So, the great rates upset has begun to unfold.

Auckland this week got its long-awaited council valuations.

Why people get excited about them, I have no idea.

It's a rough guesstimate by a council. It takes into account the broadest of criteria, but people seem to live and die by them.

The upset of course has come from the fact that the value of a lot of properties has dropped, while the rates bill is going up. So we get the cost-plus-accounting scandal that is council economic policy exposed.

This is happening all over the country and it's a specific and broad-based problem. It's broad-based because it's inflationary and it's specific because depending on where you are depends on how bad the scandal is.

Auckland properties are down 9% while rates are up over 7%.

In Wellington values are down 24% and rates are up 16%.

Nelson values are down 9% and rates are up 6%, so this whole idea that rates are linked to value is of course complete crap and always has been.

In short, councils are inept and will spend forever, will waste your money forever, will plead poverty forever and will always find something that is critical and needs doing now.

For example, Christchurch got shafted last week by Chris Bishop, when the council rejected the Government's intensification plan.

The council didn’t like it, spent three years and millions of dollars to go back and forward and to achieve what? Nothing. That's council for you.

As Auckland mayor Wayne Brown said, "it is what it is". He's right because he knows a couple of home truths; no one is turning up for local body elections, so very few people will be held to account, and he also knows a lot of people will moan but ultimately do nothing about it.

If ever there was a reason to get exercised over the way we are being played, this is it.

Your asset has dropped but the bill is up. The bill, in theory, is based on the asset value. Nowhere else in life is this scam played and gotten away with, apart from local body politics.

We have too many councils, too much representation, too many boards, too much incompetence, and every year the bill for it rises.

Democracy only works if you take part.

What better reason can there be this year than to get your voting paper, look at the value of your property, look at your rate rise, put a name to the con and vote them out.

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