OPINION – ALI CUPPER
This disparity sees ratepayers in our electorate paying up to six times the rates of a ratepayer in Melbourne with a property of the same value.
Often councils are blamed for the disparity, but this is unreasonable, because the source of the problem is not managerial, but structural.
And those structures are determined by the State and Federal governments.
My letter invites regional MPs to unite across party lines and lobby for change for the benefit of rural and regional ratepayers for whom rates are a major cost-of-living issue.
This week in State Parliament I was approached by a number of MPs who had received my letter and were considering their position.
I believe their position should be a no-brainer. Any regional MP who claims to be concerned about the cost-of-living pressures facing their constituents cannot in good conscience continue to look the other way.
Addressing this disparity is a complex task, but it is entirely achievable with the right political will.
It’s about time this issue was taken out of the too-hard basket. We hear a lot of lip service about regional rate reform, especially around election time. Measures such as rate-capping might play well to the crowd, but they don’t fix the problem. They merely exacerbate the strain on program and services budgets.
This strain is unsustainable and eventually something has to give. For regional councils, the risk is service cuts. For rural councils, the risk is insolvency.
From next week, I hope my regional state and federal parliamentary colleagues will contact my office to confirm their commitment to lobby the Federal Coalition Government and Labor Opposition ahead of the federal election.
Regional rates reform matters to farmers and it matters to ratepayers – therefore it should matter to all of us.
