Did he tell them he wants to increase their levies even more?
The HoS report:
It was, perhaps, Phil Goff’s first Triumph in quite some time.
A thousand bikers roared their disapproval at proposed ACC levy hikes yesterday – along with Labour leader Phil Goff on a brand-new motorbike he had bought shortly before.
I’m betting that Phil didn’t tell them that the increase was due to his former Government increasing coverage and a resultant $4.6 billion liability blowout.
I’m also betting he didn’t tell them that the modest pruning of coverage done by National, he has vowed to reverse. This means that levies will increase even faster under Labour.
Labour are trying the maxim that you can’t fool all of the voters all of the time, but you can fool some of the voters. They are campaigning against both levy increases and decreasing coverage.
Most ten year olds can work out you can’t both cut revenue and increase expenditure.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:38 am
Why was he there? Does he want to change gangs?
November 1st, 2009 at 9:42 am
“I’m betting that Phil didn’t tell them that the increase was due to his former Government increasing coverage and a resultant $4.6 billion liability blowout.”
Er, increased coverage had very little to do with the $4.6b estimate in the lifetime increase of costs. It was because of things like increased estimate of costs because of greater average age and an increased allowance for risk.
Labour has been trying for a while to stretch out the date by which full funding needs to be achieved, thereby slowing down the increase of levies. National has opposed this. Why would they do that?
November 1st, 2009 at 9:54 am
Regardless of whose fault it is, there is something fundamentally wrong with the principle of charging fees per vehicle (and I suspect this has always been the case since the inception of ACC). The large fee hike has now made it untenable. I think most motorcyclists would accept the view that there are risks in riding their machines. However, as many others have said, they ride only one at a time. The charge should be per driver, not per machine. Charge them a premium based on the most dangerous machines in their stable if you must, but just one fee, not many.
I don’t own or ride a motorbike.
[DPF: I agree that it should be per driver, not per vehicle.]
November 1st, 2009 at 10:07 am
The Government is SAVING ACC. I would simply do nothing and let the scheme go bankrupt.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:11 am
ACC is unsustainable because there is an aversion to charging people commensurate with their risk.
I don’t mind having a single state-owned no-fault insurance company, but it has to be run at arms length from the government, in a totally transparent way and most importantly people need to pay premiums in relation to their risk, and their behaviour. If you have the same sports injury every year, a normal insurance company would increase your premiums. A system that doesn’t is fundamentally flawed.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am
BH>Regardless of whose fault it is, there is something fundamentally wrong with the principle of charging fees per vehicle
And there is something wrong with the principle of charging the same fees for occasional riders as for people who ride every day. And for people who like to ride slow and those who like to ride fast. You either have a giant government monopoly that makes these decisions based on politics, where you get a reduced premium for your accident insurance if you can organise enough people to attend a protest rally. Or you leave it to competition, so that insurers can base their premiums on perceived risk, and you choose the cheapest one.
Imagine if, say, house insurance was a government monopoly. You’d be charged the same whether you had a mansion or an apartment. You’d be charged the same whether there were a dozen hard-partying students living together or you were a single grandmother. And if some politically active group decided that their premiums were too high, they’d organise a protest and the Leader of the Opposition would promise to reduce their premiums, and put up those of some non-politically active groups to compensate. Or, quite possibly, to reduce their premiums and borrow the money to pay their claims.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:36 am
Or imagine if you were a rugby player and got years of acc funded physio week in and week out plus the odd few months of income paid out as well, all paid for by the taxpayer.
However, the point is
ACC has had its day, it was and always has been based on the ponzi scheme method of assuming you could get more people rocking up after you to pay the bills – newsflash, the boomers are retiring and will kill the economy via health care and pension payments as the demographics arent there to support their contingent liability.
