This current National-led Government doesn’t even have the cojones of the last. Faced with what Nick Smith says is an unaffordable $9 billion hike in ACC liabilities, what’s being proposed is not privatisation – these timid puppies would sooner neuter themselves than show balls like that – it’s not putting an end to or even limiting the nonsensical “no-fault” scheme on which ACC is based – too big a football, that one, for these bozos to kick -- and it’s not even as simple as what the last National-led Government did: to free up competition in the accident insurance market, a move that in the all-too-brief time it lasted saved businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So if Rod Oram’s right (which would be a first) that Nick Smith is simply lying about the numbers here, then the whispers that ACC levies, petrol prices & car rego prices are going to be hiked to the moon to cover them can be seen as just a move by the Blue Team to raise taxes by stealth.
Remember taxes? Those things they once promised to cut? They never meant it, did they – just as they’re not being up front here.
Either ACC is stuffed, as Nick Smith says, in which case the whole system needs to be seriously re-jigged. Or it’s simply a ruse, as Rod Oram says, to allow these pricks to put their hand even deeper into your pocket. 
Which means they either lack courage, or they’re short on honesty.
And which ever it is, they’re now going to pick your pocket: and it’s this lying cheat that’s going to do it for them:
Think about him every time you fill up your car.
12 comments:
$750 to register the motorcycle!
Incredible.
That's going to really work out. For a start many people won't bother to do it. For a follow up several presently viable businesses will go belly up.
Don't worry. Bill still has your housing allowance.
LGM
The obvious answer is to make the employer account competitive and the motor vehicle one as well, so you'd pay according to your personal risk, not the average risk of motorcyclists or car drivers etc.
However, that goes against the socialist principle of from each according to their bank balance and to each according to their incompetence.
Libertyscott
No. You are wrong. The OBVIOUS answer is to eliminate the entire boondoggle altogether.
There is no valid reason for the government to interfere in the market by forcing people to purchase the services of ANY service provider whatsoever. That includes purchasing the services of insurance companies.
Let each person assess his or her own risks and decide what to do about them. It is, after all, that person's risk, their money, their life and none of your business...
Get the hell out of the way!
LGM
Well I would return the right to sue as well after that.
However, you cannot allow people to sue for accidents before that date, as ACC took money off people as "insurance" when they knew they would not be sued (and likely could not afford to pay twice for insurance), so there is a need to back cover what ACC was meant to deal with.
No. You are wrong. The OBVIOUS answer is to eliminate the entire boondoggle altogether.
LGM is just right. This is the absolutely obvious thing to do.
you cannot allow people to sue for accidents before that date, as ACC took money off people as "insurance"... back cover
Cannot? Back cover? You mean all those shit liabilities for bludgers who will get full salaries for 45 years when they dropped a brick on their foot on a building site when they were 20?
We should just stop ACC. Overnight. Stop all payments, stop all employer taxes at least. In spite of it's name, the ACC is just another tax - there is no reason to stop paying for things that are paid for by taxes!! for fuck's sake, or else you'd say we couldn't cancel the dole and the Labour Party Hospitals and Schools because its not fair to people who've paid taxes WTF??? The ACC taxes (like the general taxes) were never ever enough to fund all this!! So we just stop they payments, and then stop the taxes when we've paid back all the money.
As for liability: well we could bring back the right to sue? But why? It benefits the non-productive much more than the productive - the resulting lawsuits are just another way in which society (aka "the Labour Party") taxes those who create wealth - because, duh, it's only useful to sue those with wealth and property to "steal via lawsuits"!!
This approach emphasizes personal responsibility to avoid accidents and to look after yourself and your family - not to try to shift the blame onto wealth creators via lawsuits.
So the answer is:
- stop ACC. overnight.
- retain the "no fault" regime
- people can choose insurance or not, its up to them.
There's a great paper from Roger Kerr about this done 10 years ago.
Anonymous:
OK, so imagine you had a car accident a year ago that was someone else's fault that left you paralysed, unable to continue your job. You were forced to pay ACC levies because you own a car, and denied the right to sue the fool who ran into you. Who compensates you for that? You had money taken off you, reducing your capacity to insure and you are legally barred from suing the person to blame.
