I have sent in my submission - have you?

[nudedaytona]

I have sent my submission in. I've emailed ACC expressing my disgust, and posted letters ranting about these levies to Nick Smith. I also wrote to my MP Ross Robertson. I feel like I can give myself a pat on the back

Quick tally - who else has wrote in? There's 6 days left before ACC submissions close.

[Pixie]

The feedback from MP's is that the have been inundated.

[slofox]

Emailed every MP in the country. Followed up with several of them. Emailed my local paper. Made two submissions to ACC - so far. Do I get a stamp?

[RavenR44]

(RavenR44)

My Street

Jafaville East

Dorkland

My Phone Number



ACC’s justification for its proposed hefty levy increases for motorcycles, including the virtual tripling of the levy for machines with engines 601cc and above, is that it is ‘fair’ to do so.

By any understanding, fair in this context means ‘equitable’, and ACC’s implication is that this increase in levies is proportional to the cost of caring for and rehabilitating motorcyclists who have been injured in accidents.

Naturally, by that same yardstick, many other high-risk groups must then face the introduction of significant levies in line with their taking part in their chosen, high-risk activities. Because, as ACC tells us, it’s only fair that they do.

So we will also be seeing, presumably, ACC’s proposals for how it plans to levy these other participants in high-risk activities. Activities such as rugby, soccer, hockey, cricket, netball, basketball, and rugby league.

Activities like scuba-diving, swimming, waterskiing, surfcasting and rock fishing, sailing, jetskiing, white water rafting and other recreational watersport.

Not to mention recreational flying in fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, sky-diving, paragliding, base jumping and gliding. The list should also include skiing, snowboarding, climbing, mountain biking, road cycling, motorcycle racing and motocross, car racing and rallying, equestrian events, and so it goes on.

And for complete fairness, those who engage in multiple high-risk activities should be levied on each and every one. If that’s not what’s being proposed, and only motorcyclists are having to bear these extraordinarily hefty increases because of their high-risk activity, it makes any claim by ACC to ‘fairness’ a very hollow one indeed.

Within ACC’s own figures*, the cost of care and rehabilitation for a motorcyclist is actually less than that for a car occupant. So again, in the interests of fairness, the licensing levy for each motorcycle should therefore be adjusted down and/or the levy for cars be increased to reflect the actual cost of that post accident care.

Note that this discussion is in the context of the ACC’s claims of a funding shortfall and its need to raise more revenue, against the motorcyclist’s actual cost to the system, not some hypothetical actuarial speculation about accident probability.

In summary, should it transpire that ACC is not actually capable of apportioning fair and equitable levies to every other high-risk activity, then natural justice will be served by scrapping the motorcycle and car licensing levies entirely and the system returning to the model as originally devised, with all ACC funding provided by levies on income earners and business.

If this is politically unacceptable to HM New Zealand Government, then the ACC should be scrapped in its entirety and replaced with a private sector model, with subsidies and oversight from an appropriate government watchdog.

Either way, the system as it stands is neither fair nor equitable, and continuing to financially disadvantage a minority simply because it’s easy to do so, is nothing less than moral cowardice.

I trust ACC will rethink this folly.

Yours sincerely,

(RavenR44)



*Driver/Passenger car
New claims - 3456
Active claims - 8528
Total claims - 11984
Cost - $208,305,000
Average cost per claim = $17,382

*Rider/pillion motorcycle
New claims - 1336
Active claims - 3173
Total claims - 4509
Cost $62,523,000
Average cost per claim $13,866

[nothingflash]

Yep, emailed each MP (tick) made submission to ACC (tick)

[RavenR44]

If we're the only submitters so far, apathy is sure rife around here.

[nsrpaul]

ive emailed all the mps, my local mp (oh the shame! its Nick Smith), the local paper and John keys facebook page

[MadDuck]

ive emailed all the mps, my local mp (oh the shame! its Nick Smith), the local paper and John keys facebook page

Mine is Lockwoods Myth. Second email was me expressing my disappointment that he has his office chick email out the "standard" response to people who voted for him....I wont hold my breath waiting for a response to that one.

[rok-the-boat]

See the email list I created in another thread - I emailed EVERYONE.

