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Northern Territory councils say they may be forced to raise rates and cut services if new local government power price hikes come into effect as planned later this year. Council executives say services like library and pool hours and crime prevention measures, such as street lighting, may have to be reduced to cope with the costs.

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00:02A City Council weighing up having to turn down the lights.
00:07Well you look at the cost of electricity in relation to running our libraries, running
00:12our pools, the lighting of ovals at night for sporting events, things like that, for
00:17kids training out there, so all of these services may have to be reduced.
00:21Darwin City Council considering drastic service cuts and rate rises to deal with a planned
00:27hike in local government power prices due to start from July.
00:32The time that the lights are on may have to be reduced so that we meet our budget.
00:37We are unable to go into deficit so we have to cut services to meet our budget.
00:42The change to Council electricity tariffs, an anti-government budget measure announced
00:48last year, which some say have not been properly communicated to those impacted.
00:54We don't want to read about it in a media release.
00:56I think what we need is proper consultation with our councils.
01:00Remote communities could be hit by the changes worst of all, with local government leaders
01:07warning cuts to family and youth programs are already being discussed as possible ways
01:13to offset rising power prices.
01:16It's the people on the ground that actually will suffer.
01:20The Darwin City Council says the power price hikes will also make it more difficult.
01:25to support the Territory Government in its key election mandate, crime prevention.
01:31We provide the street lighting, the park lighting, the walkway lighting and if we can't have
01:37those lights on because we need to change service delivery levels then it directly affects the
01:42community.
01:43The Council wants the price plan to be deferred for at least a year.
01:48The NT Government did not respond by deadline to requests for comment.
01:55To cap out of the
01:56você, for you might need to answer or you might need to do that in your N kommt.
01:56.
01:56.
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