Queenstown mayor Jim Boult’s going out on a high next week.
Boult, Salvation Army Queenstown community ministries director Andrew Wilson, Queenstown councillor Niki Gladding and Southland MP Joseph Mooney, of Queenstown, are the driving forces behind a ‘‘#peepsnotsheeps’’ campaign and subsequent petition to Parliament, pushing for a review of the Whakatipu’s Accommodation Supplement zoning.
At present, it’s estimated more than 700 people living in the resort can’t access their fair share of assistance because boundaries haven’t been reviewed since 1992.
Because there wasn’t housing development in areas like Lake Hayes Estate, Shotover Country and Hanley’s Farm 30 years ago, they’re still classified as ‘Area 4’, or ‘‘farmland’’, as far as the supplement is concerned.
That effects how much financial help residents in those areas can get — for example, in ‘‘urban’’ areas of Fernhill/Sunshine Bay, Queenstown, Frankton, Arrowtown and Arthurs Point, a family with one child or more can access up to $305 a week.
In the ‘‘rural’’ area that’s $120.
For a single person, there’s a $95 difference between the two areas, from $165 in Area 1 to $70 in Area 4.
Wilson says the petition’s a ‘‘last resort’’ to get the government to act on the inequitable situation for Queenstown residents.
‘‘As agencies across the Whakatipu Basin, we’ve tried letters, we’ve tried face-to-face meetings with the government, essentially, we’ve exhausted all other options … we don’t want to have to petition the government, but it’s what we’re having to face in order to see the change that we know is needed.’’
The petition seeks for the House of Representatives to amend a clause in the Social Security Act 2018 so urban-rural zoning, for the purposes of supplement eligibility, is based on most recent population statistics.
Boult says he’s been trying to get the government to act on the issue since he was first elected to the mayoralty in 2016 ‘‘and got nowhere’’.
‘‘I would describe it as being given a pat on the head and told to sit in the corner and wait.’’
He says given the largest concentration of young families in the Whakatipu now reside in the Area 4 locations, and they would most benefit from some assistance in meeting housing costs, ‘‘surely [government should] extend the coverage to include those areas’’.
‘‘We’ve gone back to government on numerous occasions and pointed this out and kind of got a response saying, ‘yeah, we understand that, but we’re not shifting things at this point in time’.
‘‘We don’t understand that.’’
The petition’s available to sign at bit.ly/3LQN7EQ
Boult, who finishes his term next Friday, is planning to skydive with NZONE before then — along with Mooney and Wilson, dressed as a sheep, a dog, and, possibly, Little Bo Peep, respectively — to promote it further.
‘‘Call it a parting shot,’’ Boult laughs.
