Midweek - Vance wins, Winston heckled, Stuff vs Stuff
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RNZ News
36 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Council $3.1m rates blunder: New Plymouth households overcharged by $102
The New Plymouth District Council building. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin An urgent review of New Plymouth District Council's (NPDC) annual plan has revealed that it has hiked residential rates by 12.8 percent, rather than the 9.9 percent indicated. The blunder equates to $102 per ratepayer or $3.1 million. The error was discovered as part of a review ordered when the NPDC approved its annual plan in May, exclusive of GST, meaning it could've forgone $20m in revenue. New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom took personal responsibility for the mistakes and recommended that councillors approve a one-off rebate for ratepayers at an extraordinary meeting next week. That would require the NPDC to find $3.1 million in savings elsewhere. It was not the only mistake in the latest review. The review and subsequent report produced by Simpson Grierson also identified a resolution wording error relating to industrial water use. The rates resolution wording would need to be amended to ensure properties on a restricted water flow were able to be charged $418 for each cubic metre of water as intended. This gaffe could've cost the council $1.4m in lost revenue. Holdom said he was extremely disappointed by the errors and the impact they could have had on the community. "As mayor, I take responsibility for the integrity of the information we use to make decisions. Councillors acted in good faith based on the data presented to us. "We now know that information was flawed, and the safeguards we had to verify the validity of that information and the assumptions behind it have failed. "I want to offer my sincere apology to our community. You deserve better. The buck stops with me, and I am committed to ensuring we learn from this, fix the underlying issues, to rebuild public confidence and find a way to put this right." Holdom said the reporting errors did not affect the validity of the rates, but the council was taking action to mitigate their impact. At an extraordinary meeting on 22 July, the NPDC council would decide between the following options: Holdom said improvements to NPDC's internal processes and checks would be implemented immediately following the findings of the independent review. Chief executive Gareth Green proposed structural changes to strengthen financial capability and oversight within the organisation. "On behalf of the NPDC organisation, I wish to offer my sincere apologies to the mayor and councillors, and our entire community, for the failure of our systems and processes that led to these errors." "As the leader of the staff organisation of NPDC, it is my responsibility to ensure that we have adequate safeguards to ensure that every piece of advice we provide our elected members is accurate and robust. "That clearly has not been the case in this instance, and this failing shows that change is required." Green said he was committed to implementing changes swiftly and building back the trust and confidence of the community. Holdom said councillors would also be asked to update council policy to implement an independent review of all future financial plans. "This situation highlights the risks of insufficient specialist financial experience, particularly in local government." Holdom said that while Audit NZ signed off on the long-term planning process that included the incorrect rating assumption, "the community rightly expects that process to provide assurance [that] the underlying models and data are robust". "That assurance did not eventuate in this case. We owe it to our community to be honest, to take ownership, and to do better. That's exactly what we are doing." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Rate capping: 'You've got to be able to control the costs first' - ACT leader David Seymour
ACT leader David Seymour. File photo Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Both ACT and New Zealand First are casting doubt on whether capping council rates is the answer, even as the local government minister says he wants the policy in place as "fast as possible." The government is considering options to control rate rises - including placing a cap on how much local councils can increase rates. When asked for his position on rate capping, ACT leader David Seymour said "you've got to be able to control the costs first". Seymour said the issue was being looked at, but he was "really strong" on making sure "you're saving money before you cap the revenue". "The only thing I'd say, if you're asking me, is don't cap your income until you've got your spending under control." When asked for his position, Winston Peters responded by saying "every other party is interfering in local government" and that New Zealand First had never interfered in local government. "It's a case of doctor, heal thyself" he said, "we can't be preaching to them when we haven't got our own spending under control ourselves." It comes as local government minister Simon Watts, speaking at a Taxpayers' Union LGNZ protest, told those gathered he wanted rates capping "in place as fast as possible". In a video posted by the Taxpayers' Union on social media, Watts said the government needed to intervene and make sure caps were in a sensible place, in order to bring costs down for ratepayers. "This is your money, this is ratepayers' money," he said. "In terms of timeline, we're working at pace. I know everybody wants it to be done yesterday. "My direction to my officials is crack on, I want this in place as fast as possible. We're aiming to have that all decided ... definitely before Christmas, if we can go faster we will." Watts said he was making sure to get the details right, so that when the policy comes into force, "as fast as possible it actually achieves that outcome." He said he was working through how the caps would be set, as well as working with "our coalition partners" around where it's set, "and we'll make a decision". "So you guys can have assurance the government knows this needs to happen, we know we need to get it in place as fast as practical, and it needs to do what it needs to do which is cap those rates and get rid of that nonsense."
