A rescission motion put by Cr Gen Campbell was passed at council’s January meeting.
It sought to scrap a motion passed by the former council which gave council the go ahead to investigate and apply for a Special Rate Variation to keep up with increasing costs.
It would have meant rates increased by more than the rate cap set by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.
According to Cr Gen Campbell, an SRV would have meant added stress to community members who were already doing it tough.
“It’s a sobering reality that over 10 per cent of our ratepayers are struggling to pay their rates,” she said.
“If one in 10 ratepayers are struggling to meet their obligations, it’s not the failure of the individual, it’s a failure of the system we oversee, and we need to recognise and address this.
“As a council, we need to realign with the community we represent ... get our house in order before we go to the people to ask them to pay for the historical cover-ups.”
During the January meeting, the council acknowledged the financial hardship that local ratepayers were experiencing and unanimously voted to reverse the initial decision.
The proposal to seek an SRV for Murray River was first floated by the council in May 2023, in the very same report in which council announced it would deliver a $3.9 million operating surplus from the 2023/24 financial year.
“Every year inflation is much higher than the rates cap forced on councils, and initially this made councils become leaner, which was a good thing originally,” then mayor Chris Bilkey said in 2023.
“As could be expected, though, there is a limit to how many services can be sustained over time with continual shortfalls.”
Later the same year, council officially moved the motion to progress with the application.
It proposed three options which featured a base rate of a 25 per cent increase compounded over six years.
Option one was an extended model of a 77 per cent rise compounded over six years, option two was an accelerated model with 71 per cent compounded over four years, while option three was a combined model of 57 per cent (general rates only) compounded over five years.
The proposal sparked a number of community meetings in opposition to the proposed increases, which were eventually adopted in June 2024.
With the SRV, no longer going ahead, the council will have to seek out alternative means to build council revenue.
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