I will have to sell: Mulwala residents call on Federation Council to review rate hike before IPART

The residents say the more than 60 per cent rate increase proposed for the coming four years by Federation Council will be felt most by households on low incomes and pensions.

"Over 40 per cent of the ratepayers in Mulwala are either pensioners, retired people or family residents," Mulwala Progress Association president Robert Purtle said.

"It is going to be detrimental to nearly fifty per cent of our population.

"They're just finding it is unaffordable to live in Mulwala," he said.

After another 2.5 per cent increase this coming financial year, Federation Council is proposing to make increases of 19 per cent, 17 per cent, 14 per cent and 10 per cent each year via special rate variations [SRV], a system that allows councils to increase rate revenue to above that which is set by the state regulator.

SRVs require approval from the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, which the council must submit to before February 3. As IPART will measure an SRV application, in part, on a council's community engagement and the severity of impact on ratepayers, multiple community groups in the local government area are organising to submit challenges.

Mr Purtle said the popularity of Mulwala as both a holiday destination and place to retire had combined to see property and housing prices soar, particularly in the past three years.

For those financially able or fortunate enough to have secured a home amid dwindling stock, cost of living increases were now hitting them from all angles.

Pensioner Ron Hunt, who retired in Mulwala 15 years ago, said the SRV was only one of many cost increases he was juggling on a fixed income. Though Mulwala itself was spared the worst of recent extreme flooding, insurance costs have spiked for the lakeside town and its neighbouring communities.

"My home and contents insurance 12 months ago was $900, now it is just shy of $1700. It is a big increase, and then if you get an increase in your rates like that, it's putting a big hole into you," Mr Hunt said.

Fellow pensioner Peter Holgate, a 30-year Mulwala resident, said he would not be able to source the additional thousands of dollars he would owe to council if the SRV was granted.

"It will mean that I would have to sell," Mr Holgate said.

"I haven't got the money backing me to pay for all these increased costs. If it goes to what they want it to be, I will have to sell."

Mulwala Progress Association member Peter Seeliger said the large number of Mulwala residents who live on fixed incomes would be destabilised by the council's long-term financial plan. Though the four SRV increases add up to a round 60 per cent, he and other ratepayers count increases broader and cumulatively to highlight otherwise obscured costs.

"Ask a pensioner how they are living now, whether they can put money away or whether they just live maybe saving $10 per week," Mr Seeliger said.

"With this 79 per cent increase they're going to be going into savings, if they have any, and be really, really hard done by."

Since Federation Council began its project to inform the community of the 2022-23 budget and long-term financial plan, multiple ratepayer groups have formed to protest or critique it. Among those is Federation Ratepayers Incorporated, a group fronted by farmer David Bott that represents the interests of large landholders in the area.

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At a June council meeting, a rowdy affair with a 200-person SRV protest at the civic centre doors, councillor Gail Law blamed the need for the increase on former Corowa Shire councillors, whom she said had not made good financial decisions because of their vested interest to keep rates down due to the fact they were majority farmers.

That comment was personal for Peter Seeliger, who served on the pre-amalgamated Corowa council across multiple terms. More important than assigning responsibility, he says, the council has not appropriately informed the community of the impact the SRV will have.

Mr Seeliger has spent hours pouring over the details and figures of the budget scenarios. He believes the council is being deliberately unclear and obscuring the true cost from ratepayers until after the SRV is lodged.

"It is always averages that they use, which doesn't show the whole figure. It doesn't show the whole truth," Mr Seeliger said.

"I'm asking that they do another report and get into the nitty gritty about how people are going to suffer instead of just these averages and figures."

Mr Seeliger said the level of community understanding was minimal and more needed to be done before the IPART submission progressed.

"I get disappointed that we haven't got enough consultation," Mr Seeliger said. "We are not very well represented in Mulwala."

"We have written them letters from the progress association," Mr Purtle said. "It never gets read, never gets brought up, never gets dealt with and never gets replied to.

"And I get dirty on that, when people don't reply to you," he said.

Last year the aged pension was given its largest increase in more than a decade to address the rising cost of living. Despite this, the increase was still below the national inflation rate of 6.8 per cent and was not budgeted for sharp and successive council rate hikes.

Some may have difficulty relating to the plight of waterfront property owners or large landholders in the local government area, of which the vocal ratepayer groups have considerable membership, but the impact of the proposed SRV will be felt by every housed resident in the community. Though scaled for land value, meaning rates are lower the more modest the accommodation, tenants, for example, can expect to see these rate increases reflected in rents over coming years.

To strengthen their case, the Mulwala Progress Association began collecting letters to council from fellow residents, with several citing the same list of complaints: the community has not been appropriately informed; Mulwala does not feel fairly represented on council or as recipients of council services; and the cost of the proposed SRV would carry considerable and unmanageable financial burden.

Mr Hunt and Mr Holgate credited their awareness of the planned increases to the work of the Mulwala Progress Association. They said no council correspondence, notice or advisory had reached them.

"Nothing. I would only have known on my next rates bill," Mr Hunt said.

"I wouldn't have had a clue," Mr Holgate said.

Federation Council is holding the line, rejecting criticism about a lack of consultation. When asked if it believed its duty to inform the community had been discharged, the council said it was "confident that residents were well aware" of the special rate variation application.

Responding to concerns of ratepayers' ability to afford the proposed SRV, Federation Council referred The Border Mail to its standard hardship policy for those experiencing financial stress; however, the hardship policy offers only deferral and payment plan options, and would effectively see ratepayers on stagnant wages or fixed incomes borrowing against their future selves.

"Mayor Patrick Bourke had been raising preliminary awareness with the community in media interviews and communications prior to the 2021-2022 Budget," a council spokesperson said.

"This was consistently informed to the community as part of council's ongoing updates about its financial sustainability journey."

Councillors aside, ratepayers have also set sights set on the Federation Council executive. After a steady month of public forums across Urana, Howlong, Mulwala and Corowa in May 2021, corporate and community services director Jo Shannon has agreed to return to Mulwala to meet with the rates review committee and Mulwala Progress Association next week.

Mr Seeliger, speaking on behalf of Mr Hunt, Mr Holgate and the concerned ratepayers he has collected letters from, says he will ask Ms Shannon for an independent review of the SRV. The call is similar to that of Federation Ratepayers Inc. who say the entire financial operations of council require an costly independent external review.

The SRV will be on the agenda at the next council meeting on the last day of January before the proposal is submitted to IPART for review. Ratepayers, such as those in the Mulwala Progress Association and Federation Ratepayers Inc, will be watching closely.

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