Regional Aquifer Advantage

And the headline was the Polarua City Council has achieved a 0% average increase for rates. Zero% rate increase. You can hear the whole nation going, Wow! Oh, could I have that, please? Uh the milestone applies alongside zero cuts to services. Oh my goodness, double wow. However, depending on your QV valuation, you may see some increases to your rates. The Potterua City Council achieved a 0% average increase for non-water rates through a combination of multi-year fiscal strategy, structural service shifts, and targeted cost cutting measures. However, there's a clue in that sentence that I just read. When you hear, of course, that story, you think, good on Polly Ru, it can be done, but you also wonder why Potterua would ever consider amalgamation, especially joining up with the spending crazies in Wellington. But there's that word in that sentence, non-water rates. There's the fish hook. Rates for water have been taken out as part of local water done well. So the newly established regional water entity that does Potirua's water, Tiaki Wai, has announced an average, wait for this, 12.8% increase in water charges across the Wellington region, including Polarua for the 2627 financial year. Oh, I see. So it's 0% for everything except for the water, but it's 12.8%. Uh-huh. And this was actually a little factoid that was missing in the debate about Auckland's 7.9% rate rise. Because that also excludes water care's water rates rise, and that's been announced as 7% on top of the 7.9 as well. I doubt very much whether there's any councils which combined with the water rates will ever get under double figures in this next round. And so maybe the problem hasn't been fixed. I will admit there is greater efficiency in our councils. I will admit that they're counting their pennies. I've seen them do it, I've seen Auckland do it. Um, but the fact of the matter is, despite these grand pieces of PR, there is no real tangible decrease in the money that comes out of your wallet and mine.