[nudedaytona]

Everyone give themselves a happy face sticker. All those who haven't, hurry up. It doesn't need to be long.

[theblacksmith]

My submission was sent in 3 days ago to acc and a standard reply was received yesterday.

[PhantasmNZ]

Phew - that was some effort. Managed to compile my submission - which could really have gone on EVEN LONGER - but I decided to cull it back.... a bit.... well some at least... honest .... no really I did ..

I figure they ought to work for it so buried a few questions in the text and asked for some answers anyway here's the fruits of my labout - sent to consultation@, nicky boy and my local (LAB) MP

This communication form my submission as part of the ACC submission process, though I invite Mr Smith to read and comment also. Chris Carter, as MP for my local area, I have included you as I voice my concerns. Please note that there are questions below that I would appreciate a response on.

As an immigrant to New Zealand around 8 years ago, I have always applauded this country on the ACC system, and how this fantastic public system cares for this country - providing care and certainty inthe event of an accident. Less tangible - but highly apparent to someone arriving here is the way in which this prevents the litigious "compensation culture" so prevalent in the UK and other countries such as the USA.

So much more civilised is the country that doesn't make an entire industry of opportunistic, low-skilled, ambulance-chasing legal "professionals"- offering promises of massive payouts for "no win - no fee" - if only you had a sore neck (that noone can prove or disprove) following an accident. The ACC system, and it's comprehensive system of compensation to everyone - regardless of how an accident happens or who's fault it is - is the envy of many nations.

It is disappointing that then the ACC and our National government (of whom until recently I was a supporter) feel that radical changes must be made - and to push these through requires a campaign of propaganda, scaremongering, misinformation, and half-true and inconsistent statistics. It seems, rather than balanced and reasoned arguments for change, spectacular, headline grabbing claims are being made -which appear (though I am sure this is not 'officially' the intention) to be deliberately driving emotion - instilling unease and uncertainty to the majority - trying to place bad taste in their mouths - at the expense of underrepresented minoritied.

I am of course referring to the proposed ACC changes, announced with sensationalised press coverage, and followed up (hammered home) with expensive full page advertisements in all the broadsheet newspapers in the country. The ACC are trying to convince the country there is a crisis - that there's not enough money for the scheme to continue and that we must all pay more, but expect less. Many groups are being targetted - the elderly - with the removal of a succesful programme designed to limit accidents and protect the senior members of our society - victims of sexual abuse, who must now add insult to injury and humiliation - by proving they also have a "mental illness" before they can claim. ACC's cutbacks in funding for surgery mean tens of thousands of operations will no longer go ahead through ACC - shifting the burden elsewhere.

These issues alone are enough to raise significant concern.

Yet it is the proposed changes for motorcyclists and moped/scooter riders that seem to be attracting the most attention. Being driven with loaded statistics, and emotive headlines - pushing outrageous hikes to costs for ordinary citizens - using carefully and deliberately worded justifications designed to incite resent, drive blame and polarise New Zealanders - in a way that is so scarily the opposite of everything the ACC system appears to stand for.

inconsistent and misleading numbers aside (I'll come to that though), the main message to New Zealanders is that there's a minority group, one who engages in an activity many many times more risky that everyone else does - who you are paying a specific amount every year to subsidise, because they can't help but hurt themselves - and when they do it costs so much more to fix them than it would to fix you. We've got to fight back and make them pay their own way - because it's not fair on you, the majority.

And to those in the minority group - here's a fundamental (and poorly or not at all consulted) change in the rules of the game (with new categorisation on engine size) - and a cost rise that's so outrageous - it's actually quite hard to comprehend.

I do not of course there's a real expectation to actually raise it this high. the press drew their computer graphics and bold headlines on the numbers and quietly included a sentence admitting these proposals were released to prove a point. Once again, disappointingly, I see our leaders have turned into vacuum cleaner salesmen. We've had the demonstration, been shown how we can't live without the premium model - but here's the rub - it's going to be $735 and there's just no way it can cost less (in fact we're lucky it doesn't cost MORE). Lets wait a while for the disappointment and dispair to take hold and "make a phone call" to the "boss". Well, because we're so special - here's a couple of hunderd dollars less. We still end up paying two or three time more it's worth - but we all breath a sigh of relief it didn't cost more.

