Ranting About Rates

After big rate increases, New Zealand forest owners say they are being unfairly subjected to differential rating policies that should also be applied to other rural land owners. Some are making high level submissions seeking solutions from central government but at least one group is considering a legal challenge to what it claims is a district council’s ‘fatally flawed analysis’. In Australia there are similar problems with many forest owners resigned to simply building their own roads over and above paying council roading rates.