THIRTEEN Local Government Areas have been identified as in need of urgent rate relief before other rural and regional councils, including Mildura, chase equity with metropolitan Melbourne, according to Member for Mildura Ali Cupper.
A petition initiated by Ms Cupper under her RateGate campaign calling for rate equity across all Victorian councils is expected to be tabled in State Parliament this week in what Ms Cupper said would be a further step to create change in the state’s rating system.
To effect that change, Ms Cupper has proposed a two-step measure starting with the 13 “most struggling councils” before the introduction of a “funding equalisation system” that would see properties across the state rated at the same value in the dollar.
“These 13 councils that are struggling with their sustainable capacity through no fault of their own,” she said.
“As much as we (Mildura) feel that we are struggling with our financial capacity and the pressure on ratepayers, we are not even vaguely in the same league as ratepayers in, say, Buloke and Yarriambiak shires.
“Those ratepayers are shouldering enormous burdens because of structural factors which are totally beyond their control which puts enormous upward cost pressures on councils and therefore ratepayers.”
Ms Cupper said the 13 councils were based on mathematical modelling that shows they are all below certain sustainable ratios for financial capacity.
“They have ageing populations and have relied heavily on volunteers to be able to do things like clean their recreational centres and mow the lawns at their pools,” she said.
“Those volunteers are starting to dwindle now, so not only have they got these enormous cost pressures … but those cost pressures are increasing because of the profile of their particular council areas.
“It’s in no-one’s interest for them to be struggling like they are because if they fall over then it is going to land in the lap of the State Government and it is simply not fair to burden these very small communities and these residents with such huge rates bills.”
Ms Cupper said the second step would be to change the rating system to provide “a principle of basic economic equity – dollar for dollar”.
“Change the system to the extent that someone with a $5 million farm in Manangatang is paying the same amount of rates in real dollars as a $5 million property in Toorak, because at the moment the poor old farming family in Manangatang is paying four times the rates for their $5 million farm as the $5 million property in Toorak, and that is just not fair,” she said.
“Fundamentally, the State Government has a responsibility to ensure properties of the same value, regardless of where they are, are paying the same rates.
“We have these massive disparities which are quite simply completely unconscionable and costing regional and rural ratepayers so much more and putting so much more pressure on them.
“We can’t make people’s rates go backwards overnight, but we can set up systems which just look and feel fair.”
Ms Cupper said there had been a growing movement in support of rates equity throughout rural and regional areas including the Victorian Farmers Federation.
“The feedback is always the same – ‘yep, great, let’s do something’, because what’s the alternative?
“It’s a simple matter of being a cause worth fighting for.”
