John MacDonald: If ACC pulls the water safety funding, who gets harmed?

Can you believe the bean counters at ACC are taking the knife to its funding for Water Safety NZ?  

Their reasoning is that they’ve poured all this money into Water Safety NZ but they’re not seeing a return on that investment. Which would be a reduction in drowning-related claims.  

But I’m with Water Safety NZ, which is saying today that good progress has been made, and this funding cut will put everything at risk and make a hard job even harder with $1 million less to do its work.  

Gavin Walker is its head of partnerships and funding, and he says there have been 54 drownings so far this year – five fewer than the 10-year average.  

Which, apparently, is not good enough for ACC.   

But it can quibble as much as it likes about the numbers and the return on investment and all of that, but the fact is water is a huge risk to people’s lives. To every one of us.  

This claim by ACC that it’s cutting the water safety funding because it’s not getting the return on its investment doesn’t stack up when you consider some of the other things it puts money into.  

ACC also part-funded the doomed “Road to Zero” road safety campaign which, I think we can agree, was hardly a glowing success. I don’t recall ACC pulling the plug on that one.  

But its deputy chief executive of engagement and prevention, Renee Graham, is defending the decision, saying they’ve been putting $1 million a year into Water Safety NZ but drowning-related claims are costing it $3 million a year.  

My response to that: so what?  

The thing about water is that it’s accessible to anyone and everyone – you don’t need a swimming licence. Which means people can be clueless when it comes to throwing themselves into the water and not always thinking whether they might be overestimating their abilities. 

I’m probably at the other end of the spectrum because water terrifies me. Even though I’ve sailed for years —and even though our kids have grown up around water— the potential for things to go drastically wrong in water terrifies me.  

I suppose “respectful” might be a better word to use than “terrified”, but even though I love getting out on the water, I know it will never be my friend. 

That was something I always said to the kids when they were young. Water can be fun, but it’s not your friend.  

Which is why I was determined, from the get-go, that they were going to have swimming lessons – but that costs money.   

We were very fortunate that we could afford it. But, if we’d been in a different financial position, then perhaps the swimming lessons would’ve been one of the first things to go.  

Which is what Gavin Walker from Water Safety NZ is saying today.  

He’s saying: “There’s a whole lot of kids who are actually missing out on good quality water survival support”.  

Which is going to get worse with ACC pulling its funding. 

And that’s why ACC needs to have a hmmm moment of its own. 

“Hmmm…if we pull this funding, who gets harmed?”

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