Lets have a look at some of the figures:

I will not for a second pretend that motorcycling is a low-risk method of transportation. Aside from often below-par road surfacing in New Zealand, and poor observational skills of many road users (though praise is in order for the new cellphone ban) - Mr Smith has stated and restated that motorcycles represent 16 times the risk of a car driver. Really? So we must see 16 times as many crashes right? Well, in a comparison of the MoT CAS figures we see that Motorcycles do seem ahead of the average in crash statistics per 10,000 vehicles as you would imagine. For the whole NZ vehicle fleet, there are 34 crashes per vehice resulting injury. For motorcycles, this figure is about 144 ( a little over 4x). Without explanation or clarification this 16x assertion is meaningless, and misleading - as I am in little doubt is was intended to be to serve its purpose.

Would the minister care to comment on the source of this risk figure?

The second emotive point spalshed liberally across the media - each car driver will still subsidise motorcyclists by $77 per year.

$77 x 2,584,509 (MoT figures for light passenger vehicles) = $199,007,193

The problem here? Well, during 2007/8 ACC assert that $62m was paid out to motorcycle victims - of which a little under $12.3m was collected in levies. At a rate of $77 per car - this leaves an additional $150 million unaccounted for.

Once again, could I request a response as to why there is an apparent disparity in these figures?

The $12.3m itself raises a question - based on MoT vehicle statistics for that year of 30,826 mopeds and 80,464 motorcycles, the total ACC contribution assuming all vehicles were registered would have been $22.2m. This almost $10m shortfall (if accurate) could represent that already motorcycle owners chose not to register (or 'hold' registration) on their motorcycles. a 300% increase in levies would surely encourage more people to do this (possibly leading otherwise law-abiding citizens to break the law a ride unregistered vehicles). Such a low overall revenue already with reasonable levies would surely indicate that such a massive increase will result in few road users chosing to register their vehicles and a resulting drop in ACC revenue.

The other highly contentious piece of propaganda is the reclassification of motorcycles with ridiculously high levies applied to motorcycle over 600cc. FIrst of all this logic is fundamentally flawed. There is no causal factor linking engine size alone in CC to risk, speed or crash frequency. A modern 250cc 2-stroke motorcycle is capable of much higher speed and acceleration than many larger 750cc+ motorcycles (and arguably most older motorcycles).

....Cont in Next Post...

[PhantasmNZ]

Continued from previous post !!

What is true with motorcycles however is that in general a larger capacity motorcycle will cost more money. Generally younger motorcyclists will ride smaller machines even after gaining a full licence due to cost. Larger machines are often ridden by older people. My next question is how much of the cost attributed to motorcycle crashes is in fact not the treatment of injury - but earnings related compensation (ERC) ? I would put it to you that the figures used to identify CC trends are skewed by the typical demographic spread that younger riders who earn less tend to ride smaller capacity machines. Older riders who earn more buy larger machines - going on to middle aged and older riders who ride (generally slower) cruiser or tourer type bikes with larger engines still. When one of these older riders wh ocan afford these machines has an accident - of course ACC coss will be higher as ERC costs will be higher.

Please respond as to whether this is the case - it is clearly unfair to pass higher costs to a segment of motor vehicle users based on how much they EARN. Surely a similar exercise with the car owners would show a higher risk for owners of BMWs, Lexus's, Mercedes etc (not to mention porsche, ferrari etc) than drivers of Civcs and Corolla's. More ironic still are the proposed SUBSIDIES for drivers of NEW (ie more expensive) cars!

Whilst the arbitrary split at 125cc and 600cc serves its purpose in massaging stats to fit the preconceived plan - the truth is not quite so clear cut. From ACC's own statistics (which are far from adequate in themselves) and taking the same categories as MoT Vehicle fleet statistcs, we learn :

CC Fleet Cost NumClaims AvCostPerClaim CostPerBike ClaimsPerBike
0-50 30826 $2,520,662.53 84 $30,007.89 $81.77 0.27%
51-125 4734 $1,290,834.84 19 $67,938.68 $272.67 0.40%
126-250 17336 $2,899,501.65 88 $32,948.88 $167.25 0.51%
251-600 9940 $1,167,482.12 26 $44,903.16 $117.45 0.26%
601-1000 28125 $11,637,729.06 128 $90,919.76 $413.79 0.46%
1000+ 20329 $5,596,184.41 70 $79,945.49 $275.28 0.34%


