Posts Tagged ‘ACC’

Collins under fire

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, April 16th, 2014 - 115 comments

Judith Collins, once one of National’s most assured performers, is facing increasing pressure.  Her handling of the ACC privacy release form scandal is under scrutiny.  And the release of a letter from Oravida to the Government asking for help in handling reputational risk focusses even more attention on the “private dinner” and the identity of the mysterious Chinese Government Official.

Is it always better late than never?

Written By: - Date published: 6:26 pm, January 29th, 2014 - 18 comments

Minister of Labour Simon Bridges today said he welcomed the Review of Forestry Safety and that he has asked Worksafe NZ to review the Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) into the forestry sector to “clarify them”. Chris Finlayson was the Minister when the current regulations (ACOP) were signed off new in December 2012.  He said […]

Russian roulette with Collins

Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 27th, 2012 - 14 comments

“Ms Collins strenuously denies hints by opposition parties that her office was involved in leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s information to the media. She says only herself, one staff member, chairman John Judge and ACC’s chief executive had the information”. Hmm. 4 people, at least 1 head to roll. Not hard to see where this going. Playing Russian roulette with Collins is where she pulls the trigger but aims the gun at you.

ImperatorFish: Nick Smith Must Go

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 20th, 2012 - 56 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

Bye Dr Nick!

Killing the golden geese

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, October 16th, 2010 - 45 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?

NACTs leave ethical investment to ‘the market’

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, August 5th, 2010 - 38 comments

Last night National and ACT voted down Grant Robertson’s ethical investment bill on the basis that “the market” would somehow solve the problem.

You can imagine what these people would have said about slavery at the time of the Civil War.

Labour stands up for ACC

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 24th, 2009 - 14 comments

So – Labour have stood up for ACC. Bravo! History repeats. In the last year of the last National government (1999) they flogged off the profitable parts of ACC cover to their mates in the insurance industry (“opened ACC to competition”). The incoming Labour government reversed those changes and re-instated ACC as the sole provider […]

Protests against cuts to sexual abuse cover

Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, October 18th, 2009 - Comments Off on Protests against cuts to sexual abuse cover

[Pulling the following comment from Toad in Open Mike up to the front page.] If you are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin tomorrow, please try to find the time to support the protests against ACC’s proposed cuts to sexual abuse cover and therapy. There are protests organised for this Monday 19th October: AUCKLAND: Meet […]

Abandoning a winner

Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, July 3rd, 2009 - 12 comments

Government’s put out this press release: “Finance Minister Bill English has welcomed news that the Budget operating deficit of $7.2 billion for the 11 months to May 31 is lower than the forecast $8.4 billion… Most of the $1.2 billion variance was due to higher-than-forecast investment gains by the NZ Superannuation Fund and ACC” Yup, […]

Anyone else get the feeling…?

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, April 1st, 2009 - 1 comment

Gustafson on National’s strategy

Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, March 23rd, 2009 - 7 comments

Not many people know more about the National Party than Barry Gustafson, so I found it interesting to read his take on the Nats’ ‘softening up’ strategy in the Sunday Star Times [offline*]: A new govenment tries to “discredit things that you know you are going to change or try to change in the future. […]

Out of her depth

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 20th, 2009 - 41 comments

Paula Bennett’s performance on Morning Report today didn’t just bring home how completely out of her depth she is as a Minister, it also exposed the limits of National’s strategy of government-by-PR. If you haven’t heard the interview yet, download it now. You won’t be disappointed. What’s clearly happened here is Bennett was sent into […]

Between the lines: Nats’ work rights policy

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, July 24th, 2008 - 87 comments

You know you’re in for a treat when a political party’s ‘policy’ (I still refuse to consider half a dozen bullet points a policy) concerning the rights of New Zealanders at work the place most of us spend a good part of our days nearly avoids any mention of the word ‘rights’. On its surface, […]

Nats unable to justify ACC policy

Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, July 18th, 2008 - 46 comments

Unlike some of our counterparts, the Standardistas aren’t into vanity posts. So, in this clip from TVNZ7’s Back Benches on Wednesday, ignore who’s asking the question and watch National’s Chris Tremain try to justify his party’s ACC policy. Reaches for his cliches but they don’t fit the question so he resorts to attacking the question. […]

Nats’ ACC policy all about ideology

Written By: - Date published: 6:23 am, July 18th, 2008 - 13 comments

National’s ACC privatisation policy is another of its one page wonders (this time with three page backgrounder skimming the history of ACC and restating the policy in longer sentences with no more detail). In the policy documents and in the interviews by National and its allies, no evidence has been provided that privatised ACC will […]

Not ready for prime time

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, July 17th, 2008 - 28 comments

John Key tries to reassure us that National’s policy to privatise ACC would keep the scheme’s principles intact. Here’s how he defined those principles on Radio Live: ‘no fault, 24 hour, no fault, blah, blah, blah.” Sorry, but that doesn’t fill me with confidence in our wannabe PM and his policies. [Update: gobsmacked points out […]

CTU rips Nats’ ACC policy

Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, July 17th, 2008 - 50 comments

The Council of Trade Unions has put out a detailed, devastating critique of each of National’s arguments for privatising ACC. I’ve copied it in full below: National Party: ‘National will: • Investigate opening the Work Account to competition. • Conduct a full stock-take of the various components of the ACC scheme, evaluate progress to full […]

On the fourth estate

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, July 17th, 2008 - 39 comments

Francesca Mold on National’s ACC announcment: ‘What’s interesting is the way they’ve put this out under the radar, perhaps showing how sensitive they are to how voters might react. And they’ve done that with a number of policies recently. Although, I have to say, it’s not hurting them in the polls’ a) It won’t hurt […]

ACC and the rhetoric of ‘choice’

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 17th, 2008 - 23 comments

National says its ACC policy will provide ‘choice’ on accident compensation, but choice for who? Employers will be able to choose between a variety of competing (mostly private) insurers, but for the likes of you and me we’ll have to take what we’re given and pay the consequences of our employers’ bad choices. We won’t […]

Nats’ ACC plan only good for insurance companies and lawyers

Written By: - Date published: 5:22 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 51 comments

National has confirmed it intends to privatise the ACC scheme starting with opening the work account to private competition. This would see private insurers cream off large and low-risk employers with special deals, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden of the rest (which would, in turn, be the basis for privatising of the remainder). […]

Time to front up on ACC

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, July 3rd, 2008 - 23 comments

Some excellent journalism by Vernon Small has revealed that Australian insurers expect National to privatise the ACC scheme and they see $200 million profit in it for themselves. National has now been forced to admit its policy is to allow private competitors for workplace and accident insurance, although (as always) details are not provided. Mr […]

Merrill Lynch: Nats will privatise ACC

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, July 2nd, 2008 - 93 comments

It’s refreshing to see some proper investigative journalism in this morning’s Dominion Post, with a revelation from Vernon Small that while National continues to try and downplay ACC and talk about “no privatisation in the first term,” a report from John Key’s old firm Merrill Lynch suggests National’s privatisation plans are an open secret among […]

Kremlinology: National on ACC

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, June 16th, 2008 - 41 comments

In most countries, accident insurance is big business. Insurers and lawyers make billions off premiums, claims, and court cases but many people don’t actually get any cover if they are injured. The Third Labour Government set up ACC to ensure everyone would have cover if they were injured. It also freed up the court system […]

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