By DaveForCouncil, on October 8th, 2025 
Ratepayers and local district councils suffer from an inefficient rates and infrastructure financing system. A paradigm shift in our thinking is required to prevent fixed income homeowners being forced out of their homes and stretching household budgets beyond limits for most of the rest. Several candidates vying for Whakatāne District Council suggest we should not be campaigning for recovery of GST on property rates since politicians have tried before and failed. Others suggest capping rates without alternative funding options, a user-pay approach that has bankrupted councils in the UK and Australia. I would like to share an example of a successful property rate valuation and financing system in California. . . . → Read More: Opinion: Ratepayers need a more efficient property rate and valuation system
By DaveForCouncil, on August 30th, 2025 
Rates are going through the roof and people are struggling. Even so, I’m going to say something that most mayoral candidates won’t admit. Rates are going to keep going up and anyone who promises that they can stop that happening is lying to you. The Government would sack the council and install commissioners if we did what it would take to stop rates increasing. . . . → Read More: Opinion: What the heck is happening with rates?
By Dexter, on August 30th, 2025
Since the election of the National-led coalition government, 33,000 more people were unemployed, we’re in the deepest recession in 30 years (aside from Covid), record numbers of people are needing government support to get by, free prescriptions have been cut, half-priced public transport has been cut, food bank funding has been cut and all this despite borrowing $15 billion dollars to fund tax cuts that we were told would fix the cost of living crisis. While the Government shovelled billions to big tobacco and mining companies, 2700 businesses went bankrupt in the last year, and to top it off I read that Nicola Willis burned $671 million from the Bank of Taxpayers on no new ferries. . . . → Read More: Letter: Who’s to blame for dormant town centre?
By Dexter, on August 26th, 2025
I have to assume when he says “rights”, he’s talking about the parties on the right, because the voter suppression efforts he is in support of have had a tendency to favour the “right”. . . . → Read More: Letter: favoring The ‘Right’
By DaveForCouncil, on June 30th, 2025 
Source Tangi Utikere, MP for Palmerston North. 25 June at 13:01 via Facebook
Today the Government tried to stop me talking about a local example 🚌 of the Government attempting to get councils to pick up the tab for services that have previously been Government funded 👇 but I will not be silenced when raising . . . → Read More: Government Telling Councils How To Spend Ratepayer’s Money Must Stop!
By DaveForCouncil, on May 30th, 2025
Our discussions shouldn’t be about debt, but about what our debt is paying for and who is benefitting from it. . . . → Read More: Opinion: The Language of Fear
By Dexter, on April 11th, 2025
Apr 11, 2025 Everyone in the world knows Benji Marshall is from here. We own him. Dame Lisa Carrington is our queen. Adored and respected by a whole new generation of would-be gold medal winners on our awa every morning. We have orchestras, brass bands, choirs, poets, dancers, kapa haka and other performing artists of every description who are among the best in the land. Art and recreation have a place in our civics and it’s the job of the council to support this. Critics will argue that we don’t need it, and it doesn’t give anything back. But it’s a fallacy to say that. . . . → Read More: Arts and civics, Whakatāne -style
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