Send the bill to the government

The Hamilton City Council reports that their ratepayers are being stiffed to the tune of $5M or more implementing new central government laws and foregoing rent on Crown properties.

The cost of complying to Government legislation is significant, yet is an area that many ratepayers have little understanding of. Compliance costs are growing and growing and will be an area of expenditure that will go under particular scrutiny at a national level over the coming months.

The central government passes all these new taxes (60 odd since 2001, not bad for a goverment that was not going to add any new taxes) continually expecting the little old ratepayer to stump up.

Of particular note in the report was the almost $500K directly attributed to one off costs for Prostitution, Building and Dog Control acts. How the hell does it take this much money to implement these acts? Now if one council out of 80 odd councils has incurred these costs, would it be fair to say that NZ ratepayers have been suckered for 80 x $5M - $400M or more...

It should be mandatory with any taxes that are imposed on local councils that the funding should be costed and permanently funded by the legislator, namely the Crown from the Consolidated Fund. Any costs incurred by councils should be directly billed back to the government, so they can see the true cost of their wanton largesse.