In fact looking at claims per vehicle, the HIGHEST risk is in the 126-250cc class with 600-1000cc less than this and 1000cc+ quite significantly lower again.
There is a high average cost per claim associated with the 600-1000cc class (although 1000cc+ is close to the 50-125 average and closer still when you compare cost to fleet size). This high average cost in the 600-1000cc class which I consider to be the driver in the current ACC strategy is where I would anticiapte there being the highest ERC costs due to higher wage earners. I would appreciate a response to that assertion.


Other factors I wish to point out in this submission:

This is the biggest ever increase in ACC levies and it unfairly singles out motorcycles as a group. It appears as though the government is seriously attempting to make it financially near impossible for an average citizen to engage in motorcycling for transport or recreation (despite there being many many other risky recreational activities - in fact New Zealand is known worldwide as a mecca and centre for extreme (and risky/daring) sports and pursuits.

Motorcycles are a sensible choice - particularly for our citied that are becoming overcrowded, with congested roads and high pollution levels. Lower petrol use helps preserve this limited resource - and government incentives to use less energy, consider carbon emissions mean that motorcycles are the smart choice for a country that we want to world to perceive as clean and green. Would the minister prefer I (and others like me) drive my 3000cc, 8 seater people carrier to work in the heart of Auckland's CBD every day - with the ACC levy proposals - there will be every incentive to do so.

My understanding is that ACC was never designed as a user-pays insurance scheme - but a no-fault comprehensive system of cover and compensation for anyone who suffered an injury - regardless of what caused it.

Saying that each user of the scheme(ie victim of accident or crime) must pay in "fairness" to their groups "burden" on the system, seriously undermines the value of the scheme. Farming for example - a very high risk occupation, would attract levies that would probably put our farmers out of business. Sports and recreation - another very high user of the ACC system would also need to pay their way - as would cyclists, and every one of us as we age and become moe prone to accident and injury from smaller incidents.

It's hard to see the government managing gain support to charge for each of these areas - want to go snowboarding? how about bungy jumping? Zorb? Jet boating on the Shotover river? Here is your receipt - please note the 200% ACC levy. How would that serve our tourist industry. And what about a quick game of touch on the weekend - oops - please pay your ACC fees before stepping onto the playground.

Seems ridiculous? - Motorcyclists are the only "recreational" risk group where ACC charges are mandatory, and I assert that this group is the easy target for the ACC and government to attack. Who's next on the list I find myself asking?

It is also telling that none of the press releases or EXPENSIVE full page advertisement in premium newspapers around the country, in amongst tales of woe of how the ACC system is losing money, also tell of the $11 BILLION of reserves the ACC account has, or the fact that it took in more than $1 BILLION more last year than was paid out - or that investments of the ACC money we all pay manages to pay $700 MILLION back into government reserves this year.

I believe the current ACC campaign is poorly though out, and built on misleading statistics and highly emotive propaganda. In good faith I voted National in the last election. I am bitterly disappointed at how this government is treating us.

I hope that good sense will shine through, and that we will get to keep the scheme I have been so impressed with since I moved to New Zealand. I would hate to see the system destroyed by privatising it - and have those billions of dollars go not to you and I and other ordinary kiwis, but to line the pockets of multinational insurance companies.

Thank you for the time you have taken to read my submission. I would truly appreciate responses to some of the queries I had - maybe you could set me straight if my thoughts do not line up. Please do not insult my intelligence or individuality by sending me the same cookie cutter response - if the submission process truly does care about the opinions of the citizens of NZ, then surely my submission deserves an even slightly considered response.

Best Regards, with anticipation

[PhantasmNZ]

Well - ya know - those politician need a bit of bedtime reading eh?

LOL

[Conquiztador]

Local MP Chris Tremain and Craig Foss, their opposition, other local ones, ACC, a complaint re the paper adds of ACC to the Advertising Standard Authority and also Dominion Post and NZ Herald.

Have time this w/e to add a few to my list. Idea being to email all party leaders.