By Porirua City councillor, Geoff Hayward
To the Prime Minister, the Right Hon Christopher Luxon MP.
I’m writing this plainly, because plain language matters when people are counting coins at the checkout. Your government is pushing a council rates cap and selling it as help with the cost of living. It won’t. On your own officials’ numbers, it’s worth about two dollars seventy nine a month to the average household. A can of baked beans. That’s the reality behind the headline.
You and your colleagues asked the wrong questions and made the wrong assumptions. Your officials tried to tell you that. They ran the numbers, raised concerns, and warned this was rushed and incomplete. You didn’t listen. You’d already decided what you wanted to do.
This policy was hurried through without proper consultation, without a clear design, and without honesty about the trade offs.
Some people will win. Property owners will get some relief. Landlords will be more than fine. The people who lose are the ones with the least to spare.
When councils are forced to cap rates, the costs don’t disappear. They get shifted.
People will pay more for rubbish bags if they can’t afford a wheelie bin.
If people have kids, pool fees go up, and some kids won’t learn to swim in a country surrounded by water.
If someone in a whānau dies, burial costs go up.
Your own officials’ reports show that you know this. They also show you expect these fees to rise as a result of your policy.
I don’t expect most people reading this to have to understand economic theory. But I do expect you as Prime Minister and your government to understand it. Councils face unavoidable costs. Roads, pipes, pools, libraries, and emergency services all cost more every year. Capping rates doesn’t change that reality. It just moves the bill to places people don’t expect until it hits them.
When you add this to tax breaks for landlords and a soft approach to tobacco companies, a pattern emerges. These choices don’t stack up for ordinary people. We can’t afford another three years of policy that asks those with the least to carry more of the load.
You’ve said it yourself: You’re rich, so you’re sorted. Most people aren’t. They can’t eat ideology, and they can’t budget around slogans.
You’re also choosing to listen to the wrong voices. The ones saying they don’t use the pool or the library, so they shouldn’t have to pay. That’s a view that wants the benefits of a functioning city without contributing a fair share, unless it suits them personally.
That’s not how Porirua works. Communities only work when we care about more than our own front gate. If your government can’t grasp that, it has no business lecturing anyone about fiscal responsibility.
The choice to fix this properly is still there. So is the choice to listen to the evidence and those who have the least. I hope you take it.