12 August 2004

ACC told to pay $100,000 lump sum to asbestos victim

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) says it has yet to decide whether to appeal a judge's order to pay the victim of an asbestos-related illness a $100,000 bulk payout.

Wellington District Court Judge David Ongley, in a reserved decision, ordered ACC to pay the estate of Auckland fitter and welder Ross Lehmann.

It was "far too early to say" whether ACC would appeal, because it was still looking at the decision, the corporation's media advisor, Fraser Folster, said today.

Mr Lehmann died, aged 79, in November last year, a year after he was diagnosed with asbestos-related lung cancer.

He had helped to install an asbestos-covered boiler and pipes at the New Zealand Forest Products plant in Penrose in 1960, and was diagnosed with the disease in late 2002.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>