You can stereotype everyone on ACC as much as you like, but there are people who were injured because others were foolish, and those people should be have the right to recompense from the person who caused the damage.
ACC is a deal - a very bad one - but a deal. It abolished tort law for personal injury by accident in exchange for socialised no fault compensation.
I can sue someone who negligently runs into my house and damages it (or indeed my insurance company can), I can sue someone who makes me sick, but I can't sue someone who negligently injures me. Why not? It isn't my fault if a drunk idiot crosses my side of the road and runs into me, why shouldn't the drunk idiot be made to pay, or his insurer. If he can't afford it, then he has to pay a portion of his income to my insurer until he's paid off the debt.
It doesn't avoid personal responsibility. It means most people would insure themselves against injury or injuring others, and those with the highest risk pay the most. Road owners might even ban people driving who aren't insured.
Meanwhile, you could abolish health and safety laws because employers would be under a responsibility to manage risks to customers, employees and bystanders. They would weigh up risks vs profit opportunity, and insure appropriately.
All common law countries have the right to sue, if applied objectively it is not a welfare scheme.
One of the biggest points of resistance I come up against when promoting libertarian ideas to friends is "but we don't want to end up like the USA with people suing for spilling hot coffee on themselves, or having to put ridiculous warning labels on everything". It's a question I've not been able to answer, and I feel it is a weakness in my understanding of the application of libertarian ideas.
Given that I'm largely in favour of the right to sue, but against the situation described above, what would work to avoid that situation?
@Greig: Two words: tort reform.
Ah, of course. I should have been thinking of the principles of objective law. The only fault can be that of the entity infringing the rights of the aggrieved, and the law needs to recognise this. I didn't pay to read the rest of the article, or subscribe, but I guess that's where it was heading?
Thank you.
From Stuff:
"Asked who was going to support the changes to ACC legislation Dr Smith today told Parliament he was "having discussions with a number of parties".
Cabinet have approved the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill, but National will need support of either the Maori or ACT parties to pass it.
National hold 58 seats in the 122-seat Parliament. Maori and ACT each hold five.
Dr Smith said it was important to pass the legislation, and fast.
Ad Feedback The Government wanted to enact the changes early next year.
ACT leader Rodney Hide said his party was "always keen to help".
However, ACT would not just give the legislation a "rubber stamp" but work through it, then negotiate with National, he said.
ACT's policy supports privatisation of ACC's services."
Good to hear that the leader of a party whose firm policy on ACC for years has been for privatisation, is "keen to help" when these arseholes want to do anything but the obvious privatisation solution to fix the problem. Well done Act.
Frankly if ACT can't at least demand the Nats open the employer account to competition - like they did before they got voted out in 1999 - then ACT will have shown complete uselessness of this issue as well.
ACT knows no privatisation during this term, but should also demand competition for the motor vehicle account as well. Competitive delivery in effect partially privatises the system anyway.
Libertyscott
You are right. The ability to sue would have to be recognised. That ability would necessarily be limited to seek to make the victim whole (or progress as far as possible towards that goal). The notion of punative damages would not be recognised, nor would such payments ever be awarded.
You write, "..so imagine you had a car accident a year ago that was someone else's fault that left you paralysed, unable to continue your job."
Why were you not comprehensively insured? Sure, the other guy may have been at fault more than you were, but you must accept some responsibility for the accident. It is extremely, vanishingly rare that one party is truly 100% responsible.
Remember, you take a risk by venturing out onto the road. That is a calculated risk that you voluntarily decide to take. A lack of insurance is also a calculated risk that you voluntarily decide to take. Similarly, having complete insurance cover is a voluntary decision that you decide on prior to taking the risk. That's all a matter of your choice and you get to enjoy the consequences, which is as things should be!
ACC is not and never has been "insurance". It is a taxed welfare Ponzi which has never worked as its propagandists asserted and never will work. Decades of failure should have demonstrated that fact to even the most dim witted.
As far as present recipients of benefits of the ACC scheme are concerned, their existence does nothing to validate the practice of expropriating money by coercive means from any other individual. Such expropriations should cease.
-----
Now for those of you whiners who'll start raving on about how people will suffer, consider that there is nothing stopping you from paying your money (or a portion thereof) to deserving cases. Why not be charitable with YOUR resources instead of with anyone else's?
LGM
Post a Comment