In February this year the Green Party heard a rumour that the review of ACC was being conducted solely by Treasury and Business New Zealand, so on 5 March we decided to put this to Nick Smith in the House.

Sue Bradford: Is it true that Business New Zealand and Treasury are currently the sole drafters of the terms of reference for a full Government review of accident compensation?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, that is completely false. I have not had any discussions with either of those organisations about the changes that the Government will need to make in accident compensation, nor have officials. I wish to reassure the member that this Government is absolutely determined to ensure that New Zealand has a 24/7 accident insurance scheme that is both affordable and sustainable in the long term.

Now, this seemed a little odd – no officials had talked to Treasury about a review of a scheme that was allegedly in financial trouble.

So OIAs were put in, and the information that eventually came back showed that Nick Smith had received a briefing on 23 December 2008 about the Stocktake of ACC [PDF] that clearly stated that  … “ the department and the Treasury are still considering the scope of the review.”

On 20 February 2009, Nick Smith received a briefing on the ACC review from the Department of Labour [PDF] which was developed in consultation with the Treasury, and on which he wrote a note about the role of Treasury in the review.

In Parliament today, Green Party’s new ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague, asked Nick Smith about this. The Minister both confirmed that he stands by his answers in the house and the Treasury has been involved in the review of ACC…..

This raises the issue of whether this is the only time Nick Smith has been caught out – according to this Labour press release it isn’t.

So can Nick Smith be trusted? Over to you.

New Green MP and lifetime biker David Clendon and new Green Party ACC Spokesperson Kevin Hague headed down to support the protest.

David gave a great speech where he explained that the Greens have supported the bikers protest from the start because the new levy hikes force bikers to pay for accidents that aren’t their fault.

The levy hikes are also further evidence of National’s undermining of the principle that ACC was founded on – that the scheme should provide equal support and be equally funded by all members of the community.

The bikers chant of ‘who’s next’, was spot on – the Government’s attack on bikers is a sign of things to come. It gets clearer and clearer that National don’t want ACC to work for the community as a whole – they want a private insurance system. 

The bikers chant of ‘bullshit’ when Nick Smith trundled out his old excuses for gutting ACC was pretty close to the mark too….    

If you want to have your say on ACC put in a submission.

More pictures:

Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague has developed a submission guide to assist people who want to make submissions against the cuts. Submissions close 26 November 2009, so get in quick if you want to have your say.

There’s also a big protest planned at Parliament next week. The protest is organised by the motorcycle lobby, but they have made it clear that anyone affected or potentially affected by the cuts to ACC is welcome.

The ACC Futures Coalition, representing a large number of unions, ACC claimant groups, and professional organisations of treatment providers are supporting the protest.

So even if you can’t go on the protest motorcycle ride, if you live in or near Wellington you can join the protest at Parliament next Tuesday 17 November, at 12 noon. There is also a petition you can download here in opposition to the motorcycle levy increase and in support of a return to the Woodhouse principles of ACC.

Meanwhile someone sent me this really cool video yesterday exposing some of the Government’s lies and distortions about the proposed motorcycle levies.

Currently, ACC reimburses the travel costs of home care workers who have to travel more than 20km to provide support for an injured person in his or her home.    However, they now propose to make the home care worker cover the cost of the first 20km of travel, however far they have to go to get to the home of the person they are caring for.

According to Richard Wagstaff, General Secretary of the PSA, home care workers are paid as little as $14.14 an hour.  They are also paid only half their hourly rate for driving time. The changes in travel reimbursement could cost them up to 19% of their income.  That means they could end up on an effective wage of as little as $11.45 an hour – that’s over $1 an hour less than the current minimum wage – after their travel costs are taken into account.

And it is not just the caregivers who will suffer.  Injured people who live in isolated areas are likely to find it increasingly difficult to find any caregiver prepared to travel to their home to provide the home help or attendant care they need.

But do ACC care?  Seems not.

ACC Minister Nick Smith has now confirmed these proposals are all on the table:

• Introduce a $50 or $100 excess on every claim.

Try selling that one to someone on the minimum wage!  Go to your local A&E clinic to get your cut finger stitched and a quarter of your take home income disappears – even if the accident happened at work and was because the employer’s equipment was faulty.

This will end up like National’s ill-fated public hospital out-patient charges from the 1990s – costing more to collect the fees than is returned in revenue, because people either can’t pay or won’t pay.

• Reduce income compensation from 80% to 70% after one year and 60% after two.

This breaches the social contract under which New Zealanders gave up the right to sue for personal injury, and will leave many people with insufficient to live on.  For someone on the minimum wage, 60% of their pre-injury earnings is only $255 after tax a week.  For a couple or family this is clearly inadequate, so the “savings” to ACC will just be loaded onto Work and Income as they are forced to apply for an invalid’s benefit or sickness benefit to top up the ACC payment.

• Impose a two-year limit on compensation for soft tissue injuries, such as back pain.

This ignores clinical evidence that while soft tissue injuries normally heal reasonably quickly, some develop into a secondary consequential injury known as chronic pain syndrome.  Chronic pain syndrome is classified as a mental injury, so ACC will need to contract an army of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to do the assessments for each long-term claimant.  More likely, they will just boot people who cannot work because they suffer chronic pain syndrome off weekly compensation, so they too will end up on a Work and Income benefit – but receiving far less than they were getting from ACC.

• Introduce wider surveillance powers for ACC investigators to stamp out fraud.

What more do they need?  ACC already have contracted private investigators undertaking surveillance on claimants they are suspicious about.  Surely they are not contemplating search, seizure, and telephone tapping powers?

• Legislate to make it easier to get workers back to work.

How on earth can they legislate to make it easier to get workers back to work? Whether someone can get back to work or not is a medical decision, and ACC already have the power to refer a claimant to a doctor of their own choice if they are concerned a claimant might be malingering.  I suspect what they really mean is legislate to make it easier to get claimants off weekly compensation – whether they have a job to go to or not.

And they are already planning to do that.  If they can get the numbers in Parliament, that is.

It’s just not fair!