National opens ACC to private sector

[Brian d marge]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rGMpSc0j4





Stephen

[Oscar]

Dont apologies mate, its all about debate.

You say I have nothing and I accept that, at 10.55pm I have nothing other than a desire to rant about what I see as the death of our ACC system throuh privatisation.

I am, as you rightly say, passionate about it and I have, as you say, experinece in it.

My passion is through my experinece of government run services that have drastically deteriaoted when they have been privatised. The UK for instance, has suffered terribly over the years with competing companies bidding for healthcare contracts.

The lowest bid is accepted, the service ends up being desacrated and the loser in all of this is the end user. The same happened there with rail, rubbish collections, even prisoner transfer (those of us who were in the UK when Chubb were awarded the prison transfer contract and lost 20 prisoners in their first week. L O fucking L)

So, to this amazing and great country. Ok, I am not an expert on the history of NZ politics but I am a paid up voter and I love this country to bits. The ACC system as prescribed by Woodhouse is world leading. However, this government has decided that it is skint (when we know it is cash rich, the figures are out there and I am sure, as a biker, you would have read them in teh various threads) and that it needs reform.

So, open it up to competition and all of a sudden we have Australian Insurance companies knocking on the door wanting a piece of it. Mr Key has made it well known that he wants stonger commercial ties across the ditch and what a better way to do it.

Now, as an OSH inspector, I will watch the demise of standards as companies realise that cheaper insurance levies driven by these companies will mean diluting safe work practices. Compliance, in all its forms, costs and it is a non recoverable overhead.

What do you do? Easy, you cut corners and eventually some poor bastard who has turned up to do a days work gets hurt.

A claim is made, all manner of excuses given not to pay out and who suffers? The fucking worker does. The insurance company still has its premiums but the worler loses out.

And we pick up the pieces

ACC is unique to New Zealand. This government wants to open it up for privatisation based on the notion that ACC is skint. That is incorrect although I do noy have the facts to hand so will understand you not taking heed of that statement.

However, take heed that the government is lying, the distruction of ACC can be seen as an attack on the fabric of NZ society and people, including me, are pissed off with it.

I would sooner the money is spent sorting out those that abuse the system, now that I would support.

In my lifetime I hope and pray that I can make enough noise so that my dear son can enjoy this country for what it is, earn his keep and enjoy it with his family rather than pay it into the coffers of those that dont give a shit.



Enter

But this isn't the UK, and the fundamental tenets of ACC are not being challenged. Notwithstanding that, as I said to the previous poster NZ had an optional privatised system (such as is being proposed now), a few years back. So based on the actual facts - how did this change workplace safety?

As for the private system: firstly it's optional - the ACC would still exist. Secondly, if an employer has a bad record - their premiums go up and ACC/OSH inspectors are on yer arse.

[Oscar]

This has a lot to do with the fat cats on the BRT wanting to get their fat greedy hands on the ten billion dollars worth of ACC assets and SFA to do with workplace safety.

The people of NZ are just being ass fucked and are being told its in their best interest. Sorry about the language but its how I feel.

ACC assets being privatised?
Congratulations, that is the biggest piece of propaganda shite posted tonight.
You are special.

[Flip]

But this isn't the UK, and the fundamental tenets of ACC are not being challenged. Notwithstanding that, as I said to the previous poster NZ had an optional privatised system (such as is being proposed now), a few years back. So based on the actual facts - how did this change workplace safety?

As for the private system: firstly it's optional - the ACC would still exist. Secondly, if an employer has a bad record - their premiums go up and ACC/OSH inspectors are on yer arse.

Because in the near future ACC won't have to cover the liabilities and won't need 10 billion worth of assets, then there will be an asset sale. You won't know that it is happening just that the Nats have had a fire sale and most of the money from your bike rego has been sold to some one from the BRT.

[Oscar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rGMpSc0j4





Stephen

The Govt. has announced something and allowed almost a year for discussion and a general election before finalising things.

Please explain how that makes the NZ people sheep?
One of the reasons the left was kicked out of Govt. was that sort of paternalistic arrogance.

[Flip]

ACC assets being privatised?
Congratulations, that is the biggest piece of propaganda shite posted tonight.
You are special.

And I doubt you were around when National sold the assets that were owned by the national super at the time to pay for the think big projects.

