Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, April 30th, 2012 - 47 comments
Another secret taping, another political scandal. A recording of Pullar and Boag’s meeting with ACC by Pullar appears to show that Pullar did not “blackmail” ACC as alleged. This raises serious questions about how Pullar’s name got into the public arena. And why hasn’t Collins ordered ACC to correct its version of events since its had the transcript for weeks?
Written By: - Date published: 4:03 pm, March 31st, 2012 - 77 comments
The ever-growing list of letters, emails, and leaks in the National Party Civil War, that started off as an apparently apolitical privacy breach by ACC, is getting hard to follow. Here’s a summary of the various documents and their ramifications – so far.
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 pm, March 29th, 2012 - 153 comments
Close Up tonight led with the allegation, based on a leaked document, that John Key (and other prominent Nats) were listed as supporting a $14 million dollar insurance claim by Bronwyn Pullar.
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, March 29th, 2012 - 162 comments
You know that bookies sense when there is blood in the water and they’ll create contracts. I don’t gamble but the interesting contracts today in my mind are “Judith Collins to cease being a Minister before 1 June 2012″, “An ACC official ….to be found to have leaked Boag email”, “Beehive staffer to be found to have leaked Boag email”, etc. And a politician is definitely in trouble in NZ when they start talking about defamation 
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, March 29th, 2012 - 96 comments
Why did Collins print a copy of the Boag email? Who else saw it or was informed of its contents? If she didn’t give the information to Lusk or Slater, how did it get to the Herald? If they weren’t involved, why did they run hard on the Pullar issue with an anti-Boag angle from Day 1? Does Collins want us to believe ACC leaked to the Herald? How long does Collins thinks she can hold out?
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, March 28th, 2012 - 96 comments
ACC denies leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s name. It’s not credible that they would act so high risk and so politically. Boag and Pullar clearly didn’t leak it. So, that leaves Collins and her office. Collins denied leaking the email to the media … but leaves a fair bit of wiggle room, doesn’t it? The tipline is, as they say, running hot – and the name on everyone’s lips is Lusk. More soon.
Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, March 28th, 2012 - 48 comments
Judith Collins has twice told the Prime Minister that she didn’t leak Bronwyn Pullar’s information. But who else could have? The internecine fighting within National is heating up with Michelle Boag saying “When you can’t send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that the privacy of that communication is going to be breached, that’s very, very dangerous.” This is going to end badly for someone.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, March 26th, 2012 - 58 comments
It’s strange watching National’s factions fight it out in the media- the Herald on Sunday running the Collins/Slater faction stuff and the Dompost running material from Boag/Pullar. Both sides are scum. Pullar received (somehow) the largest leak in ACC and passed to the media. Collins has imitated her fellow ministers by leaking Pullar’s private details in revenge.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 77 comments
Nick Smith’s handpicked chair of ACC, John Judge, denies that ACC leaked Bronwyn Pullar’s name to the media after she made public the biggest leak of private data in history from the organisation. So, who did? Given the government’s track-record – Bennett vs the solo mums, Brownlee publicising Dalziel’s redzone offer – I’m betting it was Judith Collins.
Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, March 22nd, 2012 - 4 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
The demise of Nick Smith has been spectacular, but it is not an end to the ACC privacy story, and the story continues to develop by the hour.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 pm, March 21st, 2012 - 83 comments
Why did Key express confidence in Smith after reading the 2nd letter that is the supposed reason for him going? Why did he really resign, what are they trying to distract us from? How did it happen that the woman who Smith resigned over also is the person who got the largest ACC leak in history? What deal did Smith get to stay in Parliament avoiding a risky by-election?
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, March 21st, 2012 - 218 comments
Even 1 year ago, there would be no doubt what would happen next. He would have sacked Smith without hesitation. Has Key lost those instincts already?
Updates: won’t comment now but will this afternoon. Needs time to make some backroom deals so that skeletons stay in closets? Smith was been summoned to Wellington. Press conference at 1.45. And He’s gone. They’re trying to downplay the reasons. What a disgrace. Full video of Key offloading Nick Smith
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, March 20th, 2012 - 88 comments
Nick Smith, while Minister for ACC wrote a letter in support of the claims of, um, close personal contact Bronwyn Pullar last year after Pullar threatened to embarrass him and ACC. He says, this was in his personal capacity, even though it was on parliamentary ministerial letterhead. And what kind of coincidence is it that the largest accidental leak by ACC in history went to Pullar?
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, March 16th, 2012 - 16 comments
National has backed down from privatising ACC’s work account. To make it work, they were going to have to pump up ACC levies and make it pay a dividend to the Crown to make prices high enough for the private sector to compete. A sign of how weak the government is that they couldn’t push this through. Problem is, the same logic applies to asset sales.
Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, February 27th, 2012 - 35 comments
Government documents from last year reveal a plan to make ACC boost its levies and pay the government a dividend so that private insurers can compete. But that wasn’t enough. Now, the plan seems to be to exclude ACC from workplace injury insurance altogether. Private insurers just can’t offer cover as cheap as ACC can. So that Nats’ solution is to deny us access to ACC workplace cover.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, February 18th, 2012 - 127 comments
Private sector competition brings market disciplines and efficiencies to bloated publicly-owned monopolies. That’s the mantra, eh? That’s the indisputable truth… right? So, how come the Nats are planning to make ACC raise its levies and pay a dividend – for the first time ever – so that private insurers can compete? And how does that benefit NZ?
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, July 26th, 2011 - 152 comments
Just after Irish has discussed how little it takes to jump from the violent language of the NZ Right to the violent actions of Anders Breivik (and an ‘expert’ had said it can’t happen here), we learn of a rightwinger who planned a van-bomb attack on ACC. The striking thing is that his online rants are unremarkable within the Right’s discourse.
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, July 12th, 2011 - 14 comments
After coming to office, National cried ‘crisis at ACC’ as an excuse for raising levies, cutting cover, and privatisation. Suddenly, the ‘crisis’ has disappeared and good ol’ National is cutting your ACC levies, back to where they were before National raised them. Now, just forget who put them up in the first place, and tick the blue box in November.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, June 2nd, 2011 - 41 comments
National has announced plans to privatise ACC’s work account. Currently, they don’t have the numbers to get it through the House. ACT won’t vote for it because its not completely rabid and the Maori Party won’t vote for privatisation. So, this becomes another election issue: another bloody good reason to vote National out.
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, May 30th, 2011 - 84 comments
Labour’s Chris Hipkins has the inside word: On Wednesday this week, Nick Smith is going to announce what amounts to the effective privatisation of a large part of ACC. You won’t hear the word privatisation uttered from his lips, he’ll use all sorts of other words like ‘competition’ and ‘market discipline’, but privatisation it will be.
Written By: - Date published: 9:56 pm, December 21st, 2010 - 29 comments
‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the House,
Nats announced policies, they’re usually scared to espouse.
Journos on holiday, Key out of reach on his Hawaiian vacation,
It was the time to let slip, their plan for ACC privatisation.
Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, December 21st, 2010 - 37 comments
The disastrous experiment of competition for ACC from the 1990s is to be repeated. Businesses will be allowed to chose a private firm to cover their workplace injuries. Workers won’t get to choose their level of cover of course, they’re just the ones who get injured or killed – why should they have a say.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 8th, 2010 - 20 comments
The Government is planning to reduce ACC cover and portray it as a cost saving for levy-payers. You would get less income coverage when injured and have to endure a longer wait time of three weeks until your coverage would begin. Levies would be personalised on the private model. This is privatising ACC on bite at a time with no actual cost savings.
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, October 16th, 2010 - 42 comments
National is developing an agenda for privatisation. It’s crazy. State owned assets are generating some rare bright spots in an otherwise dismal sea of poor economic news. So why would any rational government sell ACC (or other state owned assets)? Why would any rational government be cutting back on the Cullen Fund? Why are the Nats determined to kill the golden geese?
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, May 11th, 2010 - 4 comments
A headline on Newsroom caught my eye a couple of days back: “Deficit Falls Further”. Good news, so, well done the Nats? Turns out no, not so much…
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, April 23rd, 2010 - 70 comments
National’s hysteria around ACC last year was focused on creating an air of crisis. Now they’re going to ‘do something’. That something is privatisation of ACC. It won’t work, it won’t save money. The costs of injuries will still exist. Privatisation will put more of that cost on the injured. Added ligation and profits will mean worse cover for more cost.
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, February 16th, 2010 - 4 comments
There’s a demo at Parliament today to protest against the Government’s ACC bill, which raises levies, cuts Kiwis’ entitlements and paves the way for privatisation. If you’re in the CBD make sure you head down in your lunch break.
MARCH AND RALLY FOR ACC
TODAY 16TH February
12.30pm – Parliament
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 5th, 2010 - 7 comments
The CTU is launching its “that’s gotta hurt” campaign against government cuts to ACC on the big screens at the Sevens today and the result is not what you’d expect from the normally rather earnest organisation. S
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, December 11th, 2009 - 78 comments
As expected, Nick Smith has imposed substantial ACC levy hikes on families. For a worker on $40,000 with a car, you’re looking at $150 more a year. I would say that would take a large bite out of most people’s tax cuts but the fact is most people didn’t get a tax cut from National. …
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, November 25th, 2009 - 13 comments
I was watching that vid by the Greens on ACC and bikoi. What caught my attention was the bikers’ chant: “who’s next, who’s next?” The Right loves to atomise us – make us think of ourselves only as individuals or narrow interest groups. Our reaction to the bikers getting hammered with these unecessary ACC hikes …
Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, November 23rd, 2009 - 10 comments
Good video from the Greens’ Kevin Hague. Gotta love the dirty mo:
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