Our ratepayer plan - will you help us?

The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance was launched back in April to provide a counter balance to a Mayor, Council, and officialdom who aren’t delivering the value for money we were promised with the Super City

Now that we are six months in, I thought it would be a good opportunity to update you about our progress and our plans for the next 12 months. How are we going to force the Council to put a halt to the high rates/high debt and big spending agenda?

Progress to date

Our movement is growing.  We are now in excess of 14,000 members across Auckland. In 6 months that is an incredible achievement – for comparison, the nationwide membership of the Labour Party is only around 15,000. A big thank you to our volunteers who delivered 25,000 “Have you rates gone up” leaflets – the response has been fantastic. Thank you too to those who donated generously and made the leaflet drop possible. 

Arming Aucklanders with the facts

Len Brown wants you to believe that he needs to rack up rates by 9.9% in order to afford quality infrastructure. In reality, despite his new transport levy, Auckland Council is now wasting so much money Auckland Transport has less money to spend on capital works this year!

We need to convince our fellow Aucklanders that we can have both affordable rates, and decent infrastructure. To do it, we will continue to expose examples of the Council wasting our money – it’s only through exposing the waste that we demonstrate that the Council could very well trim the fat, without it affecting core services for ratepayers.

Last week we launched the first of our Ratepayer Briefings examining the Council’s debt since amalgamation. The paper is available for download here. It shows that:

• Auckland Council now has $10.09 billion in liabilities. To put this in perspective, it’s around $20,000 the Council owes per Auckland household.

• Auckland Council’s per capita debt is so high that Aucklanders are in a worse position than Kaipara ratepayers in 2012 (when Government commissioners were appointed).

• Despite record low interest rates, the Council's finance costs in 2014/15 amounted to $422 million. The Council's books are extremely vulnerable when the rates inevitably rise.

• Len Brown’s fiscal management has increased total liabilities by 60% in the last 5 years and 15% in the last 12 months alone.

Leighton Smith picked up on our paper – you can listen to Leighton's comments here.

The 2017 elections – an opportunity for change

As a politically independent group we are not going to be running our own candidates at next years election. Instead we're going to be asking every Council and Mayoral candidate (regardless of their political affiliation) to sign a "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" - the pledge will ensure that Aucklanders know who will put an end to 9.9% rate hikes (and who won’t). The pledge will also serve as a very public commitment that the we can use to hold elected officials to account.

In addition, for the run up to the elections next year, we want to have the following in place: 

• Leaflets ready to drop into every letterbox in the areas represented by the "Terrible Ten" Councillors who voted for the 9.9% rates. This will remind voters that these Councillors worked with Len Brown to replace his 2.5% rates rise cap with the 9.9% broken promise.

• A mobile debt clock that shows the amount debt is rising every second under the Len Brown mayoralty (and the per household cost). By taking the mobile debt clock to candidate meetings we'll make sure affordability and low rates are at the forefront of the election campaign.

To make these campaigns possible we need more members and more donations. We also need you to spread the word and encourage co-workers, friends, and family members to join us. Only with numbers can we ensure our goal of a Super City with reasonable rates and sensible spending is achieved.

If you would like to become more involved in the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance you can contact us here, volunteer here, or please take a moment to donate here.

Let’s make it happen.

Jo Holmes
Spokesperson
Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance
www.ratepayers.nz