Voice of Byron regular, Patricia Warren, alerts us as to what needs to be done if Byron Shire Council is to ever get the legal right to impose any type of tourism or bed tax in Byron Shire.
The advertisement Patricia refers to in her statement says, “I am a resident of Byron Shire and I OBJECT STRONGLY to any increase in rates above the statutory 2.5%.
“The Council has undertaken a very misleading poll of residents where they did not make the residents aware that a NO RATES RISE OPTION was available on their reply-paid card to residents who did not have to verify their names or addresses on that card.
“The online poll and the printed surveys had the hard-to-find NO RATES RISE OPTION.
“Despite this subterfuge the ONLINE POLLS AND THE PRINTED SURVEYS STILL OVERWHELMINGLY CALLED FOR NO RATES RISE.
“PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW ANY RISE ABOVE 2.5%.”
Patricia’s post follows:
Pending Council application for a Special Rate Variation… there is a notice on page 4 of this week’s Echo and on the last page of the Byron News.
Readers are been encouraged to cut out and send to Minister Toole.
Firstly, it doesn’t matter if you are a property owner or a rentier, the impost of a rate rise will be borne by all either directly or indirectly.
However, what you may not be aware of is that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) pegged on 29.11.16, the 2017/2018 rate rise at 1.5%.
Media reports will continue to advise readers that BSC is a tourist destination attracting at least 1.5m tourists per year. (This figure may exclude festival goers?)
With a rate base of approx 15,000 properties who can afford to subsidise the tourist economy, in part promoted by the state government.
Problem is that Council cannot introduce a Tourist Levy unless there is an amendment to the Local Government Act (LGA).
So, if you are going to cut out and sent the notices in the local newspapers please add to it your support for an amendment to the LGA to give Council that power.
If you choose not to cut the advertisement out but want to email Minister Toole directly about a change in the LGA, then his email address is office@toole.minister.nsw.gov.au.
Unless there is electorate support for an amendment to the LGA, the notion of a Tourist Levy won’t realised.