Of course, we know that they’re not interested in the findings of any fair review, which would show ACC is a worldleading, cheap, efficient system that would be wrecked by privatisation.

SP just in case you want to take up the challenge, feel free to explain how you reach these conclusions. I agree that ACC is a world-leading system. It is possibly efficient, in that it delivers universal cover in a no-fault scheme, which makes it unique. Claiming opening up the Work Account to competition would “wreck” the ACC scheme is even more tenuous. The Work Account constitutes 15% of ACC claims, and about 10% of ACC liabilities. It is a relatively small part of the ACC system.

Claiming that the non-work accounts are “cheap” is just nonsense. They have only historically been cheap through an archaic pay-as-you-go funding system, which isn’t cheap at all. It just transfers the cost of injuries onto future generations. It is as fiscally responsible as Rob Muldoon’s superannuation scheme: promise coverage now, pay for it later. The whole idea behind the Cullen Fund was to pay the future retirement cost for current employees now, rather than pass their future superannuation costs onto future taxpayers. If it is good enough for superannuitants to pay the full cost of their super entitlements when they are able to fund them (i.e., working), then it’s good enough for current levy-payers to pay the future cost of their injuries while they are able to pay levies.

The reality is that the current entitlement regime for ACC, in a fully-funded accounting model, is not cheap at all. It’s very, very expensive. Which is why we’re looking at levy rates ballooning from 1.4 cents in the dollar to 2.2 cents, just in the next three years. That isn’t a cheap system. It’s a gold-plated system, which many would argue that our present economy just can’t afford.

Let’s have a proper debate about the true costs of ACC, not just in the Work Account (which is the only account that works in a competitive insurance model), but also whether in a fully-funded system New Zealanders are prepared to pay for the gold-plated entitlements regime that are currently specified within the ACC system. It simply isn’t good enough to promise more entitlements while passing the funding of those entitlements onto future levy-payers.