Island leaders determined to drag Chathams into the twentieth century

Press, 8 March 1978, Page 17

Island leaders determined to drag Chathams into the twentieth century

This is the first of two articles by MARC BENSEMANN, who was recently in the Chatham Islands. In them he will look at various aspects of plans to promote development in the isolated islands.

Remote and unassertive, the Chatham Islands are the easternmost outpost of New Zealand. The pace of life is slow and distant from the relative turmoil of the mainland, 500 miles away.

Islanders have lived in isolation since the first European sealers arrived there in the early 1800 s. It is this isolation, and the seeming unimportance of the Chathams, that has led to an insularity and unwillingness to make changes that has prevented the islands from moving al..ad — although it has also given them their charm. Now, changes are afoot. The Chatham Islands County Council is determined to see the islands progress, and has launched an aggressive campaign to achieve its object. One of the first steps it has taken is towards providing itself with a sound financial base — something which it has lacked for many years but which is imperative to its present plans. The county is the only territorial local body in New Zealand which does not gain its revenue from land and property rating. Instead it is empowered by legislation to exact dues on freight being shipped to and from the islands.

In recent years these dues have been increasingly inadequate to supply the council with the funds it needs on an island where freight can double the cost of almost everything.

One method of obtaining the necessary increase in revenue would be to teek a rise in wharf dues. It is felt, however, that this would further discourage land development. Instead, the council plans to reintroduce pro-

perty rates, while retaining the system of wharf dues. It has made submissions to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which maintains a Chatham Islands Commissioner in Wellington to look specifically after island matters.

In these submissions the council seeks the power to levy property rates of up to 50 per cent of the naximum permitted by the Counties Act. Wharf dues would be retained, and held at their present level, while the property rates would meet the deficit in county funds which has arisen at the end of each financial year. It would not be practical merely to eliminate the dues system and reintroduce land rating, as this would provide only about $75,000 compared with the $lOO,OOO expected from wharf dues in the coming year.

About $30,000 has been provided by the Local Authorities Assistance Fund at the end of both 1975-76 and 1976-77 to compensate for the deficit in county funds. Property rating as proposed at 50 per cent of the Counties Act maximum would provide about $35,000 — and hopefully eliminate the need for the Fund assistance.

The council backed up these submissions with the visit of a delegation to the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Highet) in Wellington last month. It urged the introduction of its proposals by April.

The Minister has requested more information on the council’s proposals, and has asked the Depart® ment of Internal Affairs to report back to him.

According to the department’s assistant secretary for Local Government (Mr

H. Williamson), the council’s submissions were preliminary, and did not include details of what type of rating it desires.

If it were based on land value, then 95 per cent of the revenue would come from rural land, 2 per cent from residential, and 3 per cent from commercial and industrial land. But if based on capital value, then 78 per cent would come from the rural sector, 5 per cent from residential, and 17 per cent from commercial and industrial.

On the other hand, if a system of differential rating was introduced, then the council would have to decide how many and what type of categories it wished to rate under. Set-

ting these, according to Mr Williamson, would be "quite a big job.” The ball is now in the council’s court, he believes. The Valuer-General has supplied it with full details of land values in the county to assist it in formulating more detailed submissions. Mr Williamson and the Chatham Islands Commissioner (Mr E. J. Lynskey) will visit the islands this month to pursue the ques® tion. “The Minister has made it quite clear that they must make a thorough case for having property rating reintroduced,”

he says. “The Government required the same thing when they (the islands) wished to have the freight dues increased.”

Under tire Counties Act, a local body is permitted only limited methods of raising revenue, hence the need for a special act for the Chatham Islands County system. This does provide, however, that the wharf dues system can be repealed at any time by Order in Council and the land rating system reintroduced.

Unfortunately, it does not allow for both. The council is not certain of the mechanics of introducing its proposals, although it is possible a new act may have to be drawn up.

