Accident Insurance (Transitional Provisions) Bill

Since late January I have been intensely involved with the Select Committee dealing with the Accident Insurance (Transitional Provisions) Bill. This process has been a steep learning curve, not just about how these legislative processes work - and don't work - under pressure, but also about the lobbying power of private insurers, employers and associated interest groups once they get up a head of steam.

The Green Party, and me as its representative, went into the Select Committee process with a genuinely open mind on various aspects of the Bill. This is why we didn't come out with a fixed position early on in the piece. We wanted to hear what the submitters had to say, and consider the issues within our caucus and party.

While the policy we went into the last election with stated among other things that "the Greens support a return to the original, comprehensive, and simple version of ACC', we also had geniune worries about the prospect of going back holus bolus to what is now often referred to as "the old ACC".

Firstly, we were particularly concerned about the fate of self employed people and farmers under the old system, where there was a situation in which such people often found themselves unknowingly uninsured, or unable to receive adequate and fair compensation.

Secondly, from my own background of working in beneficiary advoacy groups, I was acutely aware of the morass of problems which came to us from people who'd received inadequate treatment, to put it mildly, at the hands of ACC. So I was keen to hear from both the private insurers and from Government advisors what lessons have been learned from the experiences of the past year and more.

I was particularly interested to hear from to the Farmers Mutual Group, the smallest of the private insurers, and the only one which is New Zealand owned. They have done a lot of work on ways of making accident compensation accessible, affordable and practical for small businesspeople and the rural community, and it is a regret that this couldn't have happened a whole lot sooner under the previous public system.

Having heard Farmers Mutual, I began to think "why couldn't the same principles be applied to a public system?" This lead to the Green Party push for provisions in this Bill which set in place a new process entitling self employed people and farmers to elect ahead the level of cover for weekly compensation, including the cost of any necessary replacement labour, so critical for farmers in particular.

On the wider thrust of the Bill itself, we of course heard and read a plethora of material, much of it focused on the benefits perceived by many submitters keen on retaining the privatised system.

Probably the most common argument was the one related to cost. A huge number of employers and some community and church organisations came to us praising the hugely reduced costs, with correlative benefits in terms of job maintenance and creation, and expanded services or production.

It was easy to be seduced by this argument at first, until I began to realise that employers often didn't tell the Committee about all their costs, such as payments for the 'tail'; that ACC prior to the 1998 Act coming into force was required to hold its premiums artifically high by the Government of the day; and that for some employers and community organisations premiums have actually risen, rather than dropped, under the new system.

When these factors were coupled by repeated assurances from departmental advisors and the Government that in fact ACC premiums will on the whole be at least as favourable as those of the private sector under the new system, the Greens felt that this cost argument no longer stood.

Similarly, when looking at claims and counterclaims in relation to work injuries and fatalities, it rapidly became clear that statistics were being used in a variety of fairly dubious ways, and could not be relied on to prove much of anything. The private sector's figures were often too good to be true, for example ignoring significant reporting time lags, annualising five months' experience over a whole year, creating exponential errors, and ignoring the under reporting factor.

During the Committee process we heard from a number of unions, workers and health professionals of repeated instances of employers putting pressure on workers not to report an accident as having happened at work. Other specific problems for workers were that they sometimes have to pay increased costs, especially if they visit their own rather than a company doctor; that private insurers often put limits on treatment unrelated to medical advice; that there has been an increase in disputes over the classification of injuries as work related, and that overall, insurance companies are wielding an every greater degree of influence over decisions usually made by doctors or other health professionals.

It became clear to me that the longer the private system continued, the more accident compensation would become a money spinner for lawyers rather than a protection for injured workers.

In 1974 New Zealanders gave up the right to sue in return for 24 hour, no fault, universal accident cover. Already, in just a few months, industry is talking about reducing the areas covered by accident compensation, and boradening the areas where we restore a tort based right to sue system. It is likely to be only a matter of time before those injured are forced into court action they can usually ill afford.

Another worrying factor that I feel particularly affects unemployed people and those with disabilities, is that the private insurance process has lead to some employers indulging in far more stringent pre - employment testing than previously. Such practices, designed to weed out job applicants with less than 100% health and injury histories, appear very prejudiced against the medium to long term unemployed, who are very likely to have health problems as a result of their situation, or to be unemployed because they have been sick or injured.

Another area of particular concern has been the proposed reintroduction of the Accredited Employers' Programme. The previous programme was far from perfect, with some workers really missing out, and a level of employer dissastisfaction as well. The Green Party believes this programme will only work to the benefit of both employers and employees if there are stringent entry criteria and effective ongoing monitoring. To this end, we worked to put forward amendments to the original Bill, strengthening the rights of employees in assessing accredited employers.

We were also pleased to see an increased focus on rehabilitation come in to the Bill through the Committee process, as all too often this key component is reduced to a nullity as the debate rages over costs and figures.

Thus, in the end the Green Party has come to fully support the Bill as amended, and we look forward to being part of what we hope will be a productive effort from all Parties aimed at ensuring a renewed public ACC system outperforms both the old ACC and the private insurers.

Like many, we do have qualms about the capacity of ACC to become a new and better public service, and I hope the Government will make good on promises made during the Committee process that caseloads will be reduced hugely to ensure much better service to both workers and employers.

The Green Party will also be working to ensure that there is in fact adequate enforcement of health and safety standards; that the new provisions will actually work for self employed people and farmers; and that ACC does not revert to the culture of arrogance and unaccountability so prevalent in its history.

Public confidence in ACC must be restored. Employers and employees as well as Government must be involved in monitoring the work of ACC, and we are keen to work with other parties on possibilities for fairer and more independent review processes.

We also hope that more time and resources will be made available for public consultation on the next ACC bill, so that a more comprehensive debate can take place about the details of the new system. I look forward to the day when workers and employers will receive as of right full, fair and effective assistance from a truly public service ACC.