An overwhelming majority of New Zealanders support the government putting a cap on the amount councils can increase rates each year, according to the RNZ-Reid Research poll.
In August it was announced a model to cap council rates would be put before Cabinet before Christmas.
As part of the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll voters were asked “do you support or oppose the government putting a cap on the amount councils can increase rates each year?”
The research found 75 percent of people supported a rates cap, 14 percent opposed it, and 11 percent did not know.
Hard to think of a more popular policy. The Government should pass a rates cap law as soon as possible, so Labour and Greens have to go into the next election promising to repeal it and allow more 20% rates increases.
The Radio NZ poll found even greater support for rates capping than an earlier poll Curia did for the TU. Both polls founds this policy has support from all voters, regardless of party. The net support from Radio NZ poll is:
- ACT +87%
- NZ First +79%
- National +73%
- Labour +52%
- Greens +32%
- TPM +27%
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
3 comments:
Cap rates or cap infrastructure?
Hahahaha a poll to the general public asking if they wanna pay more money, without context. Of course they say no. Ask them about infrastructure debt and superannuation bankruptcy while you’re there and see what the results say. Yeesh.
Given that rates are only a way of funding expenditure, surely the logical way to go is not to cap rates but cap spending, with a caveat that only core services may be funded by rates. That would force local bodies to fund non‐core services in other ways, notably user-pays. It would also force Central Government to go back to defining what they consider to be core services so everybody is on the same page.
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