Been there before.

[Oscar]

Because in the near future ACC won't have to cover the liabilities and won't need 10 billion worth of assets, then there will be an asset sale. You won't know that it is happening just that the Nats have had a fire sale and most of the money from your bike rego has been sold to some one from the BRT.

OK, I apologise.
I said your earlier post was the biggest piece of propoganda shit posted, but this one really is better. Could you explain how the Gummint sells my rego money to the BRT?

[Oscar]

And I doubt you were around when National sold the assets that were owned by the national super at the time to pay for the think big projects.

Been there before.

I was around, and I think my memory is somewhat better than yours.
It was the 1984 Labour Govt. that sold most of the assets (Railway, Power Generation etc).

[Buyasta]

One of the reasons the left was kicked out of Govt. was that sort of paternalistic arrogance.

If you look at the switches between which party wins in pretty much any democratic country that has two main parties, it begins to appear that the actual policies and actions of a government have absolutely nothing to do with how people vote.

Between the tendency to look back on the past through rose coloured glasses, and the fact that any government makes many unpopular decisions, by the end of the first term of a party being in power they've lost a fair bit of support, although they generally seem to hold onto power for another term.
At each new election, large number of voters will switch to the other main party not currently in power, as by this point they've forgotten most of the crap that party did when they were last in power and have decided that they'll probably do a better job than the current party. Rinse, repeat ad infinitum.

Admittedly this is based entirely on my poor memory, a fairly short lifespan thus far, and analysis of only NZ and the US, so it's entirely possible (indeed, probable) that I'm entirely wrong, but this is definitely the way it has always appeared to me.

[Berries]

having a baby??? try 100 000 yen and if its in the weekend , tack on a 20 or 30 000 on top of that oh and want epidural ?? tack on another 70 000

At current exchange rates that's about $20.

[Brian d marge]

NZ had an optional privatised system (such as is being proposed now), a few years back. So based on the actual facts - how did this change workplace safety?

Oh, and what has having a baby to do with ACC?

Ok

believe what ever you want to believe , but dont complain when it goes sour ,

work place safety , ...well my old mum is the lawyer for the Meat workers union ( or summink like that )

Try blunt knives, ,or here in the shunting yards ( in fact as i trawl through my records , I will continually add to this ,,,

According to the New Zealand Herald there were 32 railway workers killed in the 20 years before the inquiry, of those 16 occurred in the seven years after privatisation.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/meat...ations-3581962


Sorry Just thinking about this I could give lots of anecdotal evidence , but you want to see a trend and unfortunately ( as of this moment ) all I the data I have is under a labour government

http://www.socialreport.msd.govt.nz/...ry-claims.html


I will see if I have any data for the last national government

Here up to 2002 and about a 20 % ( 140 claim per 1000 in 2001 as far back as I can find, 143 for 2002 , and 117 in 2010 after a few years of the nanny state thats a good 20 % drop straight after a Jenny Shipely led business orientated government )
http://www.socialreport.msd.govt.nz/...aid-work.shtml


Stephen

oh as for babies , While some may say it was an accident, Im sure you can make the link to what a health insurance scheme looks like ( no its not ACC but its what will happen when a private health company get its way ...ie SOME forms of injury will not be paid out , 6% hearing loss??? anyone )

[motor_mayhem]

Yeah, the Govt. is sneaking the new policy through with an 11 month wait, after a general election. Sneaky bastards, no one's gonna notice that



You bet the service was half?
Insurance works on averages?
Averages get skewed by outlyers?

So far damn near everyone opposing this change on this thread has just made shit up to support their crackpot theory....

True I don't know about the quality of services but if you don't understand how averages and probability work you should probably excuse yourself from any insurance conversation.
Here's a pretty decent explanation - http://health.howstuffworks.com/medi...-insurance.htm
The keystone of it being = "Insurance is a bit like a gamble between you and the insurance company. The company bets that they'll take in more money in premiums than they have to pay out in benefits, whether it's for health insurance, auto insurance, life insurance or homeowners insurance. You're paying a premium every month just in case something happens." The premium you will pay will be a share of the total cost of claims from the clients over a time period plus the company's profit margin.

[Brian d marge]

The Govt. has announced something and allowed almost a year for discussion and a general election before finalising things.