But hey, what do I know.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:56 am
Expat says ACC has had its day. Perhaps. However, there are two aspects of it that strike me. The first is the much discussed “social contract” whereby kiwis forgo their right to sue in return for a no fault compensation scheme. If you abolish ACC, then you need to reinstate the right to sue, with all the consequences that has for an already overloaded court system.
The second point is that many seem to judge ACC against the criteria of a stand-alone profit making insurance company. I don’t think it was ever conceived as such. It was part of the social welfare system from the outset wasn’t it?
November 1st, 2009 at 11:00 am
I think it is valid that Phil Gough is opposed to the targeted increase in levies. It does seem unfair that motorcyclists are probably going to incurr a hefty increase in levy’s for a “No Fault” scheme without any ability to have levies based on individual risk. It is a fact that motorcyclists are more likely to be injurred riding a bike compared to riding a car, but consider the following:
* Most motor bike accidents are probably caused by bad car drivers (a generalisation but I havn’t seen any statistics to say otherwise)
* One person generally rides a bike, a car often has 3 or 4 or more people within it, so the risk increases
* A motor cyclist often doesn’t use their bike as the primary means of transportation
If the nats aren’t going to bring in a system that has individually assessed levies, then they should make ACC stick to its purpose of being a universal, no faults Accident insurance scheme for physical injury only. They should stop this half way bullshit of bastardising systems. Why not let private insurance companies compete for individually assessed policies, this could be bundled in with compulsory 3rd party insurance. I suspect that this would be too honest, open and unpopular (for the left leaning swing vote) for JK to implement.
It is a fact that if ACC is to be fully funded then levies need to increase or entitlements decreased, and a labour government would have to work out a way do this if it was still in power. And to criticise Phill Goff for opposing the changes is a little silly as its his job too, and this labour party has a new leader and hopefully new direction to follow.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:20 am
CharlieBrown,
This is because of the sheer weight of numbers of cars on the road compared to motorcycles. If every vehicle had equal saftey characteristics, cars would still be the numerically largest group of accidents. I think the cause of accidents involving motorcycles is attributed to the fault of a car 52% and the fault of a Motorcycle 48%, that is a neutral statistic to me.
If I ride a pushbike around a Nascar oval, most of the accidents will be caused by Nascar’s.
If I run around the Tour De France circuit, most of the accidents will be caused by pushbikes.
In these cases any accidents would be self-induced by me using an inappropriate vehicle.
Accidents due to vehicle type are due to the numbers of each present, and the appropraiteness of them sharing the same network.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:21 am
Good point Brian.
I agree that the right to sue comes with a lot of collateral cost to society. It erodes trust and people will become scared to help was each other.
“Can you collection Mary from kindi for me today?”
– “Sorry, I’m not covered to have other children in the car.”
Everyone has heard people dying after accidents in the US as no one wants to offer help lest they be blamed if the person does not recover.
The last time I visited the in-laws in the US, we left our daughter there and went away for a few days. My father-in-law wrote up a little document with passport numbers etc which we both had to sign in case they had to take her to the doctor or hospital. Without that letter he was concerned that they would refuse to treat her or be suspicious of where the child came from.
Lovely society.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:30 am
CharlieBrown,
Just to correct a couple more of your inanities.
The costs of the accidents are considered in the statistics. If 4 people are injured in a car crash, then 4 peoples hospital bills are added to the stats for costs of car crashes.
Accident statistics are accident statistics. If what you say is true, and motorcyclists started using their vehicles more, the accidents stats would probably go up, and eventually the levies would go up more.
For the record, I don’t have a problem with motorcyclists being asked to pay an appropriate cost for the risks of the activity. But I think they are being attacked as the low hanging fruit. Pushbikers should be the first to pay for their accidents, but their vehicles don’t need to be registeredso it is harder to get money off them.
