Bee Card system works out well for everyone

RON Adams (Letters, 10.4.21) and others are wrong to claim that there is a ‘‘penalty’’ for failing to tag off the bus.

A more correct way of looking at it is that the Bee Card provides a discount from the normal (cash) fare: from $3 to $2 for most folk, and from $3 to $0 for Gold Card holders travelling at offpeak times.

These discounts are subject to conditions, and one of those conditions, for all Bee Card users, is a requirement to tag off.

Instead of grizzling about this very reasonable condition for getting a discount, he should be glad that the fares are so low — subsidised by ratepayers.

As a result, the difference between the full and discounted fares is small.

For the Opal Card used in NSW, there are limits on total fares payable on any one day or in any one week, and failing to tag off results in the maximum daily total being deducted from your card.

Alec Knewstubb

Port Chalmers

ACC

CIVIS was right to observe that ACC’s change of policy towards women who suffer birth injuries is ‘‘gutless’’ and based on ‘‘economic’’ considerations (Opinion , 16.4.21).

However, I think Civis was wrong about the sequence of events.

ACC largely makes its own law, and changes it if it loses an appeal in the courts. The current law is little more than a cutandpaste job of its infamous predecessor, enacted by the National Party in 1992 and responsible for considerable injustice and suffering.

As for ACC’s wailing about paying the costs of injuries, that is what it was created to do. As a matter of fact, ACC takes in far more income every year, in the form of compulsory levies, than it pays in compensation and rehabilitation, or expends in running costs.

ACC invests its surpluses in world financial casinos where, I have to admit, it performs brilliantly. ACC has more than $50 billion in its investment accounts, more than enough to help women who suffer injuries while giving birth. The only missing ingredient is political will. Michael Gibson

Invercargill