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by Paul Taylor, Lakes Weekly Bulletin

How would you like to use and enjoy Widgeon Park in the future? That’s the question on the colourful Queenstown Lakes District Council flyer that dropped into my actual letter box this week.

I’ll tell you how QLDC: exactly as it is now. Why? Because on 1 August my $4,664 council rates bill dropped into my inbox. Last year it was $4,122, the year before $3,474. That’s a whopping, unsustainable 34% increase over Mayor Glyn Lewers’ term, although that admittedly included an independent revaluation of homes in the district.

Widgeon Park, for those who don’t know, is basically a field and small woodland between the bottom of Lake Hayes Estate and the Kawarau River. It’s a nice bit of open space with a trail running through it, used by walkers, cyclists etc., connecting to the wonderful Twin Rivers Trail. Would it be nice to “enhance the biodiversity... with native planting”, add a picnic area including “BBQ, seating and shade structure”, new trails, a new car park and fencing? Yes, it would. But we can’t bloody afford it!

QLDC now has the highest net debt-to-total revenue ratio of all councils in NZ, a staggering 265%. Its revenue is $237.5 million and debt $629m. And yet it continues to spend like my wife on Temu. The picnic area alone at Widgeon Park will likely cost all my rates for the past three years. In fact, sending out the flyers probably cost a couple of grand alone.

Now it would be inaccurate, hyperbolic and a little childish for me to say families could one day sit on the new benches and watch bits of poo float past on the Kawarau River. The discharged wastewater from the Shotover Treatment Plan upstream is treated and only a tiny proportion of the total cubic flow, we’re told. But it highlights the reality - we need to spend so much fixing the infrastructure for the millions of tourists, we don’t have enough left for the luxury projects.

We do need a detailed review of all QLDC spending, especially on projects such as Lakeview, and we also need Central Government to properly put its hand in its pocket. This is not anti-National Party. Labour were just the
same - its ‘match-funding but you pick up the budget blow out’ for streetscape and road-to-nowhere were disastrous. Yet, PM Christopher Luxon has just announced plans to charge international visitors $20-$40 to visit high volume sites like Milford Sound, raising $62m per year, and the $100 border levy now raises $230m per year.

Queenstown Lakes sees none of this directly, and there’s no GST-share, and there’s no local visitor levy happening any time soon. Just a vague growth-orientated Regional Deal. What is Queenstown if not a high volume site? Luxon is happy enough to glad hand the Aussie PM around the town. Time to boost direct funding. Until then, QLDC needs to cut back on the luxuries.