Now that didn’t take long. Well rehearsed from the 1990s, National has already started using the privileged position of government to conjure up bogeymen to get their unpopular privatisation agenda past the public. John Key called an urgent press conference yesterday to beat-up a $1b shortfall in ACC funding. ‘OMG, this ACC thing is out of control, Labour should have told me in the Prefu’, Key cried.
Auckland University economist and ACC expert Dr Susan St John couldn’t quite understand the rabid yelling “I’m totally surprised at the over the top extravagant language here, over what seems to be a reasonable minor matter”
But Key knows very well what he’s doing. He’s beating it up with a purpose. Of course Key knows only decisions approved by Cabinet can be included in the Prefu – and Cabinet couldn’t make a decision about a heated election issue like ACC in the election period. That’s Constitution 101. If Key didn’t know that himself, he had advisers to tell him.
The real reason behind the boy crying wolf is far more sinister. It was picked up by top ACC Lawyer, John Miller. “It seems too easy to suddenly come out with this, and I think it is a precursor for shaping it up for privatisation, saying look how appalling this is, we’ve got to get these insurance companies in”
Now, Key has ordered a Ministerial inquiry. It’s the same damn thing they did in the nineties. Using the power and privilege of government to smokescreen a secret agenda no one voted for.
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