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Pay talk protection: National backs Labour's transparency bill
Labour MP Camilla Belich. Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith Members' bills from opposition MPs are more often than not doomed to fail, but there have been exceptions to the rule this term. Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill received unanimous support at its second reading, with all six parties in Parliament voting in favour. Deborah Russell's Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill is being supported by National and ACT, but not by New Zealand First. Others, like Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill , have passed thanks to the support of one of the smaller coalition parties (in this case, New Zealand First). But only one opposition bill has had the support of National, and only National this term, and it is another from Belich. On Wednesday night, her Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill passed its second reading , thanks to National voting alongside the three opposition parties. The bill would ensure that pay secrecy clauses , which prevent employees from discussing their salaries with colleagues, would no longer be enforceable, meaning employers could not take legal action if an employee talked about pay. There will be cases where pay differences were justifiable (such as different skill sets or qualifications), but the bill's intention is to shed light on situations where they were unjustifiable. Australia, the UK, the EU, and some US states have either banned pay secrecy clauses or made them unenforceable. Belich said people already talk about their pay with colleagues, but stopping businesses from taking action against them for it would keep New Zealand up with the times. "It takes away the right for them to take action and discipline their employees when they talk about their pay. We know this happens already at the moment. So there's definitely a common sense, pragmatic element to this bill," she told RNZ. "It's making sure that usual human behaviour and workplace discussions are not something that people are disciplined for." Six National MPs took calls on the bill at its second reading. Every one of them referenced the gender pay gap and were hopeful the bill would be a mechanism to reduce it. Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink, who gave National's first contribution to the bill, told RNZ the party supported the bill because it had a "proud history" of driving down the gender pay gap. "We know that pay transparency is a key factor for driving down the gender pay gap. International studies have shown that when that legislation has been brought in, that it's measurable in the amount of reduction in the pay gap. So we really want to see that continue to fall down." Belich said it was great to see continued support for the bill. "I was heartened by the comments made in the house, where the National Party members said they would support this right through. I hope that's what they do," she said. "I think given the current context, where we've had significant changes to our pay equity regime, where women have had the ability to take pay equity claims severely curtailed, these types of bills, which make small changes to make a more transparent workforce, are increasingly important." Weenink said the "optics" around pay equity had nothing to do with National's support for the bill, as the party had also supported the bill at its first reading, well before the pay equity changes were announced. "It's just our ongoing commitment to doing what we can to make the workplace fair and improve productivity. How I see it is that if you can see you're being paid less than someone else who's working right beside you, doing the same job, then that's going to massively reduce your motivation, isn't it?" She did not see it as National handing Labour a win, but rather an opportunity to put party politics aside and improve things for New Zealanders. The bill passed its first reading in November. Sometimes, a bill is given cautious support at its first reading, in order to send it to Select Committee to see if the kinks are ironed out. The Education and Workforce Committee received 225 submissions on the bill, the majority in support. Belich said a number of changes were made to the bill through the Select Committee process, including making it clear there would be no requirement to make a disclosure. "It's still something that can be a private matter. It's only if you wish to that you shouldn't be disciplined for the desire to actually discuss that. So that was probably the major change through Select Committee." She said there were some definitional tidy-ups, including making it clear what the definitions of remuneration and detriment were, as well as ensuring the bill would not be retrospective. Some privileged or commercially sensitive information, for example, owner benefits for a business owner who also receives an employee salary, would also be excluded. Despite the changes, ACT and New Zealand First continued to oppose the bill. ACT said it would allow people to breach agreements they had signed up to, for which there should be consequences. "Once you've signed something, you are supposed to oblige to the conditions that you have signed for. If you do not agree to something in the agreement that you have signed, then there is an opportunity for you to go back and renegotiate the terms and conditions that you don't agree to," Parmjeet Parmar told the House. "But you don't just breach the agreement and say that there should be no consequences for that." New Zealand First's Mark Patterson said it "runs smack into the brick wall" of the party's belief in the "sanctity" of contract law. "While this bill doesn't prevent pay secrecy and that's still able to be incorporated within a contract, it does limit an employer's ability to enforce it, and that goes against what a contract should be," he said. Belich said she found the arguments against the bill "interesting," as it was specifically designed so businesses would not need to spend money to change their contracts. "If we'd said you cannot have a pay secrecy clause in your contract, or pay secrecy clauses are now illegal to have even in an employment document, there'd be thousands of employment agreements throughout the country that would need to be changed, that would cost money, that would take legal advice. It would be a burden on business." The bill still needs to go through the Committee of the Whole House stage for any further tidy-ups, and then a third reading, though Weenink did not foresee any major changes. "It took a long time to bash some of these things out, and I think we've got it to a really good place." Acknowledging National is a "broad church" and there had been strong discussions about the bill amongst the caucus, she did not expect any changes to the party's position at the third reading. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
