We’ve noticed a few misleading things being said by elected officials.

We’ve noticed a few misleading things being said in the last few weeks by officials who have been part of our Council over the last term.

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Outgoing Mayor – Neil Holdom – announced on Newstalk ZB that the average rates increases in New Plymouth are only 7.5% in 2025.

Did he forget all the meetings about the inaccuracies from the Finance Team and the average rates actually being 12.8%. (It may be possible to get rates back down to 9.9% but only if just over $3 M in savings can be found).

On a national radio station Neil Holdom forgot about 5.5% of the average rates increases we are actually experiencing.

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At the Mayoral Candidate events David Bubltiz announced that the loans the Council takes on are not interest only loans.

He took the time to explain about revenue to debt ratio and how your mortgage is working in the same way as the NPDC loans. He was quite authorative on how your mortgage and the NPDC loans work.

He said (about the Loans) – “they are not sitting there as interest only, they are being paid off like you pay off a mortgage”

We did an LGOIMA (OIA) about this – WHICH CLEARLY STATES the loans are interest only and the principal is paid off at maturity.

We have attached the LGOIMA (again) with this reply. We have a story on our Website and Facebook pages about the loans situation with a list of all the loans.

Perhaps David Bublitiz is not aware of how the loan structures work ?

If he was to be the next Mayor, we hope he gets up to speed on this fairly quickly, as big amounts of principal are going to be needed as each of the dozens of loans mature and the full principal amount is due to be paid back.

We sincerely hope someone in Finance at the NPDC has a plan so the principal amounts are set aside and ready to be paid when they fall due.

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David Bublitz thinks New Plymouth households are earning around $120k p.a**

**(An answer to an Alliance question at the Mayoral Event made at around the 33 minute mark in the video).

We thought this seemed a bit high based on the number of people we are in touch with who earn nothing like this - so we did some research with the department of stats.

The average income per household figure is somewhat misleading as the high top figures badly skew how many earn a lot less. And this also badly skews figures for people who live on their own on a low income.

The median figure is a better picture for New Plymouth. The median is the mid point - half the people are below this number and half are above.

The median personal income (for each person, for any type of income) in New Plymouth is $39,200 p.a The rest of NZ is $41,500. (Dept of Stats table attached).

At least half of the people in NP earn this or less. A number of single households earn in just this $39,200 range. If there is a couple in the house that would be around $78,400.

This is a long way off $120k. At the Alliance we hear from a lot of people who are earning in the bottom half of this median range, and still trying to pay their rates.

This is why we are so vocal about the doubling of rates and debt. Many people are struggling to pay their rates increases already, let alone this getting worse.

At the Alliance we think this is a clear example where some of the current people sitting around the NPDC table are badly out of touch with how some Ratepayers and Renters in New Plymouth are barely making ends meet.