Kia ora koutou,

Greetings to all of you here, and may I first of all offer a word of thanks to the organisers for generously allowing me the opportunity to speak here today on behalf of the Green Party.

The state of our country’s accident compensation system is something which our party cares about very much, and has done ever since we entered Parliament in our own right in December 1999.

As the Green MP with responsibility for the ACC portfolio, I was at that time thrust immediately into the ideological hotbed of the special select committee that was set up by the new Labour Government, aimed at renationalising ACC and then enacting a number of subsequent and much needed reforms. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

The Greens continued to support the series of improvements which Labour–led Governments made over the last nine years, but by the time of last year’s election we still believed that there was a lot more that could be done to improve our ACC system. For us, the underlying principle is the provision of equitable and adequate rehabilitation and compensation, based on the fundamental principles and goals espoused in the Woodhouse Report which this conference has already been talking about this morning.

We believe that the Woodhouse principles are still valid and are just as pertinent now as they were originally. Going beyond that, and in an ideal world, we would also like to see a wholesale review of our ACC, social security and health and disability support systems carried out, with a greater emphasis on equitable compensation, regardless of cause of impairment.

However, I am all too aware that we are now in a new era, dealing with both the immediate political reality of a major change of Government and Government direction, and the economic reality of worldwide recession in the aftermath of a global financial collapse which has impacted on our accident insurance system, as on others. But these changes in our situation don’t mean we shouldn’t as a country and a community be doing everything we can to retain the best of our current ACC system, and to work for further improvements to it.

From well before last year’s election we were alarmed by National’s avowed intention to partially reprivatise ACC. Since Mr Key became Prime Minister he has stated a commitment to not privatising state assets – the Green Party continues to hope that this means ACC will not be opened up to private competition or even dismantled entirely, as some on the right propose. This would be the worst possible time for any privatisation.

The bailout or collapse of major insurers in Australia and other parts of the world, including HIH which was part of New Zealand’s late 90s privatisation experiment, only serve to underline the insecurity that would be brought into the system if we charged off in this direction, much less the other risks to citizens’ wellbeing which would result. I hope our current Government will have the strength to resist the ongoing doctrinal pressure to turn back the clock to a system where private insurers motivated by profit simply, for example, at times refuse to grant cover and entitlements that injured workers should rightfully receive.

We share the fear of our Labour colleagues that all the talk about ballooning liabilities and potential insolvency is simply part of a softening up process prior to a lurch into partial privatisation. Statements by Nick Smith that this is not going to happen were somewhat undermined in March by John Key’s rather contradictory remark that ‘ACC would not be privatised, but private companies may have the opportunity to get involved.’ Just as alarming have been statements from the Minister that while privatisation may not be on the agenda, a cut back in entitlements could well be.

I imagine the Greens are in much the same boat as many of you here in this room today, wondering what entitlements might be cut, how deeply and on what basis. I don’t want to get into predicting where any particular cuts might come from, as I don’t want to do anything that might encourage the process, but overall I am deeply concerned about who might end up without cover, and/or what aspects of rehabilitation and treatment might be slashed.

Claimants have a tough enough time already as it is; the thought of any further restriction on eligibility for compensation or rehabilitation is alarming, especially at a time when more and more people are suffering job and income insecurity anyway due to our rapidly rising unemployment rate. And my fears about entitlement aren’t just confined to possible future developments.

One of the most worrying aspects of ACC’s current practices has been the development of the ‘Better at Work’ pilot project in Taupo, geared to cutting the time injured workers remain on compensation. There ACC not only pays doctors $50 for each patient placed into the pilot; they also pay doctors extra, a kind of profit sharing bonus, for removing people from income related support more quickly, providing a perverse incentive to force people back to work before they are ready.

While we of course support doctors and ACC doing everything they can to get people back on the job, this scheme oversteps the mark in providing a profit motive for doctors to meet ACC’s fiscal objectives, when doctors should in fact be providing neutral medical advice on rehabilitation.