I also believe that a safe motorcyclist should reap the benefit of a good track record, but government schemes don’t allow this. Responsible people should offer the savings they make to the benefit of the irresponsible people according to the socialist model.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:50 am
I’d love to see some stats on the costs to ACC of riding a bicycle.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:53 am
Sonny Blount – How does the share weight in numbers of cars skew the proportionate percentages? Numerical statistics are rubbish in this case, percentage statistics are.
You have completely and arrogantly missed the point. It is completely unfair for ACC levies to be divied up by whether the car has two wheels or four wheels only. This is a case of JK and the nats picking on a single minority of road users. They have chosen one single disputable statistic to base the levies on. Why not take this further and assign levies based on things like car models, car age, engine size? A WRX, or mitzi evo is probably more likely to cause an accident than a motorbike.
ACC is a universal, no faults, accident compensaction scheme. Therefore, fees should either be completely standard across the board, or invidually assessed and underwritten and operated like a proper insurance scheme.
For the record, I have no problems with BAD DRIVERS being asked to pay more in levies based on risk. I do have an issue with SINGLE groups being made to pay higher levies based on a SINGLE category.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Charlie,
If accidents have an equal chance of occuring to all drivers and fault has to be apportioned to one party in an accident. Any vehicle should be to blame 50% of the time and another vehicle 50% of the time. The 50% of the time the other vehicle is to blame, should be proportional to the likelihood of encountering that vehicle type ( if 90% of vehicles are cars, and 10% are trucks then for a car 95% of crashes will be caused by a car and 5% by a truck, for a truck 55% of crashes will be caused by trucks and 45% by cars)
If the numbers I saw a wee while ago which I recall as 52% cars, 48% motorcylces, then there is a very small skew towards the other vehicle being to blame in motorcyle accidents. But it is by no means large, 48% of motorcycle crashes are still caused by motorcycles.
If ACC is to be a flat rate for all, then certain needlessley dangerous activities need to be banned. As a car driver paying a flat ACC rate, it is in my interest if motorcylces are banned from NZ roads if they pay the same ACC as car drivers.
This is not what I would like to see happen. I believe if pushbikers were charged for the cost of their activity, motorcyclist levies could remain where they are, and car levies could reduce slightly.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Even increasing the ACC portion of petrol tax would be more appropriate because at least it comes closer to resembling user-pays compared to this garbage idea of ACC in car registration.
Or even better, make all cars pay road milage fees and get rid of both petrol tax and car registration fees. This way, the people who use the roads more and are more likely to be in a road accident will pay more.
I read an example of a hobby motorcyclist who rides his bike approximately 700 km’s a year. Now he will have to pay about $1 for every km he drives just for registration… totally f$%king rediculous. It just shows that JK is making an already unfair system much more unfair.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Insurance companies already do this. Is anybody complaining? (besides the 21yo Evo owners)
Here are the international fatality rates btw
Deaths per billion kilometres
Air…………….0.05
Bus…………….0.4
Rail……………0.6
Van…………..1.2
Water………..2.6
Car……………3.1
Bicycle……….44.6
Foot………….54.2
Motorcycle…108.9
Quite simply, a car sharing the road with other cars is quite safe. When other vehicles attempt to share the roading network paid for by motorists, fatalities result. Not that I have a problem sharing the road with motorcyclists, more so the bludging from motorists of bicyclists.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Sonny Blount – So you would rather see turbo’s pay more in car registration? Old cars with less safety features pay more in car registraion? Male car owners pay more in car registration? 18-25 year olds pay more in car registration? Every other group statistically more likely to crash pay more?
Or would you rather ban all these groups from driving or ban all vehicles statistically more likely to crash?
In a fee/levy based model, you cannot set different fees to different groups without unfairly punnishing sensible people who use their vehicles sensibly.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
“Insurance companies already do this. Is anybody complaining? (besides the 21yo Evo owners)”
I know, and its great because these drivers are individually assessed with driving history, use of car etc taken into account. The motorcylcist doesn’t get this opportunity with ACC.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
ACC is a taxpayer funded scheme. Therefore it is organised however the taxpayers like it.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
And I agree that they should. And I also agree with you regarding user pays for the amount somebody drives through the registration period. Petrol tax is the simplist way to do this at the moment I believe.
