The NZ Chambers of Commerce and Industry has identified four key priorities by the upcoming local body election and all are directly relevant to Kāpiti and will help deliver local employment options”, says Kāpiti Coast Chamber of Commerce chairman in, Mark Ternent.
The four priorities are:
1. Having local bodies that enable business, and facilitate its development rather than arbitrarily stand in its way. This is essential for a strong local economy. For this reason the Chambers support candidates that understand business.
2. In particular not rating business unfairly, beyond the benefit it gets. This discourages economic growth. So far the KCDC has sensibly avoided this, but other Wellington local bodies haven’t. If local body amalgamation occurs Kāpiti councillors need to be prepared to stand against this form of rating being introduced here.
3. Ensuring local body economic development agencies focus on making Kāpiti and the Wellington region a great place to do business and promoting that nationally and internationally. They should avoid putting too much effort on helping individual companies, and leave that to others better placed to deliver on this.
4. Taking care that the recent series of earthquakes doesn’t lead to a knee jerk spending on our buildings and infrastructure that goes beyond the risks involved.
Each is an important issue for the Kāpiti community and local candidates need to be taking them on board.
Mr Ternent finishes “Differential rating is a classic; other than pure revenue gathering there’s no real justification for it to exist at all. It’s time that Council’s around the country asked why it even exists and got rid of it.”
