Labour’s warning over rates

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 9

Labour’s warning over rates

The Labour Party is organising a public meeting in Christchurch to tell people that if rates in Merivale and Mount Pleasant go down, their rates may increase. The acting regional organiser of the party, Mr David Lawrence, said members were concerned that ratepayers in lower-valued areas were not aware that if the vocal Merivale and Mount Pleasant groups pressured the Christchurch City Council to make changes in the rating system, they would lose. “We want them to know that their rates would jump if there were changes,” Mr lawrence said. The Labour Party had become involved because working-class people would be disadvantaged by a change in the rating system. Rates were a tax on wealth and should remain so, Mr Lawrence said. The Labour Party did not agree with a Merivale resident’s suggestion that a citizens’ tax should be introduced with everyone paying the same. That was against the Labour Party’s socialist philosophy, Mr Lawrence said. In a leaflet advertising the public meeting, the party gives an example from the Christchurch City Council’s rating report of how one suggested change in the system would affect the rates of a house in Rugby Street, Merivale, and another in Southampton Street, Sydenham. The Sydenham house (valuation $39,000) had present rates of $302. Possible new.rates were $453, a 50 per cent increase. A Merivale house (valuation $130,500) would drop its rates bill from $2106 to $BB4, a drop of 58 per cent. A Christchurch City councillor, Cr Rex Lester, said his rates had gone down this year “about $1.25.” Cr Lester lives in Sydenham. The meeting, in the Stringleman Room of the Canterbury Public Library, at 7.30 a will be attended by ur city councillors. It will probably be chaired by Cr Lester.