Want to reduce rates? Scrap GST on them
What lies behind the unprecedented huge rates rises being set by so many district and regional councils all over the country?
One has a certain sympathy for the uncomfortable situation these councils find themselves in (barring perhaps the uncaring suggestion of a reverse mortgage from the Central Otago District mayor) — they do not enjoy nor deserve the vilification heaped upon them.
They certainly don’t enjoy inflicting financial hardship on their ratepayers.
So what has happened? One certain problem lies with central government which keeps on requiring local government to pick up the tab for more and more functions, services and regulations — but does not provide funding for these, so it falls increasingly on the ratepayer.
From the opaque financials available to the public it’s difficult to gauge just how much this impost is.
One also wonders whether what we are suffering from is a giant hangover from the gung-ho cash handouts made during the Covid pandemic.
While they certainly helped ease the pain, there was always going to be a day of reckoning. Is this it?
A small fix which comes to mind concerns the GST we have to pay on top of the rates bill.
The vast bulk of GST is levied on purchases which are voluntary — rates are not; we don’t have a choice.
The rates monies levied goes to the local authority while for some reason central government gets 15% as well. Why is that? The local government could theoretically reduce its rates increases significantly if that GST was paid to it.
A poet speaking truth
American poet Maya Angelou once said "When someone shows you who they are, believe them first time" .
Thus we should take the actions of the American government, whose deliberate campaign of disinformation over the effective Chinese Sinovax Covid vaccination caused millions of deaths of Fillipinos (World Focus ODT 24.6.24) as a crystal clear case for this.
This appalling criminal act shows the level of deceit the US empire will stoop to build consent for Aukus.
By entering discussions over membership the Luxon government is in effect saying to the world we are willing to condone this atrocity. We should instead refer Washington to the ICC as we would if Russia did it.
Free parking
George St has lost a significant number of parks with the developments. There is obviously a need for parking spaces.
Surely it would be more practical and serve the city ratepayers better to let cars park at night rather than pay parking attendants to ticket these cars?
How many people plan to sit and admire a dark garden in George St (apart from planners).
Cuts costly
I am very upset to read Fiona Ellis' story "Nurse recruiting stopped" (ODT 1.7.24)
New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniel says there is a freeze on hiring nurses. Nurses are frontline staff. The government has promised again and again that frontline staff won't be impacted.
It also seems to be saying there is not a freeze on hiring staff, rather budget cuts. This is another case of they save, we pay. We need nurses.
Stop cutting funds to hospitals please. Hospitals are already financially stretched. People's lives matter: fund staff.
Should have been no alarms and no surprises
I note your article (ODT 27.6.24) "Build a carpark — just don’t use it". The tone of this article is that these "innocents" (aka Skyline Enterprises) built this carpark and then suddenly had this "court order" savagely imposed upon them.
However, reading of the detail reveals that these specific directives were actually a requirement of the original resource consent to build the car park. One would assume as an outcome of the legal haggling related to the imposition of this large development on the skyline (no pun intended).
Thus they knew of these requirements before they started to build this carpark, and yet they still chose to do so. It is therefore somewhat disingenuous of them to act all surprised and indignant now that the carpark has been completed and these clearly spelled out pre-existing requirements have been activated.
However, this type of truculent behaviour it is sadly typical of what we have come to experience and thus expect of the developer community.
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