The neighbours’ rates
Mayor's column
One of the best ways I know of working out how well we're doing is to have a quiet peep at what the neighbours are up to. In the case of rates, the neighbours are the other major cities of New Zealand.
A peep this year should help take some of the sting out of our own Christchurch rate rise of about 3.49 per cent when it is struck.
Christchurch is now New Zealand's second-largest city. The biggest still is Auckland. This year the Auckland City Council has approved a rate increase of 9.7%.
Waitakere City Council has settled for 7.65%. Wellington City Council is going for 7.68%. Palmerston North City Council is going for 8.1%. Dunedin City Council is on 5.9%.
There are two other councils to go below the 5% mark, but even that is fairly marginal. These two are Hamilton City Council on 4.5% and Manukau City Council on 4.9%.
All of these neighbours look set to have to dip a wee bit deeper than we will when it comes to their rates.
Each year, as part of the ritual around rates debates, I end up pointing out that Christchurch is still by far the cheapest major city in New Zealand when it comes to rates. I have done so again this year.
I am also reminding people one of the main reasons we can do this is because we have held onto some of our key assets while others have chosen to divest theirs.
Each year the rates debate reminds me vividly of the old adage that, "for every problem there is a solution... quick, simple, and wrong".
Christchurch enjoys its quality of life and infrastructure precisely because we have resisted the temptation of taking the easy short-term fix that, long-term, leaves cities worse off then before.
We are the envy of other cities because we've been hard-headed enough to hold onto key assets and services through a time when other cities dumped theirs.
Happily we seem to have always had enough common sense to know that the best way to keep big fiscal shocks at bay is by a process of continual prudent investment.
Anytime we have forgotten that lesson the reminders are not far off. The big building infrastructure projects of the 1990s were a catch-up phase after a period where we had lost our investment mentality.
I'm sure in our own lives we all have those clever neighbours who are just holding off on some major project until prices come down again. I'm equally sure that while some will have been waiting months, others will have been waiting years, or even decades.
We can see a similar story playing itself out in the size and scale of some of the rate rises our city neighbours are now facing. Auckland's political leaders let the city grow at the expense of infrastructure investment. It is why they have to weld down some of their manholes to deal with the water pressure while we don't. It is why some of their wastewater systems cause pollution.
Their situation and the cost to the public it creates is a direct result of failing to plan and deal adequately with the relentless march of progress. It is a situation we do not want to imitate. If we take the politically easy road of deferred maintenance and investment, it is a situation we too will have to eventually face.
Along with asking some of our decision-makers to take a good hard look at what the neighbours are paying, I have also been asking them to bring some economic maturity to bear on this debate.
Christchurch is now a maturing city. It is popular and respected because it has taken a prudent and investment-minded approach to how we manage our collective finances. This is a tradition we need to preserve. We need to also be prepared to remind ourselves and our new faces of this tradition. The reality is that one in seven people now living here was not born in New Zealand. The best way to ensure the best aspects of our civic tradition continue, is to explain them. While we explain how we do things here we also need to point out that the neighbours have not done so well by taking other paths.
We give good value because we value good investments.
Let's keep it that way.
Mayor of Christchurch
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