Obtaining the best medical outcome for patients should surely be the priority of the medical profession rather than private profit at the patient’s expense. Last week in an answer to a question in Parliament Minister Nick Smith announced the Taupo ‘Better at Work’ pilot is to be rolled out nationally shortly.

This is a dangerous sign of things to come. On another front, we are also concerned that the Government may be looking at further reducing employer levies for companies with apparently good safety records - and this at a time when they are both preaching doom and gloom about the costs of ACC and also talking about cutting entitlements.

While the Green Party is supportive of high quality, well audited employer programmes with genuine worker participation and accountability, we fear any loosening of the scheme, as we remember experiences in the past of employers pressuring staff to minimise or not report workplace injuries in order to retain the cleanest possible safety record.

We are apprehensive about the possible reintroduction of experience ratings across the board. Experience rating can also be dangerous in that it fails to take into account the impacts of occupational diseases like asbestosis which often don’t show up until years after workers have left employment in an unsafe workplace. We have also been concerned by court judgements relating to work related gradual process disease and infection injuries being inconsistent, especially with occupational overuse syndrome and gradual chemical poisoning.

The Greens believe that we need a clarification of the law in this area so that everyone who has a genuine work related injury, disease or infection, gradual process or not, should be able to obtain cover.

We also have particular disquiet around the way in which the 2001 Act excludes from cover injuries wholly or substantially caused by gradual process injury, disease or infection – other than that which is work related – and the way in which this is used to exit people from compensation and rehabilitation entitlements. Looking forward, the Green Party continues to work for an ACC scheme which ensures adequate rehabilitation and compensation for injured people.

We would welcome legislation clarifying that the onus should be on ACC to prove a claimant is no longer entitled to compensation or rehabilitation, before that entitlement is suspended or cancelled. We believe that adequate and appropriate social and vocational rehabilitation should be provided to the maximum extent practicable.

The vocational independence (work capacity) assessment for people receiving weekly compensation should be abolished, with those who are unable to achieve pre injury earning potential continuing to receive weekly compensation, abated by such income as they are capable of earning.

Claimants often report that individual rehabilitation plans seem to be a token exercise, with a speedy exit from entitlement the goal, rather than maximising rehabilitation and ensuring they have the best chance at returning to a real job that reflects their actual capability, experience and earning capacity. We don’t believe getting rid of the vocational independence assessments will result in an increase of malingering ACC claimants.

The Corporation will continue to be entitled to require people to be available for and make reasonable efforts to find employment. It is the unreasonable use of the work capacity assessment that we want to see gone.

With the whole unemployment situation worsening, we also believe ACC should be treated in the same way as earned income when people are considered for eligibility for income tested benefits – the dollar for dollar abatement should be abolished. We would like to see an end to copayments for treatment. Copayments undermine the no fault principle and deny access to those who can’t afford to pay. Containing costs should be achieved by contracting and negotiating directly with treatment providers, and by working with professional associations on the standardisation of fees.

In relation to the culture of ACC, we continue to call for funding for independent advocacy groups which can provide quality competent advocacy for ACC claimants. We would welcome the creation of an ACC ombudsman who would take over the functions of the ACC complaints investigation service And we would certainly like to strengthen the code of ACC claimants’ rights so that meaningful redress is available for breaches of the code. And as you may have noticed over the years, the Green Party continues to lobby for ACC’s investment practices to be rigourously ethical, preventing from investing in companies whose products or services significantly increase rates of injury or illness, or have other adverse social or environmental impacts.

 In conclusion, the Green Party above all remains committed to a public, no fault, single provider system of accident compensation. While ACC in its current form has plenty of faults which we have not been shy of pointing out over the years, it is still worth defending against any moves to privatisation or loss of entitlements. Economic recession should not be used as an excuse to weaken and destroy a valuable asset which has been built up over many years.