Bicyclists should either have an odometer connected to their wheels like a truck, pay road user tax with their tyres, or have toll booths introduced on cycle lanes.
I have previously commuted by bicycle, it doesn’t suit at the moment though.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Make it much, much more difficult to get a licence than it is today. And regular renewals.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Sonny Blount 12:17 pm,
Bugger me!
If we’re going to load up cyclists, then we’d also better hit the walkers as well!
On that note, as walking is so unsafe, I’m gonna get a jet-pack to get around the house – that should keep the ACC happy.
Although I sense that noise control may become involved when I go for my 2 am constitutional.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
“ACC is a taxpayer funded scheme. Therefore it is organised however the taxpayers like it.” – Then why are there levies in car registration?
I wish a government would be so honest and just admit it is a tax and get rid of the “levie”. The ACC levie seems to have been used as a tax by stealth.
“Bicyclist should either have an odometer connected to their wheels like a truck, pay road user tax with their tyres, or have toll booths introduced on cycle lanes.” – I agree. Although all those options are impractical as cyclists don’t always use roads, serious accidents are probably reduced in cycle lanes. As cycling is considered a hobby it probably fits in better with their personal levies they pay with cycling being an associated risk that increases premiums.
Personally, I think the most fair way to collect ACC for road users is to incorporate it into compulsory 3rd party insurance. At least this way levies are based on risk.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“Deaths per billion kilometres
Air…………….0.05
Bus…………….0.4
Rail……………0.6
Van…………..1.2
Water………..2.6
Car……………3.1
Bicycle……….44.6
Foot………….54.2
Motorcycle…108.9″
Surprised train is higher than bus must include all the Indians who sit on the roof I guess.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Can I just claim that there are some inefficiencies in the system that transfers the will of the taxpayer into laws and regulations
November 1st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“Most ten year olds can work out you can’t both cut revenue and increase expenditure.”
Yeah but most reef-fish aren’t as politically aware as your average ten year old.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
How many of the bikers are whining from a position of poor information. Head to your nearest volly fire or ambo station and get a bit of background from a direct involvement in picking up the pieces.
ACC is more unsustainable than Nat super in their present forms. yes cyclists, pedestrians, recreational motocross riders, trampers and other casual claimants do cost the system a lot of money but pray tell how they can be made to contribute.
Allow the motor vehicle account to be contested by private insurance where history and risk can be calculated.
Charlie brown 12.13. How many of the 700 km per year MC riders could drop their bike to avoid the crash or make a fast enough decision to avoid a potential accident.
Why do we allow tourists to avail themselves of ACC and ED treatment for no other reason than the fact they pay GST while here( but of course some often live as woofers and sleep outside the GST net so that is rubbish). No evidence of comprehensive insurance at entry go back to where they came from.
ACC has become a monster that will continue to drag down our recovery as the cost will largly fall on the productive sector as that is the easiest area to force compliance.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:37 pm
pfffff and Goff styles himself on an old man’s Triumphh, cough. Kind of says it all really. A slightly hipper warted old man would have gone for a Ducati 996 perhaps, might have some connect there. If hippness is what he’s after, who knows with him. He’s grey looking too, anyone else notice that? I get the feeling he would be good in insurance, door-to-door.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
again im quite happy to pay increased levys to keep a system that looks after all.
Over a beer the other evening with a swiss travleler my partner and i have befriended I thought id ask him how it works there.
He pays 4percent for the government compulsery system and 400 hundred nzd per month to the private skeem that is also compulsery.
Sounds adam sight dearer than here.
And in hearing th eprices from other country(especially america) it all sounds very very expensive.
Sounds to me that it would be cheaper for all parties invilved to pay increased levies intot he existing state enterprise……….