Dr Nick, Consummate Dickhead, err Politician

[Big Dave]

His comments seemed fairly reasonable to me. Am I missing something?

As far as this rooster's comments - probably not, but the bigger picture of the inequity of the whole thang rancours.

And come on - Dr Smith is funny. William!

[Skyryder]

Who votes for these people???.........

Not me. But I think the serious question is who is beginning to regret it.

The other interesting issue is that as things now stand the Nats do not have the numbers to pass this into law. ACT is in the negotiating stage so I wonder what deals are being done behind closed doors for their support.

Smith wants this under urgency before the groundswell of opposition from the public mounts. The interesting thing is that there are three partners with the Nats and all have different agendas, none of which are mainstream.

My own view is that these hikes are a deliberate attempt to put ACC out of public ownership. Two or three years down the track you just watch the private boys saying they can do 'it' cheaper. It's a con job pure and simple to make privatisation more palatable to the public when the Nats decide to sell this to the public. This is just so blatent and obvouse. And it's your money that they are doing it with.

Like I said I never voted for the fuckers...............



Skyryder

[ready4whatever]

oh i wish he did throw himself under a train, please, nick smith

[Coldrider]

I was watching the question time on parliament TV, regarding Nick Smith and ACC, I am putting a bung plug in my mcycles exhaust pipe tonight.

[bikemike]

Who votes for these people???.........

Not me. But I think the serious question is who is beginning to regret it.

Aint that the truth. +1

[Reckless]

Aint that the truth. +1

+1 to! talk about National alienating its voters!!

[Forest]

His point was valid, even if the way he presented it was extremely crass and insensitive.

Suicide is a tragedy, but it is not an accident.

[Robert Taylor]

Who votes for these people???.........

Overall they are still a LOT better than that last lot.

[SS90]

Indeed. All his comments did were highlight how fucked up the system is. People are just getting their knickers in a twist because rider levies have skyrocketed.

I agree, it has gotten something in the open that we all needed to be aware of.

So, A.C.C is seriously "in the red", and they need cash FAST to even up the unbalance (that is, more money gets paid out, than comes in.)

The majority of A.C.C's funding comes from tax.

A.C.C pays for (among other things) advertising (to tell us all how to keep safe etc), as well as insuring citizens in the event of injury.

O.K.

The tax (income) for A.C.C is levied from Fuel (that's the biggest cost of fuel actually), employers P.A.Y.E contributions, as well as road user charges (we all have heard enough about that one just now)

Now, the A.C.C levy on fuel is a %age of the pump price, so, since the price of fuel over the last few years has skyrocketed there has been a fortunate "windfall" for the A.C.C coffers in the form of unbudgeted increase from the fuel levies.

So, we can count ourselves lucky (don't laugh) that the fuel went up so much, otherwise the A.C.C would be worse off than it is now!

Now, all ball sports (particularly Rugby),skiing, pleasure boating, just to name a few, where are there A.C.C levies?

They are MASSIVE consumers of A.C.C budgets, yet, to my knowledge don't pay one bloody cent to A.C.C to "insure" themselves against (likely) injury.

O.K it was a massive P.C blunder on "Dr Nick's" part to make that statement, but "the end justifies the means".

Let's look at the possibility that he is extremely stressed over having to deal with a flawed (inherited) A.C.C system that just hemmorages cash out willy nilly, and that is now "essentially broke"

Look at it like a business.

It needs to be saved.

Cut overheads.
Cut expenses.

They are just 2 things you can do instantly, whereas, increasing income (that's tax) takes time.

His method is poor, his result is excellent.

I agree with him. The suicide example is excellent. Let's (as soon as possible) slash all the "gravy train" payments, (but in doing so, let's not make it like a European country), so a balance must be found.

I particularly liked the way he emphasised a sense of urgency. Now is the time to act!

[SS90]

Indeed. All his comments did were highlight how fucked up the system is. People are just getting their knickers in a twist because rider levies have skyrocketed.

I agree, it has gotten something in the open that we all needed to be aware of.

So, A.C.C is seriously "in the red", and they need cash FAST to even up the unbalance (that is, more money gets paid out, than comes in.)

The majority of A.C.C's funding comes from tax.

A.C.C pays for (among other things) advertising (to tell us all how to keep safe etc), as well as insuring citizens in the event of injury.

O.K.

The tax (income) for A.C.C is levied from Fuel (that's the biggest cost of fuel actually), employers P.A.Y.E contributions, as well as road user charges (we all have heard enough about that one just now)

Now, the A.C.C levy on fuel is a %age of the pump price, so, since the price of fuel over the last few years has skyrocketed there has been a fortunate "windfall" for the A.C.C coffers in the form of unbudgeted increase from the fuel levies.

