Grievance Debate

COUNCIL RATES

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:12): I would like to spend a few minutes talking about council rates. It is that time of year when the 68 councils around South Australia set their rates for the forthcoming 12 months. This is a matter watched with interest by ratepayers around the state, including those in this house.

Councils are struggling; they are limited in their capacity to raise money for their operations. In addition to rates, there are the levies (waste management levies and NRM levies) which are thrust upon them. It is a time of great economic uncertainty around the world and across this nation, and this also applies to South Australia. The state and federal governments in Australia are currently working through their budgets and have indicated very strongly that they will cut expenditure. I am not so sure whether this will translate down to the local government sector; I guess we will have to wait to find out.

Councils have far too many additional burdens for which they are unfunded. They have inescapable costs and they have loans that have been taken on in the good years, and they are now faced with the burden of repaying those loans and also continuing with these inescapable costs. The local government sector employs a great many people, and I would be the last one to want to see a reduction in employment in that sector; however, I indicate that I would not be happy if rates rose above the CPI in any of these councils. The CPI is at a low level, and I am concerned that councils may be forced, by factors outside their operations, to raise their rates higher than the CPI in an effort to survive.

As a matter of fact, I have written to the four councils in my electorate and I have received responses from them over the last few weeks. I have written to outline my concern that certain ratepayers across those four councils are going to have a great deal of difficulty finding the money to pay for their rates. I urge caution to the councils in both setting rates and working out people's ability to pay them in this very tough period. This issue concerns me greatly.

I will point out just a couple of areas in my own electorate where people's incomes have been seriously disrupted, yet the rates are still the same and they will probably go up. I am very concerned about how people will pay these rates. These rates are on top of land tax bills that South Australians are hit with, payroll tax, and the list goes on. I have talked with two—and there are more—self-funded retirees who are struggling. Their income has been absolutely shot to pieces. In many cases, self-funded retirees are now having to go to Centrelink to try to get money to survive.

I will also raise the issue of dairy farmers, for example, who have had savage price cuts to their products. There is no way known that they can get out of that. They have suffered savage price cuts and their income is not there, so they find it very difficult to find any additional money. I urge councils in my electorate, and councils everywhere, to make the hard decision this year to hold rates where they are, or at no more than the CPI.

The Prime Minister admitted last week that, if we are not in recession, we are very close to it. Rates need to be seriously adjusted, as does the dollar in the sectors that require to cater for people. Self-funded retirees, in the main, are in the residential sector, which is the largest sector, or in the general farming sector—or whatever the zones are called. We have to be realistic and we have to have a practical response in the year 2009 in setting budgets for the forthcoming 12 months.

I do not think that local government can afford any room for error, and I do not think that local government can afford to put rates up in this financial climate. I think it is totally beyond the ability of many people to afford another additional cost. State and federal governments are indicating that they will cut expenditure, and I believe that local government needs to do the same. They absolutely have to. People will accept a reduction in services if it is explained to them, and I hope that this takes place.