ACC and AIG

The Wall Street financial crisis is another indicator of a very good reason we should not let Mr Key and Mr English near the nation's purse strings and especially why we should not let them touch ACC. They want to throw ACC open to competition effectively letting the insurance industry in to give cover to our workers. But what happens when the insurance company goes belly-up? Recent history has shown that insurance comapnies are not fail-proof. The biggest insurance company in the world is in serious trouble. If a significant section of our workforce were covered by a private insurance company that was not able to meet its obligations who would care for our injured workers and their families. Would a Key lead government bail out the insurance company (corporate welfare) would it reinstate ACC (yeah right!) The tax payer would be left with the bill and following the next election a Labour-led government would left to clean up the mess. let's short cut that possibility by keeping the labour government in.

The Council of Trade Unions is challenging National leader John Key to state whether he is still in favour of privatising accident compensation, following the US government bailout of insurance giant AIG.

National leader John Key said all of ACC could eventually be opened to competition

Mr Key said National would "investigate" whether to let private providers compete in ACC's workplace and self-employed accounts, and other areas, such as cover for motorists, could also be opened up. (Dom Post, 17 Jul 2008)

Helen Kelly (CTU president): "The last time National let the private insurance industry loose on our accident compensation one of the providers, a subsidiary of HIH Insurance which had up to 40 percent of workplace cover, went bust with losses of around $1 billion. Fortunately by the time of their collapse the government had renationalised the scheme."
"The bailout of AIG sends a strong warning to voters - National wants our accident compensation and rehabilitation managed by firms just like these ones."
"No one wants this ACC privatisation policy - health professionals, workers and the business community have said there is no appetite for change."
"National has ignored the evidence from PricewaterhouseCoopers which noted ACC was a world leader, and they are continuing with their plans to privatise it. We don't think workers' health and safety is worth the risk," (CTU, 18 Sep 2008)

Mr Key and Mr English are demonstrating that they are not capable of leading the country. They are idealogues trapped in the 1990's user pays, and 19th century free market philosophy. They put workers rights at risk, they put the best ACC scheme in the world at risk. They intend to raise our vulnerability to the international market by increasing our government foreign debt to pay for tax cuts - hey but they sounds like the topic for another post....