Cr Nicole Penfold’s letter to the editor which appeared in the Maitland Mercury’s edition of Thursday, August 7, 2014 titled What you get for your council rates, is very educational for anyone that wasn’t aware of all the services that the Maitland City Council provides for the residents.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Unfortunately it doesn’t address the points of objection put forward by many bloggers and letter writers of this newspaper.
No one is suggesting that we shouldn’t pay rates or that they should never go up; it’s the disproportional amount to the Consumer Price Index that they have been increased and the unfair, inadequate manner the Maitland City Council through their survey has used to gauge the ratepayers’ approval that people are not happy about.
Besides being ambiguously worded, didn’t go far enough to cover the many future house buyers who didn’t have a say because they were not included in the survey but will just the same have to pay the outrageous rate increase.
Sure there are people that are happy to pay extra and have better services, improve amenities and infrastructure because they can afford it; what about the ones on the lower end of the scale that are already struggling to make ends meet?
In all fairness, it’s the system by which we are governed that creates such a huge disparity between wage earners.
Because wage increases are calculated on a percentage of the hourly rate that the gap between lower, medium and top wage earners keeps getting bigger and neither the employers or the government are interested in righting the wrong.
It’s wrong because a low-income earner can’t ask for a discount whether be land rates, utilities or any necessity in line with his or her earnings.
We have a lot of work to do before we can come up with a system clear of inequalities, all we can do is keep trying.
- Salvatore Cocco, Rutherford
