ACC Bill Will Erode Protection For Injured New Zealanders

Injured New Zealanders will be the losers from a Government Bill which will reduce the protection and care they have until now received from ACC, says Labour’s acting ACC spokesperson Maryan Street.

The Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill was reported back from select committee today with no substantive changes to the key issues opposed by the vast majority of submitters.

“Significant aspects of the proposed law changes, which will remove access to ACC for some injuries and reduce the amount of ACC cover for others, have also been opposed by core government agencies, such as the Health Ministry.

“The changes will simply force more costs onto individuals, despite the fact they now face higher levies. They come on top of major Government-directed operational changes at ACC to reduce access to treatment such as elective surgery and precede a taskforce report which is likely to result in privatisation and further radical reductions in the scope of the ACC scheme,” Maryan Street said.

“While the main justification for the changes are said to be cost savings, little evidence has been produced about the cost-effectiveness of the scheme compared to other countries and Treasury has stated it is unclear the costs are excessive. And advice provided showed employer levies here are almost half those paid by Australian employers,” says select committee member and Labour MP Darien Fenton.

“Disappointingly, the Maori Party, which promised to evaluate submissions before deciding whether to vote for the Bill, did not attend any of the select committee hearings for submitters – despite Te Puni Kokiri advice saying the Bill would hit Maori families and those on low incomes particularly hard,” Darien Fenton said.

Just some of the key changes opposed by submitters were:

People deemed ready for work at 30 rather than 35 hours per week

Deeming an injured person vocationally independent when they are physically able to work 30 hours per week (which triggers an end to earnings related compensation) rather than 35 hours per week. This is unfair and will cause hardship to more injured people. It reduces levy costs for big corporates, but shifts costs onto individuals and the state as people end up on sickness benefits.

Change to allow ACC to disregard pre-accident earnings

Under the existing legislation, when assessing whether to deem someone work-ready, ACC “must” have regard to the injured person’s pre-accident earnings. The Bill changes this to “may”. People injured at work could be forced into much lower-paying jobs.

Seasonal and part-time workers

The Bill reduces the amount of weekly compensation for seasonal and part-time workers. If they suffer an accident that stops them working in their seasonal work or stops them taking up longer hours, they will not be properly compensated. Some 400,000 lower income people will be affected.

Holiday pay

The bill requires holiday pay accrued before the injury to be counted and abated against weekly compensation if a worker loses their job. Treasury opposed this as unjust.

Risk Rating

The bill introduces further risk rating measures, which can lead to pressures on workers to return to work before they are ready, or to not report accidents in order to keep levies down. This favours big corporates, but could put smaller businesses out of business.

Hearing Loss

The Bill introduces a six per cent threshold for hearing loss, below which hearing aids will not be provided. This is over and above the age related thresholds that already apply. The Human Rights Commission said it believed this breached the Human Rights Act. It will discriminate against the elderly in particular.

ENDS

© Scoop Media