The Wellington council candidates promising to freeze rates, but they won’t say how

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

Ray Chung is running for Mayor of Wellington as part of the group of candidates dubbed ‘Independent Together’, who are promising to keep rates rises to zero for three years.

Candidates running for Wellington Council under an ‘Independent Together’ campaign are promising zero rates rises for the next three years.

The group - which launched last week - are still working out how they will achieve it.

Incumbent councillors have pushed back, calling the promise ‘misleading’ and ‘a lie’.

The group promising to keep rates rises to zero cannot yet say how - or when - they would achieve it.

A group of Wellington council candidates are promising zero rates rises for the next three years, and only inflationary increases after that.

But the group - called ‘Independent Together’ - cannot say whether this would apply to commercial rates, residential rates, or both, and which financial year the three years would start in.

“I won't give any commitment on those at this stage, until the team has had a really good opportunity to look through all of the numbers and and work out what needs to happen,” said campaign manager Libby Carson, adding that more information would come in the next few weeks.

Mayor Tory Whanau, left, is running for re-election alongside her deputy Laurie Foon, right. She says the Independent Together campaign promise is ‘misleading’.

Wellington residents have faced two years of substantial bumps to keep up with the council’s growing infrastructure and insurance costs. The average ratepayer now pays a third more than they did in mid-2023.

But according to Mayor Tory Whanau, this is an infeasible promise.

“Any group suggesting that council can deliver essential services and address a significant infrastructure deficit without any rates increase is, quite frankly, misleading the community,” she said.

Mayoral candidate Ray Chung has pointed to the Golden Mile project as a potential source of cost savings.

“Rates increases are a direct response to decades of underinvestment.“

Under the council’s proposed Long-Term Plan - which is currently open for consultation - rates will increase by 12.2% for the 2025/26 financial year. In mid-2026, they will rise by roughly 8%, and 9% for the following two years.

But ‘Independent Together’ candidates are pledging to reign in spending and keep the rates down.

Asked how they will do this, Carson reiterated that she cannot say until their team has done the work.

Councillor Rebecca Matthews says she has seen first-hand how hard it is to cut costs in council, while chairing the committee responsible for amending Wellington’s Long-Term Plan.

“I don't want to get into detail because I don't want to put our team in a position of answering questions before they have a really robust set of data and analysis,” she said.

Incumbent councillor Rebecca Matthews says the group is irresponsible for campaigning on a policy that they cannot yet back up.

“It's a lie to say you can deliver zero rates increases for three years, and put that all over your material and all over the internet, when you have zero plan on how to deliver it,” she said, adding that she has seen how hard it is to cut costs while chairing the committee responsible for amending Wellington’s Long-Term Plan.

“It is very hard because you need a majority of councillors to agree.”

But Ray Chung, who is running as the group’s mayoral candidate, told Stuff the true value of the policy would be its ability to hold ‘Independent Together’ councillors to account after they are elected.

“Elected representatives must consider the zero rates increase aim as fundamental to how they vote at council. This is the true importance of all our policies – to bring back accountability,” he explained.

Even if the goal was feasible, achieving it any time soon would require big cuts to the council’s operational expenditure, Matthews added.

“If you mothballed all the swimming pools, rec centers and sports fields, and didn’t spend anything on maintenance of playgrounds and parks, you wouldn't even get halfway there.”

But Carson and Chung both say these services would not be at risk.

“Libraries, parks, swimming pools, are core business. My mayoral policy and that of the team of ‘Independent Together’ candidates are about getting back to the basics,“ Chung said.

He would prefer to cut the Golden Mile - citing a $212 million capital works expenditure for that and city street activations - and a $60 million contribution to an organic waste plant in Horowhenua.

But Matthews isn’t sold. “The Golden Mile is 50% government funded, so you can’t sell the total amount of that project as a saving that can be made,” she said. The project’s budget is $116 million, with the cost shared between the council and the NZ Transport Agency.