-
Paula Rebstock - Source: ONE News -
Related
Paula Rebstock is appointed to the ACC Board one day after the
resignation of Chief Executive - National lays strong foundations
for further ideological assault on ACC
by Sue Bradford
Yesterday's announcement that Nick Smith has appointed Paula
Rebstock to the Board of ACC should really have come as no
surprise.
After all, it's already six weeks since
she completed her sterling work
for National , laying out a platform for the most serious and
harmful welfare reform our country has seen since the foundations
of the welfare state were laid in the 1930s.
Yet I couldn't help feeling a sense of shock - and deep foreboding
- that the full force of Ms Rebstock's considerable powers are now
to be focused on ACC.
Ms Rebstock is clearly a hard worker, and gives her employers value
for money. From National's point of view, I'm sure the estimated
$1200 a day she got for chairing the $1.3 million Welfare Working
Group was worth every penny.
Now it's ACC's turn to benefit from the Paula Rebstock touch.
In a 2006 Herald article, Ms
Rebstock said, 'I never lose sight that all the benefits of our
society derive from the activities of the business
community&.the free market economy is a great way to allocate
the country's resource, but to make sure the benefits flow through
to everyone, you have to have competition.'
She was of course speaking in the context of her then job as Chair
of the Commerce Commission, but all indications are that the
sentiments expressed here outline in a nutshell why she was, from
National's point of view, the ideal person for the hatchet job on
welfare - and now for the partial privatisation of ACC.
Alongside her is another new appointee to the ACC Board, Jill
Spooner.
Ms Spooner is an actuary, which will fit very nicely with ACC's
current directions. She is also a
self-confessed National Party
volunteer worker who 'had aspirations of becoming an MP
but quickly realised that it was not for me.'
Every Government has the luxury of appointing its own people to key
boards, and it would be naïve in the extreme to expect
anything else.
But I believe these appointments, coming a day after the
announcement that current ACC chief executive Dr Jan White is
leaving her job when her contract ends later this year, mark the
beginning of the next, more serious, phase of National's push to
reform ACC.
Judging from Ms Rebstock's performance on welfare reform, anyone
who supports an equitable, state-run, compassionate and fair ACC
system should be very, very afraid.
Read more of Sue Bradford's articles at pundit.co.nz
