IdunBrokdItAgin
21st November 2009, 11:59
Here is post I just made on a UK motorbike site after someone asked me what was going on in NZ.
I just thought I would share it with you all as it took quite a while to type.
Apologies in advance if there are mistakes around how the ACC works - I'm only going on what I've heard and am not trying to be a legal expert on how the ACC works.
Probably won't lead to anything but it can't hurt letting the wider world know whats going on.
Quote:
I'll attempt to explain as briefly (will be very hard) as I can bearing in mind I'm a bit of a Johnny foreigner over here (been here for 5 years now). If I get anything wrong then put it down to me being a whinging pom etc :038:
The National (read conservatives) party won at the last election. They were all smiles and that and everyone fell for it (including myself). Since getting into power they have done various things which annoyed the general public. These inlcude, but are not limited to:
Ignoring a public referendum which voted overwhelmingly to change anti-smacking legislation (the bill was introduced by a liberal and was not popular with the public),
Not delivered on the tax incentives promised in the election,
Various scandals about the extent of the perks which are being claimed for (similar to the moat cleaning debacle you had in the UK)
And have stated that there is something wrong with the ACC books and everyone will have to pay more.
Here I need to explain the ACC (Accident Compensation C something) and how it works. Personaly financial liability does not exist in NZ (no-one can sue anyone for financial gain). Instead financial claims are paid out of the ACC. So if you fall off a ladder at work the ACC will fund the medical bills etc. Bear in mind that financial liability does not include criminal liability. So if your employer pushed you off the ladder he could still go to jail but ACC would still pay for your medical costs. This is all a bit simplified but it will have to do.
Everyone pays into the ACC scheme, as employers, employees and inclusions in rego costs (road licences). The government is saying that there is a big black whole in the ACC and everyone needs to pay more in to cover this. No problem with this - IF IT WAS TRUE.
What the government is attempting to do is change the way that the ACC meets its funding obligations. It is trying to change it into a private insurance company model. This means that it is moving to a fully funded model. Which is where it needs to hold enough reserves to pay for future claims (not current ones). The best way this has been described to me is - would you pay your car insurance five years in advance? This is similar to what the government is proposing.
This is not what the ACC was designed to be. Hence the outcry of why everyone has to pay more taxes (it is seen as a tax), when (A) they haven't delivered on the tax cuts they promised in the first place and (B) the world is still recovering from the recession and you want everyone to pay more? I don't think so matey.
This is where the bikers come in. The rego part of the increases has caught the public attention first but where cars are going up by 30% some bikes are seeing increases of 300% and they already pay more than cars! It would cost around $800 nzd a year just to pay for road licenses for some bikes, this is a lot of money to your average NZer. No longer making it the low cost option of transport that many embrace.
But the bikers aren't against rises - what they are against is a government that thinks it can lie to its electorate and get away with it. There is a strong belief that the government wants to move to a fully funded model so it can sell off the ACC (National like privatising things like the conservatives do). So why would any right minded member of the public pay more in contributions to a scheme which it is widely believed the government wants to sell in the near future (and increase its own war chest by with an associated substantial windfall)?
Problem is that most NZers have forgotten how the ACC works themselves (the founding principles of its legal act state that it is a no blame system not pay as you go insurance premium - risk profiles and payment levies of the individual are not intrinsically linked in the act). Therefore they believe the bull that the government is spouting. They are using the bikers as a nice distraction that the public can focus on "those damn dirty bikers are really dangerous and fall off their bikes all the time - tell you what lets make them pay more into the scheme based upon these crap statistics I've just made up".
That's the situation in the shortest sense. Gets way more complicated than that hence why the government is loving it. They are trying to do something very underhanded and not being honest with their electorate.
Bikers are trying to simplify the issue so the general public can see what the government is trying to do. Simple figures: ACC has reserves of $11billion already. It returned $400 million in revenue to the government coffers this year alone. Last year the ACC paid out $3bn odd in claims but received in $4bn odd in levies! Now the government is trying to tell us that the ACC needs more money and we (the NZ public) need to pay more still.
And by the way I'm a capitalist financial professional so I should be in line with their ethos. But I'm not as I have a problem with someone lying to me. If they were honest and upfront about what they were doing I might even agree with them but I don't simply because of how they are going about it. I've never protested about anything in my life before now but I'm actively protesting against this.
Something is very rotten in this lovely green country of NZ and that thing is the government.
