Here is how it’s done: First you announce oh, shock horror, that you have discovered that the previous government kept a $ 1 billion whole in the ACC budget under wraps, naughty, naughty, because that means you are going to make an unpopular descission.
Second you throw in a nice suggestive term like; Non-earners.
Suggesting it is those lazy unproductive non earning dole bludgers are responsible for the collapse of the ACC and you don’t let on that most non earners are the young, the elderly (who worked their asses of their whole life in order to have a little pension at the end of the long hard slog) the ill, Students who are studying in order to become professionals our society needs in the future, stay at home mums who choose to stay within the limits of a one income family in order to give their children a good start in life.
And then you call it a “blow out” while in reality it is only a 6% share of the entire ACC budget.
And you moan and winch about it loudly in all our corporately controlled media while promising a mindblowing $ 40 billion to bail out your banking mates.
And then you bully the privatisation of our health care through so your Aussie insurer/banking mates can suck NZ dry.
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Former cabinet ministers are insisting they were under no obligation to reveal a $1 billion hole in the ACC budget before the election and deny Government accusations of a cover-up.
Prime Minister John Key yesterday ordered a ministerial inquiry after ACC officials told ministers the corporation needed $297 million more for this financial year and similar amounts in the following two years.
The blowout is in the non-earners account, which deals with claims from people like children, students and the elderly.
The Government meets all the cost of their claims.
Mr Key said the previous government knew about the shortfall and it should have been disclosed in the Treasury’s pre-election fiscal update.
“Our frustration is that we found out about this after the election,” he said.
“The previous government knew of the seriousness of the situation but did not disclose the information.”
Labour’s ACC spokesman, David Parker, said today Mr Key’s assertions were wrong and the Government was trying to divert attention from its plans to privatise ACC.
He said he had spoken to former ACC minister Maryan Street who denied knowing any details of the shortfall until October, when she immediately told former finance minister Michael Cullen and the Treasury.
That happened after the Treasury prepared its pre-election fiscal update.
Mr Parker said officials told ministers at the time it would be improper for the extra money to be authorised during the election campaign.
“That’s why we didn’t do it. We would have done it immediately after the election if we had won it,” he said on Radio New Zealand.
“There’s some really alarmist language being used around this … it’s 6 percent of the ACC budget, it’s been blown out of all proportion.”
