By: Larry Williams | Friday, June 22, 2012 6:30 PM

SOE Legislation

The SOE legislation crawled its way through the House.

The opposition parties put their case against the sales and some of the arguments were valid. Some of the arguments were laced with lies and speculation too.

There is no question that the great majority of folk in this country are against the sales.

The Government hasn't done a great job in selling the sales.

The bottom line is that you either sell some of the assets, or you borrow. It really is as simple as that.

The first SOE on the block is Mighty River Power and this will all be done and dusted by October.

It will be over-subscribed. There will be a cap on the shares which is an indication of just how popular it will be.

Mighty River Power will be promoted as a very sound investment and some will climb into the IPO thinking they will make a killing.

Caution: Mighty River Power carries risk like every other equity investment.

There is no such thing as a sure bet. Think "Facebook".

 

ACC

ACC managers are on performance based pay.

So?

ACC's job is to pay compensation until a person is rehabilitated and can go back to work. They are not there to hand out welfare cheques. There has to be scrutiny of claimants, of their injury, of their ability to work or not.

Of course ACC is going to target long term claimants. Of course that is a deliberate strategy.

I'm hearing a lot about how ACC are ruthless and claimants who have been treated unfairly. In some cases that is probably true. Sure there have been bad experiences.

But there are avenues for appeal.

There is also the flip side of the ledger and that is claimants ripping ACC off.

 

League Tables

The teacher unions and political opponents of the Government vented their spleens over school league tables.

They trotted out all the arguments against accountability.

In short, they don't want comparisons between schools.

Pity then that it seems parents do.

Parents have an absolute right to see how schools are performing so that they can make an informed decision.

 

Superannuation

The super debate keeps rolling along.

The PM keeps resisting moves to raise the age.

Winston Peters claimed that keeping the age at 65 was affordable.

The only problem I see for the defenders of the status quo is that there is no debate.

Both the PM and Peters are simply wrong and make no mistake about this - they know it.

 

Assange

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is hiding out in the Ecuador Embassy in London seeking asylum.

He doesn't want to go to Sweden to face serious sexual allegations.

I've always thought Assange was a slime ball. His cowardly act of wanting to run confirms this.

His stupid backers who put up 240,000 pounds for his bail stand to lose that.

That's loyalty for you.

Photo: NZ Herald