BRONZ BIKEOI ! Man up or bend over and spread them

[Mort]

Definitely needs to be a mass public protest . If that pisses some of the public off then so be it....but we do it responsibly. Yes, we involve the police.. but if they prevent the protest then we go with an agreed plan. Like said above ..."if we fuck this up (or let the police stop us) we're fucked. Nobody will ever roll back these levies.

• We need a single national co-ordinating point here. Bronz would seem to be the logical choice but is it National ??.
• We need a decision on dates and tactics. We must focus on a single date or series of dates. Our protest should be legal but definitely not lame or a once only event. We have to give every appearance of serious opposition to this change.
• We need Regional co-ordinators with local protest plans but co-ordinated on a national and synchronized scale.
• Each co-ordinator needs a press rep and a police rep. Maximum publicity. Every major city. Every TV channel as well as major and local news papers.
• We need input and support from MNZ and the bike trade. We also need to liaise with other groups like Ulysses.
• There should also be some KB shock-troops assigned to following that bastard Nick Smith around for a while.
• I also call upon the moderators of Kiwi Biker to bring some order to the chaos on this forum. Everyone feels like a voice in the crowd. We need to get organised. PLEASE set up a single locked down thread which we can focus upon... we dont need a thousand answers to every point we need a co-ordinating voice.
• We also need locked down threads for each regional area. Wellington, Auckland, ChCh etc.
  

If I can help in any way at all...I'm in.

[Clean_up]

Count me in! Im rather new to biking, but HELL those increases are INSANE!!!! Yeah faitr enough that the risk is higher for someone on a bike, but the way they are going about it is wrong...maybe something more along the lines of a "road user charge' for bikes, cause the more your on the road, the higher the risk??? Thoughts??

[carver]

once in Wellington, the Mormon Few could ride their bikes up the stairs and into parliament building, kind of what that farmer did a few years back over the 'fart tax' I think it was...

I am quite keen...
how far in could i get?

[JohnR]

im in, keep me in the loop

Hm. The impression I got was that there was a "master list". Surely the Whips must have some schedule to show where each pollie is? Surely they don't just let them roam around unleashed ? I mean, y' can't even let a dog do that.

Contacting 120 EAs and asking for a schedule, then collating it all could be a bit of a mission.

Hon Rick Barker may be able to help there. Does anyone know him well enough?

[Stan]

I'm pretty sure that any Labour MP would be only too happy to help out with information on where Nick Smith or John Key will be at any particular time.

The downside to asking them for help is that then the government can dismiss protesters as Labour Party activists.

[wisefxx]

+1 from aucks

dates and meetings places would be good. have to get time off work.

[Coldrider]

Hon Rick Barker may be able to help there. Does anyone know him well enough?

Yep, lives not far from me, but don't want to upstage StoneY do I,

[Ixion]

Hon Rick Barker may be able to help there. Does anyone know him well enough?

We are hopeful that he will be at the Wednesday night meeting. If so , we can ask him.

[AD345]

The Wednesday meeting promises to be interesting. With the way the Maori party and ACT are dancing around the mooted legislative changes to ACC (yes, not the Minister controlled levy rates).

We need to keep our focus on what we are trying to achieve here. This, as I understand it, is about the size of the rate increase as it pertains to motorcycles - thats ALL it is.

I'm not going to be party to, and will actively resist, any attempts to link these protests to ideological debates on the future of ACC. You can bet the last buck you have that the pollies we might involve will have no such limitations.If Barker gets enough personal mileage out of this that Hyde starts to sees us as a publicity outlet for his ACT lunacy bandwagon I will be watching BRONZ's response with a great deal of interest.

[Ixion]

I agree. Our bitch here is with the size of the levy increase.

Anything else is another matter for another time.

We just don't have the time to get into "what should ACC be " discussions. And , they would split us up. There is support amongst bikers for just about every possible arrangement. And no group will agree with the others.

But the thing we ALL (with maybe a couple of exceptions) agree on , is we don't want to pay these new levies.

As to Mr Barker, I imagine his interest is that we may help make National "uncomfortable". The general public perception is that motorcyclists are being unfairly sandbagged. Add that to Mr Smiths woes and National look like they're foundering. Which is good for Labour, hence Mr Barker supports us . That, and the fact that he rides a Rocket 3 .

Gotta keep our eye on the ball.

[Coldrider]

Rick Barker was a Union Organiser.
Nick Smith is stretching the sell, but is straight up about the numbers involved. In fact, I would deal with Nick Smith only.
I thought that the levies are implied by the ACC act, and that the Minister, via Order in Council, could change those levy values at his descretion.

[klingon]

Rick Barker was a Union Organiser.
Nick Smith is stretching the sell, but is straight up about the numbers involved. In fact, I would deal with Nick Smith only.
I thought that the levies are implied by the ACC act, and that the Minister, via Order in Council, could change those levy values at his descretion.

Yes, the Minister has the power to change the amount charged and does not require a change in the law to do so.

But the more pressure we can put on the Minister from all sorts of different angles, the better.

[Coldrider]

Yes, the Minister has the power to change the amount charged and does not require a change in the law to do so.

But the more pressure we can put on the Minister from all sorts of different angles, the better.

Exactly, so why is Nick Smith immersing these changes with the changes to the ACC Act that require to be changed?
Is this consensus open government operating?
Is he wanting the debate to happen?
Is he giving us a chance to express ourselves PC touchy feely world we live in?

[Ixion]

Rick Barker was a Union Organiser

So was I !

Nick Smith is stretching the sell, but is straight up about the numbers involved. In fact, I would deal with Nick Smith only.
...

He is, more or less. They're not quite the way he puts it, but our fuindamental problem is that ACC do have a valid point - we're costing them more than they collect. If that were not so, our task would be easy (in fact, we wouldn't have one)

So, from their point of view , the obvious answer is to collect more from us. Whether that's fair, or equitable, just doesn't come into it for them . It's a pure bean exercise.

Mr Smith however has a duty (well a moral one anyway) to consider issues of fairness, equity, and other stuff outside the pure accounting context.

Hence, our focus on the politicians.

But, it is still vital to get those submissions in to the ACC so they can't claim we don't care.

(The AA on the other hand are pure evil. They've been pushing this hard for some time, out of pure malice and malevolence . May they all rot in hell with syphilitic spiders sucking on their genitals, for all eternity)

[centaurus]

He is, more or less. They're not quite the way he puts it, but our fuindamental problem is that ACC do have a valid point - we're costing them more than they collect. If that were not so, our task would be easy (in fact, we wouldn't have one)

There is a problem here and I'm surprised nobody has brought it up (or at least I haven't seen anybody bringing it up).

On one hand ACC is supposed to be a "no fault finding" system (or whatever is the correct term) - basically an egalitarian system, so they don't bother calculating how much of the money payed to injured motorcycles is of their fault and how much is the car drivers' fault. However, on the other hand, when it comes to cars vs. motorcycles, they forget that it is an egalitarian system and split them apart, setting different levies for each.

If it is indeed an egalitarian system all road registered vehicles should pay the same amount. If not, they should see who causes the accidents that create the injuries they need to pay for and make that category of road users pay for them (in our case most for the bike accidents are caused by car drivers).

I think this should be added (in a better form than above) to the list of arguments against the ACC levy increase to the proposed ammount. This way (as it has been said above) we concentrate only on one subject to debate.