The requirement to read and accept pages of conditions before making a comment on the Port Macquarie Hastings Council’s “future services’ website is enough to put some people off making any comment.
The Council’s options don’t give us much of a choice. All involve significant increases and try to get us to agree to them based on the emotive issue of fixing the roads. Where are the other options that detail what would have to deleted from Council’s program if, for example, only the IPART pegged increase was allowed.
The impact of the options cannot be effectively assessed because the basis on which they are predicated is the “average ratepayer’. What is the average ratepayer? This figure is not provided. Therefore, it is impossible to assess the impact on an individual ratepayer.
It should not be overlooked that the Council’s proposition is that these increases are not just for 2012/13 but for the long term thereby compounding the increases to even greater amounts in future years.
Furthermore, what other Council increases are in the pipeline e.g. water and waste collection. On top of these there will be further significant increases in electricity and gas charges. All of these have to be considered in the context of the household budget.
In managing a household budget sensible people forgo items that they would like to have but can’t afford. Council should adopt the same approach and keep the increase to the IPART figure.
It is reasonable to suggest that road network has reached the stage where it is unfixable without the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars, which as a community we can ill afford.
My view is that the rates should only be increased at IPART’s 3.6% allowing marginal improvements to the more important sections of the road network while maintaining the remainder at current standards.
Ron Brown,
Port Macquarie
