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hopping along the corridors of power - a political blog from the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Recent Posts Tagged With 'acc'
ACC changes hurt sexual violence victims
The biker lobby has managed to get considerable public attention and support for motorcyclists’ grievances over ACC levies, but there is a group of more vulnerable people who cannot march in their thousands on Parliament grounds to defend their...
Levy hikes prelude to privatisation
Nick Smith has announced the ACC levy increases. They are somewhat less than initially flagged, but still a substantial hike. A person earning the average wage who owns one car will be paying an extra $178.50 in ACC levies next year. And most o...
ACC: Mirrors smashed and smoke dispersed
NZCTU economist Bill Rosenberg has debunked the supposed “financial crisis” facing ACC that Nick Smith is relying on to gut cover and entitlements to set it up for privatisation. Here’s Rosenberg’s take on it: ACC’s reserves are...
Faux savings from gutting ACC
Despite failing to get answers from Nick Smith, Kevin Hague has had some success in getting answers about ACC. Perhaps it is because he asked some questions of a Minister other than Nick Smith. Kevin asked Social Development Minister Paula Bennett ...
Nick Smith: I don’t know and I don’t care
Nick Smith’s proposal to go back to the 1999 policy of booting people off ACC weekly compensation if they can manage 30 hours a week in a minimum wage job is listed in the Explanatory Note to the ACC gutting Bill under the heading “Cost Containme...
A government at war with its own Treasury
In all the time I’ve been hopping around Parliament I’ve never heard a statement more extraordinary than this one: The numbers from Treasury are nonsense. Treasury can’t tell us what the deficit is going to be in December let alone what’s hap...
Who’s next? Bikers say no to ACC levy increases and privatisation
Thousands of bikers descended on Parliament today to protest levy the Government’s hike in motorcyclist levies, and their attack on ACC. New Green MP and lifetime biker David Clendon and new Green Party ACC Spokesperson Kevin Hague headed down ...
ACC protest videos – raw footage
The motorbikes are coming, and there are a lot of them! This photo was taken from quite a distance so the perspective makes it look like there are less people, but basically the entire of the area outside the beehive is covered in people. Click the...
Spinning it on ACC levies
The advertisement below appeared in the daily newspapers last week – pure spin designed to counter outrage among motorcyclists against the huge proposed increase in ACC motorcycle levies. It is based on the false premise that the risk of injuri...
Fancy that. Kiwis hate National’s ETS
It was no surprise to me to find this morning a new ShapeNZ poll shows Kiwis overwhelmingly reject National’s proposed changes to the ETS. Eighty-two percent of National voters believe emitters should pay for any emissions in excess of New Ze...
Gutting ACC – There is hope!
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...
Gutting ACC – National flies true colours
So National has now openly revealed its plans to privatise ACC – clearly, the Government has been softening the public up for this for a while. First we saw the deliberate distortion of ACC finances, then we saw National’s handpicked chair ta...
Gutting ACC – Employer disunity over ACC privatisation
Conflicting statements from business lobbyists reveal that there is no consensus amongst New Zealand business about the privatisation of ACC. Business New Zealand has issued a statement supporting foreign-owned insurance companies being able to com...
Gutting ACC – Sewer-side Smith
It won’t matter if a suicide victim was incapable of forming a rational intent. It won’t matter if the suicide was caused by an abject failure of mental health services to provide appropriate treatment. The victim's family will get no help from...
Gutting ACC – the secret agenda
Introduce a $50 or $100 excess on every ACC claim? Try selling that one to someone on the minimum wage! Go to your local A&E clinic to get your cut finger stitched and a quarter of your take home income disappears – even if the accident happ...
Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Sexual abuse claims
Survivors of sexual violence and their therapists are fighting back against the cuts to ACC cover and counseling. There are protests organised for this Monday 19th October:...
Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Hearing loss
The ACC scheme is a social contract. Before ACC came into being, New Zealanders were able to sue each other for personal injury. We gave up that right, in return for the no-fault, comprehensive cover scheme that is ACC. National wants to erode the...
Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Vocational independence
This is the first in a series of blog posts I’m doing to explain National’s plans to gut ACC and highlight how unfair they are. One of the proposed changes is to vocational independence assessments. These assessments are used by ACC to decide i...
Gutting ACC: What a shambles!
I’m planning to do a series of frogblog posts on National’s plans to gut ACC, highlighting the devastating impact of each of them on people who have been injured and their families. But before I even got to post the first one, ACC Minister Nick S...
