap and then charge communities more to use them.
"This is a cheap slogan that will cost communities far more - through higher separate charges for swimming pools, libraries, rubbish collection and other services that are funded through rates.
"When councils are stopped from raising enough revenue, staff cuts inevitably follow. Our members who everyday support communities with vital services - maintaining parks, fixing pipes, running libraries - will be first in the firing line.
"This will prevent councils from raising the money needed to fix decades of underinvestment. You can't defer infrastructure maintenance forever - eventually the pipes burst and the cost of catch-ups will skyrocket.
"New Zealand already has a massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficit because councils have historically kept rate rises too low. A mandatory cap will only deepen that deficit and push critical repairs further into the future.
"This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It doesn't fix the fundamental problem that councils don't generate enough revenue.
"If the Government was serious about keeping costs down for ratepayers, it should give councils other funding tools like sharing GST revenue or tourism levies rather than forcing them into asset sales and service cuts.
"Just like the cuts to public services across New Zealand, this is another short-sighted decision that's prioritising political slogans over the long-term needs of communities."
