Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andrew Little: Wellington Mayor on the Government's promise to introduce a 4% council rates cap

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Andrew Little: Wellington Mayor on the Government's promise to introduce a 4% council rates cap · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right, back home now, government's pushing ahead with a rates
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: cap max 4% per year.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: All Kiwi households and businesses right here, right now, are
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: needing to tighten their belt and local government must do
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: the same.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Excludes water charges, which is quite crucial if you're in
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a place like Wellington right now and getting a bill
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: from 2029, this will kick in. The rates rises between 2%
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and 4%. Andrew Little is Wellington's mayor joining us this morning. Hey, Andrew.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Come on, Ryan.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Now, the government says this will mean fewer services... council's
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: able to provide and also it'll mean that your fees
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and your charges will go up do we have any
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: idea what kind of increase we would see to fees
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and charges as a result of something like this.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Um really hard to say because uh fees and charges
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: are a component of um council review but um it's
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: spread across a whole bunch of different things it could
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: be your parking charges could be You know, so you
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: can't pick that. But the really hard bit is going
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: to be things like for a city like Wellington, where
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we have a big program to make ourselves climate resilient
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: because we have a whole heap of slips and stuff,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: potential slips that we have to shore up against. The
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: spending on that potentially falls down. and that goes against
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: an instruction we got from the government recently, which is
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: make sure that you're climate resilient. So it's going to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: require a lot of juggling to get this right. Of course,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: councils have got to be responsible, keep rates rising as
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: low as possible, but the pressures on councils right now
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: to get cities right and fit is just a big challenge.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like you absolutely hate the idea, Andrew.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You're talking about juggling, you're talking about reprioritisation, which I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: think is probably what the government wants too.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's what, if I look around,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: certainly this year, councils in Wellington and neighbouring councils, most
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of us are actually, we get the message, we've all
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: got the message in the election campaign last year, ratepayers
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: have had enough of significant rates increases. So everybody's got
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: that message and doing their best. But the sort of
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: things that councils have to spend money on, which involves
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of civil works, construction, that sort of thing,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: inflation costs in those sectors have gone up quite significantly
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: and councils have to wear those costs. everybody wants and
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: expects and should expect councils to be responsible for the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: way they spend money, but the cost pressures are significant.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: All right, Andrew Little, Wellington Mayor, good to have you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: on the show this morning.