Tensions mount over rate rise
Waverley Council has applied to raise rates by 11.9 per cent for the next seven years, a move that has caused deep division among councillors and within the community.
At the December 14 council meeting, Liberal Mayor Sally Betts used her casting vote to resolve to apply to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) for the rate rise.
The proposed rate increase of 11.9 per cent is a significant increase on the 2.8 per cent peg set by IPART on December 10 for the 2011/12 financial year. The rate peg amount for 2010/11 was 2.6 per cent.
Cr Betts said she was pleased with what she described as a tough but balanced rise achieved after months of planning and consultation. The 11.9 per cent rise is a reduction on the 12.41 per cent originally recommended by council officers.
“Any lesser increase would have resulted in job losses, perhaps considerable job losses, which would also be reflected in quite noticeable reductions of services to the community,” she said. “Any greater increase and the rate I believe would really affect our older and more vulnerable residents. It had to be a finely balanced calculation but I think we got it right.”
All Labor and Greens councillors voted against the increase; however, the measure was passed by Cr Betts with the support of her Liberal colleagues and Independent councillor and deputy mayor, Miriam Guttman-Jones.
Greens councillors had originally supported increasing the rise to the original 12.41 per cent to save environmental programs they say were cut to reduce the hike to its 11.9 per cent level.
“We moved that the already included efficiency savings could be channelled into pensioner hardship rate rebates and that a future fund be set up for open space acquisition and quality improvements,” said Greens councillor Mora Main.
“The mayor refused to adopt this amendment to her motion. The Liberals accused Greens councillors of lack of consultation but then produced a hit list of council program cuts with no notice to the community.”
The Labor bloc had suggested an alternative to the rate hike in the form of an infrastructure levy, an option that Labor councillors say Cr Betts was not even aware of.
Labor councillor John Wakefield said Cr Betts was not across all options available to the community.
“If she didn’t know that the infrastructure levy was available then she does not have the capacity or drive to run a council as complicated as Waverley,” he said.
“The right approach in our area is a tied infrastructure levy, then residents can see where their money is going and it can be justified to them.”
But Cr Betts said she was aware of the infrastructure levy option and indicated that it was a very “complicated” procedure. She expressed her disappointment at the Labor party using the issue as a “political football.”
Coogee MP Paul Pearce questioned the need for a rise of such magnitude.
“At a time when many households are doing it tough due to increasing mortgage rates, rising rents and increasing utility bills, as well as general cost of living expenses, a rate increase of this scale is hard to justify,” he said.
Mr Pearce called the hike an “exercise in social engineering”.
“The impact of this massive cumulative rate rise will be to increase the cost of purchase of housing and significantly increase rents, all of which adds up to moderate income earners being effectively forced out of Waverley. This type of policy will simply hasten the trend towards Waverley being for high income earners only.”
The decision on the rise now sits in the hands of IPART, expected to respond at the end of the first quarter.
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