If the Government rejects the council’s suggestions, it may be forced to seek a raise in wharf dues of up to 40 per cent — however reluctant it might be to take a step which is potentially counterproductive. The steps which the council is taking are not only to provide itself with sufficient funds to achieve its goals, however. It hopes also that property rating will encourage the development of agricultural land. This will be discussed tomorrow, in the second article of this series.

The situation arose in 1936 when the Chatham Islands County Empowering Act removed from the county council all rights to rate land and property. Land in the Chathams has always been of fairly low value, and the large number of absentee land owners and amount of Maori land had made rates difficult to extract. The county was virtually bankrupt.

Under the act the present method of imposing dues on freight “over the wharf” was introduced — the sea providing a natural boundary for what is in essence a system of customs tax, which would be easy to violate in an ordinary New Zealand county.

A sore point with the council is that it does not have the power to set its own wharf dues, although local bodies elsewhere are permitted to determine their own property rates Because the dues are levied on weight rather than value, crayfish — easily the most lucrative and largest category of freight leaving the island — returns a smaller percentage in terms of its value than agricultural produce. Although special rates are set for various categories, that on crayfish is only a quarter of what the coun-

cil wished t® have imposed. Neither do the dues allow for inflation. In 1977, the Government increased them for the first time since 1960, by a flat 60 per cent across the board — with the exception of the crayfish levy, which was not adjusted. Originally the dues were the same on all freight, but this has been refined to encourage some types of cargo. Farmers are assisted by very low dues dn fertiliser and fencing material, for example.

There had been no real difficulty with the wharf dues system until the mid--1960s when the crayfish “boom” came hot on the heels of a prolonged period of low wool prices. Many fanners let their farms run down to join the modern-day goldrush; the absence at property rates meant they did not have to keep their land in production to support itself.

Wool and meat production dropped, as aid the relatively high return on them for the county. Meanwhile, the extremely valuable crayfish was returning comparatively little. In 1976, crayfish worth $2.68M was shipped to the mainland for export, compared with wool and meat worth only SIM. By the 1970 s the situ® ation was becoming serious for the county. A major expansion in the roading programme, and the need for new wharf facilities — which entailed a $400,000 loan — increased its difficulties. For two years before the Government agreed last year to increase the dues by 60 per cent, the council was again almost bankrupt.

Some of the county’s expenses were lifted when the Holmdale ceased to call at three other settlements on Chatham Island, and sailed only to Waitangi. The Holmdale is the only vessel to call regularly at the Chathams, making the heavily-subsi-dised trips under Government charter about once a month. Because the council acts also as harbour board, it is responsible for building and maintaining wharfs and navigation aids.

The Holmdale’s calls at Kaingaroa, Waitangi West, and Owenga had been imperative before the road network was improved to allow freight to be carried overland from Waitangi. This upgrading was in itself expensive, however, and counterbalanced the absence of the original wharf expenses.

Now the situation is again deteriorating and the county needs added revenue. Many facilities considered routine even in a rural community of similar size on the mainland, are lacking in the Chathams. There have been no capital works in the islands for seven years. Waitangi, the largest settlement there, is without sewerage, water reticulation, or electricity. Sewerage will be pro-

vided soon by the Government when it builds a new housing development for its employees — some of whom are at present lodged in the island’s only hotel. Water, however, is still supplied from roof tanks, and electricity is provided by individual generators. None of the 130 miles of road on Chatham Island are sealed, apart from a potholed test strip of about 30 metres that bears mute evidence to an abortive attempt at progress several years ago. Finance for reading maintenance presents little problem to the council at the moment, with a generous National Roads Board contribution after an inspection committee visited the islands last year. Bridging has also been markedly upgraded; the New Zealand Army’s Third Field Engineering Squadron spent a fortnight there this year, repairing or rebuilding five bridges in lieu of its annual field camp.

But many things are still absent from the lonely island community. And if the county achieves a solid financial foundation it can work towards developing such long-re-quired civic amenities as council housing, a library, and kindergarten.