Cheerio and thanks for reading to the end.
I just thought I would share it with you all as it took quite a while to type.
Apologies in advance if there are mistakes around how the ACC works - I'm only going on what I've heard and am not trying to be a legal expert on how the ACC works.
Probably won't lead to anything but it can't hurt letting the wider world know whats going on.
Quote:
I'll attempt to explain as briefly (will be very hard) as I can bearing in mind I'm a bit of a Johnny foreigner over here (been here for 5 years now). If I get anything wrong then put it down to me being a whinging pom etc :038:
The National (read conservatives) party won at the last election. They were all smiles and that and everyone fell for it (including myself). Since getting into power they have done various things which annoyed the general public. These inlcude, but are not limited to:
Ignoring a public referendum which voted overwhelmingly to change anti-smacking legislation (the bill was introduced by a liberal and was not popular with the public),
Not delivered on the tax incentives promised in the election,
Various scandals about the extent of the perks which are being claimed for (similar to the moat cleaning debacle you had in the UK)
And have stated that there is something wrong with the ACC books and everyone will have to pay more.
Here I need to explain the ACC (Accident Compensation C something) and how it works. Personaly financial liability does not exist in NZ (no-one can sue anyone for financial gain). Instead financial claims are paid out of the ACC. So if you fall off a ladder at work the ACC will fund the medical bills etc. Bear in mind that financial liability does not include criminal liability. So if your employer pushed you off the ladder he could still go to jail but ACC would still pay for your medical costs. This is all a bit simplified but it will have to do.
Everyone pays into the ACC scheme, as employers, employees and inclusions in rego costs (road licences). The government is saying that there is a big black whole in the ACC and everyone needs to pay more in to cover this. No problem with this - IF IT WAS TRUE.
What the government is attempting to do is change the way that the ACC meets its funding obligations. It is trying to change it into a private insurance company model. This means that it is moving to a fully funded model. Which is where it needs to hold enough reserves to pay for future claims (not current ones). The best way this has been described to me is - would you pay your car insurance five years in advance? This is similar to what the government is proposing.
This is not what the ACC was designed to be. Hence the outcry of why everyone has to pay more taxes (it is seen as a tax), when (A) they haven't delivered on the tax cuts they promised in the first place and (B) the world is still recovering from the recession and you want everyone to pay more? I don't think so matey.
This is where the bikers come in. The rego part of the increases has caught the public attention first but where cars are going up by 30% some bikes are seeing increases of 300% and they already pay more than cars! It would cost around $800 nzd a year just to pay for road licenses for some bikes, this is a lot of money to your average NZer. No longer making it the low cost option of transport that many embrace.
But the bikers aren't against rises - what they are against is a government that thinks it can lie to its electorate and get away with it. There is a strong belief that the government wants to move to a fully funded model so it can sell off the ACC (National like privatising things like the conservatives do). So why would any right minded member of the public pay more in contributions to a scheme which it is widely believed the government wants to sell in the near future (and increase its own war chest by with an associated substantial windfall)?
Problem is that most NZers have forgotten how the ACC works themselves (the founding principles of its legal act state that it is a no blame system not pay as you go insurance premium - risk profiles and payment levies of the individual are not intrinsically linked in the act). Therefore they believe the bull that the government is spouting. They are using the bikers as a nice distraction that the public can focus on "those damn dirty bikers are really dangerous and fall off their bikes all the time - tell you what lets make them pay more into the scheme based upon these crap statistics I've just made up".
That's the situation in the shortest sense. Gets way more complicated than that hence why the government is loving it. They are trying to do something very underhanded and not being honest with their electorate.
Bikers are trying to simplify the issue so the general public can see what the government is trying to do. Simple figures: ACC has reserves of $11billion already. It returned $400 million in revenue to the government coffers this year alone. Last year the ACC paid out $3bn odd in claims but received in $4bn odd in levies! Now the government is trying to tell us that the ACC needs more money and we (the NZ public) need to pay more still.
And by the way I'm a capitalist financial professional so I should be in line with their ethos. But I'm not as I have a problem with someone lying to me. If they were honest and upfront about what they were doing I might even agree with them but I don't simply because of how they are going about it. I've never protested about anything in my life before now but I'm actively protesting against this.
Something is very rotten in this lovely green country of NZ and that thing is the government.
Cheerio and thanks for reading to the end.