Mom
1st December 2009, 17:37
Last night over 100 angry bikers attended a public meeting held at the Royal Akorana Yacht Club in the Auckland electorate of Tamaki. After preliminary introductions and a scripted question and answer time the meeting was turned over to the public for questions. Though being the consummate politician as always, Nick Smith showed signs of being rattled and unprepared to answer some questions from the floor. Particularly amusing was the question that was met twice with closed lips, and despite the MC for the night attempting to diffuse the situation with a bit of housekeeping, when really pressed for a response the best he could come up with was that the numbers that had been used to construct the question were wrong. The meeting erupted with a hearty roar when the biker asking the question pointed out that he had only used the same figures that Mr Smith had been using to justify these outrageous levy increases in the first place.
The Minister also managed to attempt to pass off some answers as truthful, when in fact they were nothing more than complete lies. This has been proved in the following ways.
The meeting was told that the Ulysses Club had accepted the increases in return for “ring-fencing” a portion of the levy take to be set aside for Motorcycle safety and training purposes. Peter McIntosh, National President, Ulysses Club of New Zealand Inc, has come out strongly today with a statement that says “The Ulysses Club categorically denies that it has entered into any agreement with ACC or Minister Smith over ACC levies and road safety programmes as apparently suggested by Dr Smith recently. We are absolutely against the outrageous levy rises still being put forward by ACC and are committed to working with other clubs and organisations to fight their implementation.”
The meeting was also told that of all the interested groups that attended a face to face meeting with him the only one that had not responded to his invitation to meet to further discuss ongoing funding of safety training and education was BRONZ. That was hotly challenged from the floor. After the meeting, Les Mason, President of the Auckland Branch of BRONZ got the Minister to grudgingly agree that he had in-fact received an email agreeing to further discussions from BRONZ.
When questioned about whether he was happy with the submission process leading up to the recommendations from ACC for the levy increases, Dr Smith said that he did not care about the process. He was asked to repeat that he did not care about the process and he denied he said it, which was met with howls of derision from the floor.
The press widely reported we had won after the BIKOI to Wellington, Dr Myth came out and said that he did not agree with such big increases in levies for motorcycles. Frankly, a $40 reduction in my ACC portion of registration does not mean we have won. What it does mean however is we have a big battle ahead of us. Not just for us, but for every one that is affected by these changes to ACC.
Does anyone remember the Woodhouse principles apart from us?
We have to keep this up now, we had the Minister wrong footed last night.
The Minister also managed to attempt to pass off some answers as truthful, when in fact they were nothing more than complete lies. This has been proved in the following ways.
The meeting was told that the Ulysses Club had accepted the increases in return for “ring-fencing” a portion of the levy take to be set aside for Motorcycle safety and training purposes. Peter McIntosh, National President, Ulysses Club of New Zealand Inc, has come out strongly today with a statement that says “The Ulysses Club categorically denies that it has entered into any agreement with ACC or Minister Smith over ACC levies and road safety programmes as apparently suggested by Dr Smith recently. We are absolutely against the outrageous levy rises still being put forward by ACC and are committed to working with other clubs and organisations to fight their implementation.”
The meeting was also told that of all the interested groups that attended a face to face meeting with him the only one that had not responded to his invitation to meet to further discuss ongoing funding of safety training and education was BRONZ. That was hotly challenged from the floor. After the meeting, Les Mason, President of the Auckland Branch of BRONZ got the Minister to grudgingly agree that he had in-fact received an email agreeing to further discussions from BRONZ.
When questioned about whether he was happy with the submission process leading up to the recommendations from ACC for the levy increases, Dr Smith said that he did not care about the process. He was asked to repeat that he did not care about the process and he denied he said it, which was met with howls of derision from the floor.
The press widely reported we had won after the BIKOI to Wellington, Dr Myth came out and said that he did not agree with such big increases in levies for motorcycles. Frankly, a $40 reduction in my ACC portion of registration does not mean we have won. What it does mean however is we have a big battle ahead of us. Not just for us, but for every one that is affected by these changes to ACC.
Does anyone remember the Woodhouse principles apart from us?
We have to keep this up now, we had the Minister wrong footed last night.