Please explain how that makes the NZ people sheep?
One of the reasons the left was kicked out of Govt. was that sort of paternalistic arrogance.

see your own comment ( yes they openly stated way back in the Nineties, what they intended to do , and they are doing it ,,,,

Rego any one? , cost of heating your home? , snip

from the energy bill second reading
The ministerial review as set up identified that the increase in prices for residential consumers over the last decade was a matter of particular concern. Everyone knows that in the 8 years prior to 2009 electricity prices for residential consumers rose by some 73 percent, or three times the rate of inflation. The review identified insufficient competition—particularly at the retail level, and particularly in the South Island—as key reasons for an undue increase in those retail margins for residential customers.

Student loans .... or even this....

snip

In the year to June 2009, 15 percent of the population was living below the 60 percent threshold, down from 18 percent in 2007. The proportion of the population with low incomes rose sharply from 1990, reached a peak in the mid-1990s and has generally declined since then. In 2009, the proportion was still a little above the average level in the 1980s.
The increase in the proportion of the population with low incomes in the early-1990s is attributable to declining household incomes arising from high rates of unemployment and reduced levels of social assistance. The improvement since the mid-1990s reflects more robust economic (and income) growth, the steady decline in unemployment, the increase in housing assistance and the increase in tax credits for families with children. Rates remain a little higher in 2009 than they were in the 1980s partly because, for many groups, housing costs for low-income households have risen significantly as a proportion of their household incomes.


now the 4th labour government that as you say introduced all of this were comprised and or supported by members of the business round table , Gibbs Kerr and Douglas ,,, hardly fair to call those lot for the people or labour and that the chair man? of the IMF was at one time a labour man ( Mike Moore .I cant quite remember )

and when borrowing from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structu...stment_Program ( notice about the deregulation and privatization??)

So get past this National /labour thing , its where we borrow the money from ( cheap money , nothing to do with labour again , as quite a few other countries did the same thing ,,,Ireland )
Stephen

btw im providing a lot of evidence,,, no seems to be forthcoming from others?

[slofox]

ACC has been partially privatised before. I remember it well and fondly when I was self-employed in the 1990s. My "ACC levies" were considerably lower prior to a Labour gummint nationalising everything again.

I was self employed and an employer last time ACC was privatized - and when it was re-nationalized.

BOTH changes cost me more - more when it was privatized and more when it was changed back. Levies rose with both changes...funny that.

[NONONO]

I was around, and I think my memory is somewhat better than yours.
It was the 1984 Labour Govt. that sold most of the assets (Railway, Power Generation etc).

Jeez....I'm sure that had SOMETHING to do with the fact that a certain drunken arrogant buffoon had left the cupboards bare.
FFS Mr Oscar, you ask for facts (sorry you demand that we give them to you) and when we do you simply ignore them as they don't fit your narrow little neo liberal view point.
Please piss off back to Nat HQ..I can almost smell the uranium on your breath from here.......

"It's been tried once before, in 1999, when the ACC was privatised in relation to work-related claims...in the time that [ACC was privatised] there was a great amount of competition between insurance companies to buy business. We saw what happened in Australia when the same sort of thing happened. In the early 1980s, there were two insurance companies...which were competing heavily for worker’s compensation premiums. They cut their premiums and they got into competition with each other until eventually they both went broke, and left the Victorian state government to pick up the pieces.”

Don Rennie, ACC Committee, NZ Law Society, TVNZ Breakfast,

[B]All this talk of liabilities being blown out is complete nonsense. It's ill-founded and smacks of scare-mongering, which, given the current economic picture is the last thing people need to be told. ...on paper the losses have ballooned when in reality there's nothing wrong with it.”

Jonathan Eriksen, Managing Director, Eriksen & Associates (international actuarial and strategic investment consultancy),/B]

“For the Government to wrap legitimate concerns about slippage in ACC's performance in a whole lot of shrill scaremongering and scapegoating is gratuitous. …ACC is a civilised and cost-effective approach to dealing with the injured. Why undermine confidence in the scheme, unless you plan to undermine the scheme itself?”

Brian Fallow, Economics Editor, NZ Herald

For those of us interested in letting the current bunch of bastards (Labor or Nat) know that we don't agree with Mr Oscar and who are sick of constant attacks on our way of life...NZ Riders Are Voters.....
http://www.nzrav.org/
See you there.