ACC Archive

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  Insurance company fail re Christchurch bodes ill for ACC privatisation - by frog

  
  
  
  Last week David Hayward blogged about his own experience dealing with his insurance company over the fate of his Christchurch home: Tower Insurance maintain that the house is not a write-off.  They maintain that they are only obliged to repair the house — not to honour our insurance policy for total replacement.  They say that [...] read more
  June 27, 2011 8:28 pm - 18 Comments
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  Kevin Hague talks to Pasifika on ACC privatisation - by frog

  
  
  
  Last week, Green ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague and Pasifika lawyer Amelia Saafi were interviewed on Pacific Viewpoint, a programme broadcast on Triangle/Stratos. The interview is 27 minutes long, but it’s well worth a watch to see Kevin and Amelia expose the Government’s economy with the truth in manufacturing a “crisis” in ACC in order to [...] read more
  June 11, 2011 7:49 am - 13 Comments
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  MacDoctor and me: We agree and disagree on ACC - by frog

  
  
  
  Medical practitioner and right wing blogger MacDoctor has three recent posts on the disastrous failings of ACC to provide entitlements to injured claimants. I couldn’t agree more with MacDoctor’s definition of the problem. But I disagree vehemently with his faux solution of privatisation. read more
  May 17, 2011 7:11 pm - 2 Comments
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  Time for another inquiry into ACC medical assessments - by frog

  
  
  
  The NZ Herald today reports on orthopaedic surgeon Brian Otto who featured in an ACC appeal judgment from the District Court recently: Liangfang Lu, 48, was awarded about $5000 after Auckland District Court Judge Martin Beattie found ACC wrongly suspended payments to him on the basis that his back pain was caused by degeneration. read more
  April 20, 2011 3:01 pm - 4 Comments
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  Back to the future with ACC experience rating - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  There are quite a number of nasty legislative and regulatory provisions coming into force today.  Among them are Nick Smith’s Experience Rating Regulations for ACC. Experience rating will result in an individual employer’s ACC levies being adjusted up or down on the basis of their work injury record.  The idea is supposedly that individual employers [...] read more
  April 1, 2011 2:01 pm - 4 Comments
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  ACC digs a deeper hole - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  Financial Review of ACC today, so I subbed in for Gareth on the Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee. Usual thing – we and Labour make the running and when things get too hot the Government members take a turn with patsy questions. ACC fronted with Chair, John Judge, by videoconference and CEO Jan White [...] read more
  February 10, 2011 4:03 pm - 35 Comments
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  ACC privatisation: Let the fightback begin - by frog

  
  
  
  I’ve run the “ACC: undermine, cut privatise” banner on a few posts on ACC over the last couple of years, and now we’re seeing the third leg of the trifecta emerging with the announcement yesterday that ACC’s work account is to be partially privatised. This may be good news for some employers, because in the [...] read more
  December 22, 2010 12:11 pm - 13 Comments
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  ACC disentitlement saga a shameful exercise from start to finish - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  Four years ago the District Court decided that ACC claimants who were not earners at the time of their original injury, but who later became incapacitated from subsequent employment due to that injury, were not entitled to weekly compensation. Irrespective of the legal technicalities, it was an anomalous decision for a compensation scheme that is [...] read more
  December 9, 2010 11:04 am - 6 Comments
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  More reasons emerge for independent inquiry on ACC reforms - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  I’m pleased Simon Collins at the NZ Herald has picked up on my blog post last month in which I released figures showing the number of people being moved off ACC weekly compensation onto welfare benefits increased to 1956 people in the latest June year from 764 two years earlier. Collins also highlights some other [...] read more
  November 8, 2010 12:22 pm - 4 Comments
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  Nick Smith needs to open his ears to the deaf - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  As an MP I receive many lobbying letters.  Today one arrived that really caught my attention.  It was from the National Foundation for the Deaf, and it was about the cutbacks to ACC cover and entitlements for work-related hearing loss. Attached to the letter was a very detailed 82 page position paper.  The paper describes [...] read more
  October 22, 2010 4:45 pm - 2 Comments
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  More questions than answers over ACC cost shifting - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  A couple of months ago, following ACC Minister Nick Smith’s u-turn on counselling for ACC sexual abuse claimants, I called for an independent review of the wide-ranging cutbacks to ACC imposed by the Government. I have now asked some questions about people being moved from ACC to welfare benefits. What really disturbed me about the replies is the huge increase in the number of people being shifted from weekly compensation onto welfare benefits since March 2009. read more
  October 6, 2010 4:39 pm - 8 Comments
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  Have your say on John Key’s plans to undermine ACC - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  On Friday, the Government released consultation papers on levy increases and experience ratings for ACC. They are calling for submissions by 29 October.  Let them know what you think!  Reading between the lines, the papers also make clear that there is no financial crisis in ACC. As we have pointed out all along, ACC is [...] read more
  October 4, 2010 2:53 pm - 5 Comments
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  It’s dob in a bludger time - by frog

