Surprisingly, many of us do.
You pay house and car insurance and you actually hope that a payout or payback will not eventuate.
You pay life insurance and you do not get the benefit of it, other than maybe peace of mind in caring for those you leave behind.
You make donations to charities and do not receive tangible goods to take away (well, maybe an Anzac poppy).
And do not get me started on GST, a system whereby every time you buy something for a set amount you then throw in a 15% tip to the government.
So how do you feel about the money you pay in rates?
After years of dabbling in local body politics I have heard it all — ratepayers pleading for a reduction (never going to happen) and getting the standard response, "if you pay less rates then you’ll get less services".
But it does not logically follow that if you pay more then you will get more services, or at least an improvement in those already provided.
We are constantly being told that, for various reasons, costs are rising. Thus it costs more to do the same year on year. It is quite understandable that increasing prices of materials must carry through to the costs of projects undertaken by councils. You cannot underpay the suppliers as they are legitimate businesses that have to survive.
But what of the more nebulous costs that seem to have a price regime all of their own making?
The Audit Office; compliance costs foisted on councils because of government legislation; the use and costs of traffic management control.
And then there’s the astronomical payment rate for the Crown facilitator to sort out Waitaki’s water woes. Surely this person is an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs and it should have this personnel cost in its own budget.
Here, we have set before us various options of "accepting" a 19%, or 27% or maybe even a 45% rates rise which will give us no more services or infrastructure but will only be addressing the financial mess our council has got itself into.
They (we) are in dire straits.
"That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it. Money for nothin’."
