Weekend: This weekend is chokka (a good Kiwi word - or is it. Some debate as to its origins but our meaning of overfull may be odd??).
We have the Fireworks on in Upper Hutt at around 9PM, the Wellington Lions play the new holders of the Ranfurly shield, Southland, in the second semi-final of the Air NZ NPC at 7 PM, the AB's play Australia at 9.30, the Model Railway Show is on in the Hutt and there is a travel show on in Wellington all day. So it is all full on.
House: AJ has sold her house which is good news.
Rugby: As I said Southland defeated Canterbury 9-3 to take the 'log of wood' for the first time in 50 years. This can only be great for the game. I hope they hold it for a while.
The Northern Tour is underway with the final Bledisloe Cup game in Tokyo. The amazing thing is that the game against Italy in Milan is sold out - 70,000 people will be attending!!!! Whaaaat!!!!
No wonder we are just a speck on the bum of the world.
ACC: Following on from my previous rant I think the basis of the no fault system is brilliant. No US style problems. We led the world (again) in 1974 with our scheme and no matter what National say, I think they have privatisation on their Agenda. And, as usual if a private Insurer goes broke in the next 100 years, the taxpayer will have to bail them out - again.
We went down this path in 1998 but Labour came into power in 1999 to restore the status quo.
In the short time of privatisation there seemed to be negative results for claimants as the Insurers tried to introduce reasons why they didn't have to pay out.
Amazingly the architect of the scheme Sir Owen Woodhouse is still alive at 93. It is thanks to him we that we don't have a thriving American-style medical misadventure industry.
"When you are peering into the future," Sir Owen,told a 1999 ACC conference, "it is not at all a bad idea to remember where you have been."
Pre-1974, he said, there was constant litigation, and arguments about how "accident" should be defined, and whether it had arisen "in the course of employment". The benefits were "meagre and limited in duration". The process could be long, expensive, uncertain and unfair. Before 1967, for example, only one negligence claim in every 100 was even partially successful. Whaat!!!
Sir Owen held that as we all benefit from risky activities, we should all bear the cost equally.
"Just as a modern society benefits from productive work of its citizens, so should society accept responsibility for those willing to work but prevented from doing so by physical incapacity. And since we all persist in following community activities which year by year exact a predictable and inevitable price in bodily injury, so should we all share in sustaining those who become the random but statistically necessary victims."
Personally, I knew a chap who one day told me he was heading to Pamerston North to give evidence in a trial as he was witness to an accident. He said it was one of the last pre ACC cases and had been going on for over 10 years as the Insurance Company tried to stall payment by hoping the plaintiff would run out of money or die.
I accept that there are some faults within ACC - paying out for self harm, overpayment for physiotherapy as I experienced myself - but these are fine tuning excercises.
This, as I see it, is like the Americans arguing about their pathetic heath 'system' and using the excuse 'why should I, who leads a healthy lifestyle pay for those who don't'.
They don't seem to understand a decent society puts up with the aberrations where for example people don't watch their child and they go missing. In a decent society we a pay to look for the child, or an adult missing in the bush, because we are decent. Also they don't seem to understand no matter how healthy a person is, we all get sick eventually.
