Fiasco

Phil Goff Reports 

Last week the Government moved urgency in the House and released a draft Bill dealing with climate change that it wants to rush in.
Only trouble was Nick Smith had failed to check whether anyone else was prepared to support it – and no Party was.
There are good reasons for that.
National, having tried to exaggerate the problems facing ACC, had a prescription which involves pushing up costs to Kiwis and cutting the protection available to them.
And now to attract ACT support, they are proposing privatising the Employers' Account which covers workplace injuries.
As Merrill Lynch pointed out last year, the big beneficiary of this would be the large Australian insurance companies who stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year from New Zealand.
The losers would be ordinary New Zealanders who will have to pay more to get less, because the profit factor would siphon money away from injury prevention, income support and rehabilitation.
Even many of the employers are speaking out against it, and Treasury is unenthusiastic.
Sadly, the Maori Party, which last week condemned privatisation and cuts, are now supporting introduction of the legislation.
Labour has clear ideas on how to improve ACC but they do not involve slashing core assistance to Kiwis with genuine injuries and trauma, nor privatising the service.