Treasury Policy Shift

Right, Catherine McGrath of Westpac is going to be with us after six o'clock to talk us through the profit, which has fallen by about 19% in the net profit figure. So it's five away from six. Now, the mayor of Matamata Piaka, this is what I need to tell you about the taxpayers union. The mayor of Matamata Piaka was picking a fight with the government over rates caps. And he has taken out a two page ad in the local rag in which he shows rate payers what their money is spent on because Ash Tanner, the mayor, reckons local councils are copping flack from central government about overspending. and pushing rates too high and he says I don't even think the government have a clue on what local councils deliver on the ground. So the big ad shows there's 224 kilometres of footpath, 109 elderly units that are paid for, 1200 acres of grass that is mown, curbside rubbish and recycling collection for 10,000 households, about 1,000 kilometres of sealed and unsealed roads to maintain 20 public. public facilities and so on which sounds fantastic if you look at that you look at that look at that wonderful i mean we need to we need all of these things so i'm happy to keep paying my rates but hang on because unfortunately for ash the taxpayers union yesterday released their league table didn't they so you can go and look at exactly what it is that councils are spending their money on and if you were listening to jordan when he was on with mike hosking yesterday morning he said one of the biggest problems right now is the spend on staff so i went and had a look What are they spending at this counts? Yeah, I'm just wondering if they've got a big problem with staff and what a surprise, right up there on the staff numbers. They spend nearly $1,800 on staff per household. Now, the average rate spill, if I remember correctly from when I looked at it this afternoon, was about $3,300 or thereabouts. $1,800 is more than half the average rates bill, and that's just on people, right? People don't give you a road to run on, do they? They don't lie there and you drive over the top of them. people don't come and I don't know open your tap for you like you could just you sure you need a core number of people who will do the road maintenance maybe plan it for you maybe run the sewage system I don't know collect the rubbish but beyond that you know what's going on there's a whole bunch of people sitting in an office just shuffling paper anyway This particular council, Matamata Piako, is the 14th highest spenders in that category for their size, and this is out of all 78 territorial authorities. They have 75 staff paid more than $100,000 there. Now, I am happy to be proved wrong. But when I looked at that ad, the two-page spread in the newspaper, I didn't see any mention of how much money they're spending on people. I don't think they included that. So next time you hear, this is what, I'm happy to do this for you every time. Next time I hear them complain and say we need all of this money and we can't have the rates caps, I will go to the respective council and I will find out for you what they're spending on people. So you can see what your money is being wasted on. Now, talked about this earlier in the show. Reserve Bank of Australia is of course lifting. Lifted the official cash rate over the ditch, completely expected. We'll have a chat to Paul Bloch, some HSBC chief economist, on what this means and how long it's going to take before they get to a recession and also how much trouble the government's making for them. Here they are trying to curb the inflation. Meanwhile, the budget's just going to blow money at people again. News Talk ZB.