Here’s Rosenberg’s take on it:

ACC’s reserves are now above forecast by $739 million (5.4 percent), a further improvement over last month,” said CTU Economist and Policy Director Bill Rosenberg. “The strong performance of ACC’s investment portfolio shows that the Government’s claims of blowouts and financial mismanagement are completely inaccurate.

Yep, just what Kevin Hague and before him Sue Bradford have been saying all along as the Green ACC spokespeople.  The poor investment results last year were consequent on the global financial  crisis.  The financial markets are recovering, and so, therefore, is the value of ACC’s investments.

Rosenberg again:

ACC’s claim liabilities, above forecast largely because of changes in the assumed interest rate used to estimate it, are now just 0.6 percent ($166m), more than forecast, again an improvement over last month. These numbers are driven largely by constantly changing market valuations and by actuarial assumptions.

The main problem is the full funding of future claim payments which means ACC accounts will always be susceptible to large apparent variations which in reality may have little practical consequences for the ACC scheme.  A pay as you go scheme with a prudent level of reserves could be much more stable.

Hey, exactly what the Green Party has been saying too.  While it is tempting in a time of financial instability to move ACC completely to pay as you go and pull the entire $11 billion of ACC reserves to stimulate an economy in recession, to do so would not be a good look for the security of the ACC scheme.

But move away from the policy of fully pre-funding future entitlements on past claims, while maintaining some reserves to smooth the possibility of future levy increases to meet the cost of those entitlements, then levies can fall while entitlements to rehabilitation and compensation for injured people can be maintained.

This Bill is designed to prepare ACC for National’s and Act’s ultimate objective – the privatisation of accident compensation to foreign-owned insurance companies that have to make a profit for their foreign shareholders on the backs of New Zealanders’ injuries.

So get your submissions in before the end of play Thursday.  Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague has provided a helpful submission guide.

And you might want to have a look at these two videos.

Here’s new Green MP David Clendon, himself a longtime biker, addressing last week’s thousands strong protest outside Parliament:

And here’s Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague:

So get those submissions rolling in.

It is based on the false premise that the risk of injuries among any particular group of people should be borne by that group of people. That sort of logic would also have cyclists paying a levy, sports clubs paying a levy, and even pedestrians having to keep a log book to record every time they cross the road.  But no mention of those in the Government’s proposals – it would all be too difficult, I guess, so just target the bikers.

As the author of the ACC scheme Sir Owen Woodhouse reminded us last month, that isn’t how ACC is meant to run.  ACC is meant to be a no-fault scheme founded on the principle of community responsibility.

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.

The community responsibility principle recognises that even though a disproportionately high number of motor vehicle injuries involve motorcyclists, a significant proportion of those injuries are actually caused by someone other than the motorcyclist.

The community responsibility principle 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 used 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 levy increase for motorcycles does the opposite.

As for the advertisement itself,   there are two sentences at the end about the consultation process on ACC’s levy setting.  The rest of it continues a disturbing trend under the National-led Government of using public service funding – in this case your and my ACC levies – to promote Government political spin.