Staff union makes pitch for higher rates

HOMEOWNERS in Bass Coast and South Gippsland aren’t paying enough in rates, according to the Australian Services Union.

They say the State Government’s rate cap is holding down rate revenue and also the ability of our local shires to employ more people, their members, to keep pace with growth.

“The Victorian Government’s rate capping policy has cost thousands of jobs,” the ASU said in a media release on Wednesday this week.

“And reduced the scope and quality of local government services,” according to a report from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work.

But surprise, surprise, the report was commissioned by the Australian Services Union. They say it found “setting rates with a blunt instrument such as a cap damages local workforces, with detrimental effects on essential community services”.

Local government watcher, former president of the Bass Coast Ratepayers and Residents Association, Kevin Griffin, isn’t convinced.

“Who pays the piper, calls the tune,” Mr Griffin said.

“If you take the cap off rates we’ll go back to the bad old days where shire bureaucracies gouged ratepayers year after year.

“Infrastructure and services are important but you can’t treat ratepayers like a bottomless pit.”

According to localised data released by Australian Services Union, the rate cap has cost up to:

• 62 jobs in the East Gippsland Shire area,
• 50 jobs in the Wellington Shire area,
• 84 jobs in the Latrobe City Council area,
• 61 jobs in the Baw Baw Shire area,
• 34 jobs in the South Gippsland Shire area, and
• 42 jobs in the Bass Coast Shire area.

The report finds that despite Victoria recording population growth of over 20% in the past decade, there were about 3000 fewer local government workers in 2019-20 than 8 years prior, and rate capping has cost up to 7425 jobs in the public and private sectors, they say, reducing GDP by up to $890 million in 2021-22.

User fees and fines up

Local government revenue from other sources, including user fees and fines, is now growing at more than twice as fast as before the cap was introduced.

Victorian ASU Secretary Lisa Darmanin said Victorians are seeing fewer services provided by local government, with more ‘user pays’ to cover the funding shortfalls and the casualisation of council workforces, creating employment insecurity.

“Local government is an important and outsized employer of choice in regional Victoria, that could be providing even more high-quality middle-income jobs in regional Victoria.”

“Local communities know what they need, they don’t need interference from the state government in Melbourne. Rate capping imposes a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach at the expense of democratic decision-making and local jobs and services,” she said.

Report author and economist Dan Nahum said there is no evidence that rate caps make local councils ‘more efficient’. Instead, they simply take money out of much-needed council services and rob local communities of employment opportunities.

“Far from protecting ratepayers and residents, rate caps hurt them. Rate caps compromise service delivery, negatively impact employment and wages amongst residents employed in the local government sector, result in higher fees collected through other revenue tools, and reduce local government expenditures flowing back into the private sector.” Mr Nahum said.