Why are rates not based on user pays?

As a form of taxation, Rates help pay for services and facilities for the community that are either essential (like water and wastewater management) or provide a community good – the things that make our district a more desirable place to live.

There are certain rates which follow a user pays as general principle more closely (although not directly), such as Water and Sewer, where only properties that are either connected or available to connect to the network are charged.

Many of our services however could simply not operate under a 100% user pays model.  For example, to recover the costs of our pools or libraries under a full user pays system would require fees to be set at a level that would result in many families not being able to use the service. Council provides services that are of value to our community but it takes the whole community to make them a reality.