The hope that MidCoast Council would be prevented from applying for a special rate increase has been dashed. For while the NSW parliament recently passed legislation preventing the state’s merged councils from putting up rates it included one exception - MidCoast Council.
As a result of this legislation – the Local Government Amendment (Rates – Merged Council Areas) Bill 2017 – our council will now be the only merged council with the right to apply to IPART (Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal) for a special rate variation.
This is despite the NSW Office of Local Government late last year specifically ruling out merged councils from applying to IPART for rate increases. That ruling followed MidCoast Council flagging its intention to apply to IPART for just such a special rate increase.
At that time council was talking in terms of seeking permission for, in effect, a special rate increase of five percent a year over four years. This would have been in addition to any already approved rate rises.
The ruling by the Office of Local Government essentially reaffirmed the commitment by the NSW Government given prior to the council mergers that merged councils would not be able to seek a rate increase for four years.
That commitment has been broken, at least in the case of the residents of MidCoast Council.
Not that we can blame just the government for this decision. As Len Roberts, a former Great Lakes councillor and a current member of MidCoast Council’s Local Representative Committee, recently explained, the amendment to exempt MidCoast Council was put to the Legislative Council by Paul Green of the Christian Democrats.
But not so fast. You can’t just blame Mr Green since, as Len Roberts notes, the amendment was carried unanimously, with all parties voting for it: the Nationals, Liberals, ALP, the Greens, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, and, of course, the Christian Democrats. No doubt even the Animal Justice Party joined in.
Presumably we can now only watch and wait as MidCoast Council relaunches its application to IPART to make all of us pay even higher rates. This is despite the fact North Arm Cove residents already pay much more, in total, than we receive back in council services.
It will also be despite the fact that council, after the initial rejection of its attempt to apply to IPART, announced that this wasn’t a problem as it had found sufficient savings to cover the shortfall.
While there is still a chance that IPART will reject this application, or at least approve only part of the desired increase, the odds on this happening aren’t all that good.
