WATCH: The latest updates and reactions from the community on Tamworth Regional Council's proposed 36.3 per cent rate increase. Video by Gareth Gardner and Jonathan Hawes
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Look, we as an organisation some time ago made the decision that we actually had to look at ways of servicing our community into the future in the same way we are now and better.
00:12 And the only way we could do that was to look for a special rate variation to enable us to deliver the services into the years to come at the level the community is expecting.
00:21 Unless the Federal Government can find a better way of helping us get some more funds through the National Taxation Revenue which they give us 0.55% now, they really should be giving us 1%, it's a growth tax.
00:34 If they gave us that we wouldn't have to do what we're doing now.
00:37 First is we obviously have a hardship policy.
00:39 Hardship policy is based on an assessment of individuals financial circumstances and their ability to pay their rates over a period of time.
00:47 They can put in place payment plans, we can defer rates, Council doesn't have the ability to write off rates.
00:53 But rates can also be accumulated against the property for when things may become easier.
00:58 So Council would never take the action to throw somebody out of their property because they weren't paying their rates.
01:04 But we do expect that people will approach Council and tell us what their circumstances are so we can put those appropriate arrangements in place.
01:11 Most of us are struggling to cope with what we're living with. We're retirees and pensioners and this is just really hitting us.
01:22 We put in a petition of thousands of people, we made it very clear that this was unsuitable to the people and the rate payers of Tamworth.
01:29 It's hard enough that wages went up, then we have cost of goods go up, interest rates go up and then Council feels the need to increase rates by an exponential amount.
01:45 The Council's certainly not taking any notice of the community.
01:48 They'll do their own thing and run these what they call aspirational projects.
01:55 They're going to run us into massive debt and yes, if they made it moderate over a long period of time, it might be acceptable.
02:02 But dumping 36% in two years on people is really going to create a massive problem for a lot of conservatives and particularly pensioners.
02:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]