by frog
There is hope!
Just today, ACC Minister Nick Smith partially backed down on ACC’s proposals for sexual abuse victims to have to be diagnosed by a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist as being mentally ill before they can get cover.
That has to be great news for everyone else affected by Dr Zachary Nick Smith’s planned gutting of ACC. Enough political pressure, and maybe we can keep some integrity and fairness in the scheme.
Bikers are already protesting against the unfair hike in their levies that totally abrogates the “community responsibility” principle of the ACC scheme set out by Sir Owen Woodhouse in his 1967 Royal Commission Report that led to the establishment of the ACC scheme.
Everything Nick Smith is planning goes against those principles – community responsibility, comprehensive entitlement, complete rehabilitation, real compensation, and administrative efficiency.
Sue Bradford, who has been the Green Party’s ACC spokesperson in Parliament for 10 years, is retiring at the end of this week. Another Green MP will take over from her in that role next month.
But until then, this frog (yes, poor me, sigh, seems that amphibians always get the hard jobs) will take up the struggle for the Greens against National’s plans to gut ACC.
The Bill to gut ACC was introduced into Parliament this afternoon. Submissions will soon be open – I’ll let you know the details of how to submit as soon as I know.
Given the response to the sexual abuse survivors’ protests, there is hope!
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management | Society & Culture by frog on Tue, October 27th, 2009
Tags: ACC, bikers. levies, Nick Smith, sexual abuse
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
This was on the news:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6394244/smith-defends-cuts-to -programme-aimed-at-elderly/
It would appear that Nick Smith is not interested in the human cost of pain or suffering, or the community cost in assisting those who have been injured by a fall. He may also have a problem grasping the notion of a long term benefit, probably because he always translates “benefit” as “payout”.
Good luck with your struggles on this one Frog – you’ll need it!
Trevor.
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National will relent on a couple of aspects of the proposed changes and graciously ‘gift’ special interest groups, like bikers and sexual abuse victims, with a partial reinstatement of their ‘entitlements’ and the public will see that they listen to the people and, as they did with the Herceptin issue, ‘give’ people what they want. What a very responsive and caring government they will be seen to be and that John Key, isn’t he nice !
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So if motorcyclists shouldn’t pay for the disproportionate share of the costs they impose by being high risk road users, who should?
Other motorists or non-motorists?
If someone wants to ride around protected by a helmet and clothing at 100km/h on the open road and take that risk, why should others bear it? You lobby against car users and the trucking sector about allegedly not paying their costs, but motorcyclists are special? Or is it just politics?
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The double standard green party logic has been detected in this thread.
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Isn’t it also interesting how the Green Cyclists don’t pay an ACC Levy yet all other road users do. Of course you need to remember the green party is only about making evil corporations pay their fair share.
“All animals are equal however some animals are more equal than others”
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If only life were that simple, Scott. But it’s not.
The community responsibility principle recognises that the various activities we undertake in society are all inter-related, and that benefit and harm flow on to others, rather than rest solely with the people undertaking those activities.
With the particular example of motorcycle use, the community responsibility principle recognises that even though a disproportionately high number of motor vehicle injuries involve motorcyclists, a substantial proportion of those injuries are actually caused by someone other than the motorcyclist.
It also recognises that increased use of motorcycles where practicable has environmental benefits if single occupant car usage is consequently reduced, since the greenhouse gas emissions generated by a motorcycles are significantly less than from cars and the fossil fuel use per kilometre of travel is significantly less for a motorcycle than a car.
From that perspective, the Green Party would want to encourage motorcycle use as opposed to car use – however, the Government’s proposed ACC levy increase for motorcycles does the opposite because it deals with injury risk in isolation.
Your approach would have pedestrians being required to keep a log book to record every time they cross the road and pay ACC levies according to their frequency of road use. See how ridiculous it gets!
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Perhaps Liberty, you’d prefer to have road insurances separated from ACC?
The problem I think, is that the injury happens to a person. It may happen due to risk taking behaviour, but it is the “setting right” that counts. We currently do a decent job of “setting right”. We also have somewhat more risk-taking than I am used to seeing.
Setting an economic penalty for risk-taking seems reasonable. Not at all sure this needs to be (or not to be) associated with ACC.
BJ
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