  
  
  
  Someone dropped a pen from ACC near my lilypad yesterday. Could it have been Dr Felicity Goodyear-Smith, who advised ACC to require a diagnosis of mental illness before sex abuse survivors could get counselling paid for by ACC and who thinks sexual abuse counselling is ‘a scam’? read more
  September 7, 2010 8:14 am - 29 Comments
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  Case for wider probe of ACC entitlement-cutting culture now even stronger - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  ACC’s use of Dr. Felicity Goodyear-Smith to advise on sexual abuse claims can only have resulted from catastrophic systems failure or a sick culture. New Zealanders need to know which, and Minister Smith must take steps to thoroughly investigate so the problems can be fixed read more
  August 30, 2010 10:58 am - 11 Comments
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  ACC “crisis” was all in Nick Smith’s head - by frog

  
  
  
  Remember the financial crisis with ACC? Remember Nick Smith describing ACC as “technically insolvent”, a claim that was rubbished at the time by NZ Herald economics editor Brian Fallow and actuary Jonathan Eriksen? Guess what? ACC is set to make a $2 billion surplus, and that’s before the levy increases and entitlement cuts have any impact, as they are only now beginning to phase in! read more
  June 28, 2010 9:38 am - 43 Comments
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  An ACC model for welfare? No thanks - by frog

  
  
  
  Over the weekend, Social Development Minister raised the prospect of an ACC model for sickness and invalid’s benefits. My bet is that Bennett is talking about moving sickness and invalid’s benefits to the insurance model that ACC is increasingly becoming based on, rather than to a model based on the Woodhouse principle of complete rehabilitation that it was founded on. read more
  May 31, 2010 10:35 am - 5 Comments
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  A privatisation lesson from an unlikely source - by frog

  
  
  
  Cameron (Whaleoil) Slater has been having a bleat about how he has been treated by the private insurer Fidelity Life, which has cut off his income protection insurance. Funny how those on the political right don’t seem to get it – until it affects them personally, that is. read more
  May 25, 2010 11:34 am - 37 Comments
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  Welfare Working Group off to inauspicious start - by frog

  
  
  
  Presumably under pressure from ACT, the Government seems to be unable to resist finding places for wingnuts on the various advisory groups it is setting up. Yesterday it continued this trend by appointing Business Roundtable communications consultant and former ACT Party President Catherine Isaac (formerly Judd) to its Welfare Working Group. read more
  April 15, 2010 1:22 pm - 20 Comments
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  Save ACC ads - by frog

  
  
  
  There is a Save ACC rally at Parliament on 16 February to fight back against National’s cutbacks. The good people at the CTU have got these ads running at the Sevens: read more
  February 5, 2010 2:32 pm - 8 Comments
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  Will Cathy Taewa get answers from Paula and Nick? - by Catherine Delahunty

  
  
  
  Four years ago, Bay of Plenty meatworker Johnny Taewa tragically died of the occupational disease leptospirosis. His widow Cathy has been told she was not only ineligible for a benefit, but won’t be eligible for five years, because the lump sum payment she received from ACC in respect of his death is treated as income. read more
  February 2, 2010 2:06 pm - 36 Comments