Mayor pledges to fix rate mistake: ‘We don’t live in a perfect world’

Rockhampton council will lower upcoming rates bills for hundreds of property owners after discovering a serious error in charges.

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Rockhampton Regional Council will lower upcoming rates bills for about 500 rural property owners after discovering a serious overcharging error made against them in the 2025/26 budget.

CEO Evan Pardon apologised to councillors and ratepayers for the rating-in-the-dollar mistake at the July 8 ordinary council meeting and promised to improve processes to avoid such errors in the future.

Mayor Tony Williams recognised council officers were taking the necessary steps to remedy the situation.

“We don’t live in the perfect world and unfortunately this has occurred,” he said.

“We’re doing our level best to rectify that and putting in place (processes) where we’ll have further ability to make sure that doesn’t happen (again).

Rockhampton Regional Council Mayor Tony Williams

A senior council officer told the meeting that the errors in the rate in the dollar for a number of rural categories would have resulted in an “unintended increase to the rate revenue and ratepayers in these categories suffering serious financial hardship”.

“When we have done the analysis, there’s about 500 properties out that are impacted by this particular error,” she said.

The department of local government advised council to offer a one-off hardship concession for this financial year only as the correct method for adjusting the rates bill to the correct amount.

The council officer said letters of explanation would be sent out with upcoming rate notices to the affected rate payers.

There will be no budget implications resulting from the granting of the rate concessions as council’s budget was modelled on the correct figure, which was lower.