M.Ps Asked To Relieve Rating

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31110, 13 July 1966, Page 12

M.Ps Asked To Relieve Rating

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, July 12. Members of Parliament had been asked for a definite statement on their attitude to the rating problem, the South Island vice-president of the Federation of Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Associations (Mr H. D. N. Rosanowski, of Timaru) said today. A letter, sent by the president (Mr O. H. Wilton) to members of Parliament, says the federation stands primarily for reform in rating, and says rates are a “grievous burden” to most property owners, and for some a desperate problem. “Under the present system of rating, the future grows ever darker for the ratepayer,” the letter adds. “We are aware that two commissions, composed of very able men, were set up in recent years to study this problem, and that both . . . after exhaustive study, made their recommendations to Parliament. We are also aware that no action has been taken beyond a little easing of hardship by the Rating Amendment Act, 1965.” The letter says that because rating reform is vital to much of the community, a plain statement about what effort members of Parliament are prepared to make to relieve or distribute the burden would be welcome. “The federation considers It the bounden duty of the next Parliament to deal, and deal effectively, with this matter,” the letter says. The secretary of the federation (Mr J. C. H. Kitching, of Auckland) has drawn the attention of affiliated associations to a letter from the Favona association, which says that a recent meeting expressed concern at the trend by Government and local authorities to ignore public interest in referenda on vital issues, and to disregard results of those referenda which are held. “We have seen the results of fluoridation polls in Hamilton, Manurewa and Dunedin thrust aside and loan polls results at Timaru and elsewhere similarly treated. Now the Licensing Commission has joined the ranks of official dictators.

“In Birkenhead, a 10-to-l vote in favour of trust hotels counts for nothing; in Mangere, in three areas, the Manukau City Council is being told that its application for a trust hotel poll, petitioned for by residents, will

not ensure the holding of such a poll. “If the wishes of citizens, so clearly expressed in polls, are to be overruled by local government and Government committee level, the association wonders how long it will be before the system is adopted by the central Government and the lip service now paid to democracy becomes finally a memory. “Disregard of the result of

properly-conducted polls has brought about the birth of nearly all the world’s dictatorships, and is a practice which, if allowed to extend here, could eventually lead to similar government by force in New Zealand,” the letter says. “How futile is our work and government to be if even polls, the key to democracy, can be ignored even when legally held and executed,” says Mr Kitching.