31 August

Reading some of the social media around upcoming LG elections. ‘Councils should be run more like a business’, that’s an old favourite. Councils are nothing like a business. They’re a government. They provide services, all of which cost. Their main revenue is taxes/rates/charges. Without rates and charges, there are no services. Anybody promising low rates and high services is having a lend of you. They may play with funny money by promising to sell lots of things to avoid raising rates. You can only sell things once. It’s not revenue. Or they may try to turn Council into a business to generate the revenue instead. But then its staff aren’t providing services, and are taking business from other businesses. Low rates = low services. That’s it. Invest in your community. Be proud to do it. Ignore social media warriors who couldn’t run a bath, let alone a town. Reality will find them out, if elected. If you think rates are already too high, it means you’re not aware of the services provided, or what they cost to run. Most Councils are millions in arrears in road maintenance just for starters. There’s no money.