Protests - tell public why it affects them
Some great ideas on non-disruptive protest going round. We need to learn from truckers and not piss people off or they won't listen. And in this instance they will fight on our side - for their own interest - because they are getting screwed too - once they know that.
There is more than enough reason for the public to join us in our protest, on their own behalf.
IF we don't give them reason to just keep thinking about us, for good or ill.
Stop allowing us to be the decoy.
Point out that we have been, and that we are now looking at how it is affecting our (and their) car levies and work levies.
That we don't want our family silver built up just to be sold on/privatised. That ACC is making a profit and has plenty in the bank. That higher levies are NOT inevitable, they ARE unnecessary.
That treatment should continue to be available, and it is rorts that need to be cleaned up, not treatments withdrawn or made more inaccessible and complicated, increasing costs while reducing service.
The BIKOI 09 protest was probably the most peaceful large protest Parliament has ever seen. Zero accidents, zero arrests. Impressive for any gathering that size. People saying bullsh*t to a use of figures that would make 'lies, damn lies and statistics' blush was both understandable and I suspect more polite than your average response in a Parliamentary session.
As the media picked up, you cannot expect people who are informed to silently accept the Minister's selective use of accident figures - he was conveniently overlooking that the number of motorcycles has nearly doubled over ten years and the increase in total accidents is minimal, the decrease per vehicle substantial.
The Minister had that point discussed in the meeting and choose to again selectively just say from a particular year (a year when motorcycles were down to about their lowest level of use) accidents had increased - had he used a year in the 1970s or 1980s he could have said how impressed he was with the decrease in accidents instead!
More impressive, one must assume many of the nearly doubled number of motorcycles on the road are either less experienced or returning riders - if we increase training and education for ALL road users, including stopping the "I didn't see you (because I didn't look)" incidents that happen too often causing injury to motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians and other cars, we can decrease demands on our ACC system, and more importantly save people suffering trauma.
It is hard to convince those who look at the figures that ACC is unsustainable. Saying it does not make it so.
Yours and my car levies will have increased an average of about 50% a year over three years, plus whatever increase they settle on for my motorcycle.
Our work levies will increase hundreds of dollars a year, silently siphoned from our pay.
Why?
To add to the surplus ACC is taking in EVERY year - last year it took in $4.1b in levies and paid out only $3.1billion in claims and its own running costs. That's a billion dollars spare to bank. Would that you or I had that sort of problem!!
To add to the $11billion ACC has in the bank/investments. Do any of us agree with the guesstimates that say it is in deficit because of actuarial smoke and mirrors? Having 3x what you spend each year as reserves is a pretty solid position. Especially if you invest in injury prevention to reduce future costs.
Why would you need to build up the family silver in the bank, and come up with estimates that pretend to a deficit? Is it intended to sell the ACC silver at a discount?
Policy 101 - what impacts will these proposals have on other areas?
1. Preventing people from accessing effective treatment slows recovery and return as far as possible to productive, healthy lives (and often in the long term costs more for treatment). This costs people, and the economy.
2. How much does it cost (or save per year if you can delay the need for it) for roading measures to increase congestion? On this measure alone, the proposed ACC changes will cost the Government and taxpayer far more than they would take in.
3. This also doesn't allow for the likely effect that fewer vehicles will be registered - people with classic bikes will trailer them places rather than pay a year's levy to go to one or two collectors meets! People with more vehicles are likely to give up owning/registering many in disgust at paying such high costs when they can only be in or on one vehicle at a time.
I currently pay 2.5 times a car levy, as like the majority of motorcyclists I have a car and a motorcycle (many have more, but let's not confuse things here). Yet ACC have the gall to use my levy money to take out full page newspaper ads trying to say I'm not paying my way!!!
The ACC ad suggests that owners of bigger or expensive cars should start looking over their shoulder too... if we can pay more for ACC on a bigger bike because some of them cost that much to insure ($750 for a $15,000 motorcycle according to ACC) then what will they look to cars to pay in time?
We should:
- return ACC to "pay as you go" with a maximum of around three times annual operating costs in reserves as a buffer.
- ensure people can continue to access treatment to return to healthy and productive lives.
- clean up any rorts, but don't break the system and stop these enormous increases in our levies.
- classify and charge all private motor vehicles the same - motorcyclists typically pay at least twice anyway as almost all have cars and they can't use both vehicles at once!
Look where you want to be, as far ahead as you can see and always enjoy the ride.
Originally Posted by Gubb
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