Now that our illustrious government has finally managed to pass, at great cost to itself and the Maori party, a badly designed Emissions Trading Scheme – that absolutely everyone else hates – it is time to wonder why anyone bothered. This expensive waste of political capital will achieve precisely nothing for our environment nor prevent [...]
Tim Hazledine (professor of economics at the University of Auckland) seems to think that ACC is just fine. He uses the example of putting money aside for you child’s future university studies, the total cost of which he places as $500 thousand: And you haven’t got that, have you? You’ve got about $20,000 in KiwiSaver accounts. [...]
A small, green amphibian over on Frogblog is doing a series on National’s “gutting” of ACC (If only!). Yesterday, he was griping about the plan to cease compensation for people with hearing losses under 6%. Apparently this is not “fair”. How it can be fair to compensate people for a barely noticeable hearing loss is [...]
I am a little tired of hearing that National is doing away with “free” physio. Physiotherapy was never free, we paid for it in our ACC levies. You, me and the guys earning minimum wage. And therein lies the problem. Most of the “free” physio was going to the more affluent. The ones who got [...]
Nick Smith tells us that the free ride physiotherapists have had with ACC ends in November. The Stuff heading “No more free physio for accident victims” is overly emotive. The introduction of co-payment will reduce the tendency of people with extremely minor injuries seeking physio because it will “make them better”. As Smith points out, [...]
I note that our Kyoto liability estimate seems to have swung into surplus after a number of years in the red. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with our actual carbon dioxide emissions and everything to do with the ridiculous way we attempt to calculate these emissions. Apparently our new “surplus” is due [...]
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition) Today’s spam is political. As usual for political spam, some leftward-leaning readers may find the article less of a pile of drivel than I. New ACC chairman walks into row ACC chairman John Judge yesterday cast doubt on [...]
Apparently Nick Smith is touting the idea of charging 5c a plastic bag to try and encourage people to use more eco bags. Let me say at the outset, that I use reusable bags all the time. I find that their handles are much easier on the hands, the bags are stronger and, contrary to [...]
I see Labour has spent the week having a good go at Nick Smith after his pronouncement about ACC last week. Annette “It’s a summer thing” King was laying into him today about his competence. Apparently his senior officials are complaining that he is not reading his briefing papers and that there are 400 of them on [...]
