THE Victorian Ombudsman’s report into council rates and hardship practices further highlights the “scandalous disparity” between country and metropolitan rates, according to Member for Mildura Ali Cupper.
Ms Cupper said while the Mildura Council fared “pretty well” in terms of its willingness to work with people in financial hardship, the report acknowledged rural and regional councils were under enormous pressure to maintain their financial sustainability.
“The smaller the council the more pressure there is and it’s harder to be generous,” Ms Cupper said.
“We have upward cost pressures that other councils in the metro areas don’t have,” she said.
“When you have got to pay the bills and you have got to sustain those services it is harder and harder to expend those leniencies.
“Those councils where there are inbuilt limitations in terms of their capacity to pay, by offering generous concessions to those who can’t pay, they are having to shift that burden on to everybody else, so it’s kind of a no-win situation.”
“I’m not suggesting any council shouldn’t be generous to anyone in financial hardship but we’ve just got to look at the big picture as well.
“In order to help the system in every respect, including in terms of generous financial hardship provisions, we need to address those structural deficits at state and federal levels that are causing so much undue pressure on our rural and regional councils.
“It’s just not fair.”
Ms Cupper said she would continue to advocate on behalf of the community for her RateGate campaign for rate equity between rural and regional council and metropolitan areas.
“I think that I can continue to strengthen the campaign with the support of other cross-benchers and certainly be able to continue with the strong relationship that I have with the government, particularly with the Local Government Minister,” she said.
“We want to be able to organise a delegation to parliament to talk to the minister and explain our situation and why this scandalous disparity between rural and regional rates and metro rates needs to be resolved.”
