If you thought the cost of living crisis couldn’t possibly get any worse, wait until you get your next rates bill.
Millions of ratepayers are in for a rude shock as local councils increase rates by as much as 98 per cent!
That’s right. If you live in Strathfield in Western Sydney, your rates have gone up 98 per cent in four years.
In Queanbeyan rates have gone up 64.3 per cent in three years.
And in Lithgow, rates have skyrocketed by 45.7 per cent in just the past 12 months.
Councils are crying poor due to labor shortages and construction costs. And we might feel some sympathy for our hard up representatives in local government had they stuck to representing us in local government.
But for too long, our councils have spent our money on things that don’t represent us or fulfil the essential mandate of local government.
They’ve splashed money on Pride parades, harebrained net zero schemes, sending staff to exotic overseas sister cities, and funding all manner of left wing community groups.
They have elaborate reconciliation plans and many of them are donating thousands of dollars to the “Yes” campaign.
Meanwhile, motorists have to dodge pot holes, and residents have to pray their garbage is collected.
Feel free to let me know if your council service has improved. I’d love to hear about it.
But it seems to me that most local government services deteriorate every year, in direct proportion to their support of woke nonsense.
Councils excel at feel-good virtue signalling, but are incompetent at pretty much everything that matters.
And now we are paying through the nose for it.
Local government is now close to useless. Administrations are over staffed and over paid, and prefer to meddle in all sorts of things they should have no business in when all we asked for was someone to watch out for the roads and the rubbish.
You are spot on, James. We don't pay councils to make feel good statements as this just puts the cost of them doing business up for the ratepayers. In South Australia, Mitcham council has kindly donated a massive amount of money to promote the yes campaign. Too bad that most people don't want them to spend money on these issues but as you say, we would rather they focus on what they are supposed to do keeping rubbish cleared and roads and parks maintained etc
A flock of sheep, a pride of lions, a troop of monkeys and a loaf of council workers.