Overseas Visitor Charges

WCC is looking at whether to impose an entry charge for overseas visitors to facilities such as the Cable Car Museum, City Gallery, Capital E! and the Plimmer’s Ark conservation project on Queens Wharf.

I’m certainly in favour of user pays for overseas visitors, so long as the costs of collection were not too high. I also support Charles Finny:

Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive Charles Finny said he favoured an amalgamation of local bodies in the Wellington region “rather have that than some sort of discriminatory pricing”.

“We think that having nine councils for a population of 450,000 people is absurd.”

If an amalgamation happened, funding problems would “just go away”.

Indeed Wellington does not need four city councils and five district councils.