Tamworth mayor Russell Webb explains council's controvercial decision on rate rise

The Northern Daily Leader

WATCH: Tamworth mayor Russell Webb defends the local council's controversial decision to apply for a 36.3 per cent rate increase across the next two years. Video by Jonathan Hawes

Transcript

00:00 We want to be responsible. I know it's the wrong time. People will tell you it's the

00:07 wrong time for an increase. When's the right time? There's no right time. Nobody ever wants

00:13 to pay more rates. But we have to do something. So the council was last night responsibly

00:20 supported an application to IPARC to consider a special rate variation which will allow

00:26 our local government area to continue to move forward, maintain the assets that we've got,

00:32 things like the town hall, things like the trek that need money spent on them. If we

00:35 don't have that money, we can't maintain the air conditioning systems, we can't keep those

00:40 buildings in good condition. So the special rate variation has been put to IPARC. They

00:46 will look at that and they will come back to us in the first half of next year with

00:50 their findings. They will tell us if they think that our application is reasonable.

00:56 If they don't, they will give us some figures around what they think is reasonable. We as

01:01 a council then will have to make a decision during our budget period after that and then

01:07 if we do put forward a rate, a special rate variation or whatever it might look like,

01:13 that will become effective on July 1st, 2024. If the public submissions aren't reflective

01:19 of the views of the broader Tamworth population as you claimed earlier, what's the point of

01:23 doing community consultation? Is it just tick a box like some of your critics have claimed?

01:29 No mate, we've been out to the community, we've consulted with the community, we've

01:33 put forward our position. Many members of the community have put forward their positions

01:39 and we've listened to them and obviously the rate subsidy for those people on a pension

01:44 or income support scheme, we've listened to what they've had to say and we've found a

01:48 way forward to that. The trouble is we look and what we're seeing and what you guys are

01:53 reporting on is a small percentage of the population that are saying no we don't want

02:00 it. They're also saying yeah we understand you need it but we don't want to pay it. So

02:05 we're in between a rock and a hard place. There is not a council and not a councillor

02:09 that sat around that table last night that wants to put the rates up. But they know that

02:15 the responsible thing is if we're going to run this local government area and keep it

02:20 in some sort of decent shape and maintain buildings like the town hall, maintain buildings

02:25 like our track, asset management stuff, if we're going to do that we need more money

02:30 otherwise it's going to fall down around us.

02:33 Thank you.

02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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