So, we can count ourselves lucky (don't laugh) that the fuel went up so much, otherwise the A.C.C would be worse off than it is now!

Now, all ball sports (particularly Rugby),skiing, pleasure boating, just to name a few, where are their A.C.C levies?

They are MASSIVE consumers of A.C.C budgets, yet, to my knowledge don't pay one bloody cent to A.C.C to "insure" themselves against (likely) injury.

O.K it was a massive P.C blunder on "Dr Nick's" part to make that statement, but "the end justifies the means".

Let's look at the possibility that he is extremely stressed over having to deal with a flawed (inherited) A.C.C system that just hemmorages cash out willy nilly, and that is now "essentially broke"

Look at it like a business.

It needs to be saved.

Cut overheads.
Cut expenses.

They are just 2 things you can do instantly, whereas, increasing income (that's tax) takes time.

His methods are questionable (to some, but to me they are "spot on"), his result is excellent.

I agree with him. The suicide example is excellent. Let's (as soon as possible) slash all the "gravy train" payments, (but in doing so, let's not make it like a European country), so a balance must be found.

I particularly liked the way he emphasised a sense of urgency. Now is the time to act!

Personally the most sickening part of this story so far (other than it has been let get this far) is when Dr Nick made this blunder the opposition was quick to jump on the attack.....wouldn't their time be better spent working together on a solution so they can all do the bloody jobs they where elected to do, not "showboat" to each other all the time?


It reminds me of the American congress when they where supposed to be helping the Car manufacturers (who floundered), instead they spend 3 days listening to their managers, and THEN, told them all to go back to Detroit, and come back in Hybrid cars (rather than the jet's they took the first time) and represent their proposals.......wouldn't it have been more correct to address the issues at the time, rather than some sort of political one upmanship?

Rather than everyone getting shitty over the (needed) tax increase, we should ALL concentrate on lowering the outgoings of A.C.C!

[MisterD]

ACT is in the negotiating stage so I wonder what deals are being done behind closed doors for their support.

Hopefully helping the Nats grow some balls to stop the Labour-directed lolly scramble that ACC has become...

[Skyryder]

His point was valid, even if the way he presented it was extremely crass and insensitive.

Suicide is a tragedy, but it is not an accident.

I think most have not understood what Smith actually said. This is the quote from the Chch Press. "If my doctor told me that I was terminally ill and I had 30 days to live, with the ACC rules the way they are I'd be finding myself a train to throw myself under on the 29th day because my family would be treated so much more generously,"

There is a mindset here that has learnt nothing from the housing rorts.

As for Smiths apologie...... from the same article ACC Minister Nick Smith has been forced to apologise for saying people may throw themselves "under a train" to get a payout for their families.

Smith said no such thing. He has apologised for something he has never said; believing that others are as dishonest as he is.

There is nothing valid in what Smith has said about others..........only about himself.

Skyryder

[SPman]

So, A.C.C is seriously "in the red", and they need cash FAST to even up the unbalance (that is, more money gets paid out, than comes in.)

No. The ACC is NOT seriously in the red!
More money comes in than goes out, per year

In the future, being fully-funded will mean ACC levies will be lower than they otherwise would be. For now, they are higher because as ACC is transitioning from ‘pay as you go’ to fully funded’ it needs to build up a pool of billions to cover the future costs of current claims and its assets are less at the moment, as ACC explains:

The Scheme’s claim liability (the future cost of existing claims) now stands at $23.8 billion – against current net assets (the money ACC has ‘in the bank’ to cover those future costs) of $11 billion.

But that’s basically just a book-keeping/cost-spreading exercise (most of ACC’s assets are actually government bonds, so the government (Treasury) owes itself (ACC) money).
ACC isn’t losing money. Its revenues were $4.5 billion – $1.5 billion more than it spent on claims this year. $500 million of that extra is operating costs, the other $1 billion was added to ACC’s investments but changes to predictions of the future costs of current claims pushed out that target even further – by $5.7 billion. So, getting to being fully funded is $4.8 billion further away than it was before.
There’s no actual crisis. Despite Nick Smith’s hysterics over ‘increased costs’, the cost of new claims isn’t rising (steady at $1.7 billion for the last 2 years). ACC is making enough money. The ‘crisis’ is just modelling changes for a bookkeeping exercise that has no effect other than to make levies higher now so they won’t have to be as high later.

How about people actually doing a bit of investigative reading other than the Herald and TV news!

[spacemonkey]

An excellent find there SPman.

[SS90]

I'm gobsmacked.