Regional unity urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33068, 8 November 1972, Page 26

Regional unity urged

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 7. New Zealand’s two territorial authority associations — municipal and county—should consider forming a joint organisation to enable them to speak to the Government with one voice, the Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) said yesterday.

"The Australian State and Commonwealth Governments are fortunate in that Australian local bodies can speak with a single voice,” he said. It was in the country’s interests to ensure that units of local government were of the size necessary to cope with the demands which were properly the responsibility of local government. “It is not good for the central Government to become too involved in local affairs, and if it does, then local government in the time sense must suffer, and the whole community becomes the poorer for it.” Mr Marshall said that probably the most important single issue facing local government in New Zealand, and, he understood, in Australia, too, was the finance available to it. Both countries had land rating as a major source of local government tax revenue.

"This method of taxation has come under increasing ■pressure over the last decade, and particularly so in recent years, because of the effects of the inflation which has bedeviiled most developed

countries but which we in this country, I am glad to say, are now bringing under control.

“The rising costs, especially wage and salary costs, facing local authorities have had to be met, and in most cases this has meant rapid and substantial increases in rates,” he said. “These increases have highlighted the problem areas in the rating system in this country.”

The need for additional sources of revenue to enable local authorities to cope with the pressures for new and better services had been a matter of high priority. The local authorities petro-

leum tax, which had an inbuilt growth factor and which fell more widely over the community, was now producing something in excess of sl6m a year and to that extent was reducing the burden the ratepayer had to carry. A standing committee on local authority finance, on which local bodies and government departments were represented, was studying local government finance.

The Government would give the committee’s report the most serious consideration, because it recognised the need for supplementary revenue sources for local govemment, Mr Marshall said.