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Units burn
A building fire in Aspendale caused extensive damage on Monday. A person was evacuated and sent to hospital for treatment. See story page 3. Pictures: Supplied
Penalties for overdue rates apply again Brodie Cowburn brodie@baysidenews.com.au KINGSTON Council will resume charging interest on the overdue bills of struggling ratepayers. Council stopped charging interest on overdue rates after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite two councillors pushing to waive interest in 2022/2023 as well, the majority of councillors voted to restart the process. Crs Georgina Oxley and David Eden both opposed the resumption of charging interest on overdue rates. Oxley said at the last council meeting that the change could impact “parents, people with disabilities, and people who have
lost their jobs”. “It was enormous to be able to provide [COVID support measures] to the community and still be able to provide services, and still be in such a reasonable financial position compared to other councils in Victoria. What we did in that period, and what I think was very important, was we didn’t charge interest on unpaid rates. That meant that those people who couldn’t pay their rates weren’t slugged at what is about 10 per cent of penalty interest,” she said. “This is something I think is compassionate. It is something that really doesn’t have a huge impact on the bottom line of a budget which is over $250 million, give or take. We are in a position where $400,000 is not a huge amount of money when that $400,000 comes from
penalty interest on unpaid rates. “I’ve heard so many stories from people [who] can’t pay their rates and again they have to go hat in hand to another company who tell them to go through financial and budgeting training that they’ve been through time and time before. That is embarrassing, that is hard, and it is soul destroying for some people who are trying their best to provide for them and their families.” The proposal to defer collecting interest on overdue rates for another year did not win the support of the other present councillors at the meeting. The mayor Steve Staikos defended the decision by reminding people facing financial hardship that they can still apply for interest free payments. “Kingston was pleased to be in a po-
sition to support all ratepayers during the difficult period of COVID lockdowns and refunded interest paid in the 2019/2020 financial year and did not charge interest altogether for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years regardless of whether or not people were financially impacted,” he told The News. “Please be assured that interest free payments are still available to anyone facing genuine financial difficulties. All they need to do is apply under our hardship support policy. For others who are able to pay, the normal arrangements have been resumed with plenty of flexible payments available to suit your needs and interest only charged on late payments.” Cr Tracey Davies said at the last council meeting that “not everyone who doesn’t pay their rates on time is doing
so because of hardship. A lot of them are doing so because they are aware that they’re not going to be charged interest.” “My concern is there is a lot of things we want to do as a council and I do think $400,000 is a significant sum to walk away from,” she said. Last month the state government announced it would introduce a bill which would see a maximum amount of interest levied on unpaid rates and charges set by the local government minister (“Push to stop rate collection methods” The News 14/6/22). While deciding to resume charging interest on overdue rates, Kingston councillors also approved the budget for the 2022/2023 financial year. Continued page 5