10 June 1999

Trying to clean up the ACC mess

"The latest ACC changes are a recognition that the Government's previous round of reforms to create a new workplace insurance market was ill-conceived," Labour finance spokesperson Michael Cullen said today.

He was referring to the split-up of ACC into three new subsidiaries - Catalyst, Prism and Healthwise - and to plans to establish a fourth company, Dispute Resolution Services, either as a joint venture with the private sector or as a fully-owned subsidiary.

"Get beneath the silly titles and what they are proposing is to provide a state organisation to do large parts of the job on the assumption that the private sector will use them even if they are insured with a private insurer. It's an acknowledgment that actually the private sector really doesn't have the necessary expertise.

"It just shows the whole process was rushed and ideologically driven and now, as with the electricity reforms, the state is having to step back in to pick up the pieces.

"The legacy of all this tail-chasing is that whereas once we had one chief executive and one ACC board, we now have five chief executives and five boards," Dr Cullen said.

ENDS

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