Govt pushed to honour ACC pledge

Labour drags heels on reforming ‘unfair’ law that pays some workers less than the minimum wage

The Government is being urged to honour a campaign promise to change an “unfair” law that gives some working people injured in accidents less than the minimum wage while receiving follow-up medical care.

At present, ACC pays people who are hurt in accidents while they are employed 80 per cent of their previous year’s income while they’re off work for treatment and rehabilitation.

But those who are injured while they aren’t working — including people injured as children — are entitled only to “loss of potential income” payments of 80 per cent of the minimum wage if they need follow-up treatment, even after they start working.

Barrister Warren Forster said the law on accident compensation had changed a lot in the past 30 years and he believed the policy was discriminatory.

The only way to make the system fairer would be to change the law, he said.

In its 2017 manifesto, the Labour Party said it would change the 2001 Accident Compensation Act to make it clear that anyone who is working and needs treatment for an injury would qualify for weekly compensation at 80 per cent of their income while off work, regardless of whether they were working when injured.

Now, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway is yet to confirm if the law change is still on his agenda, and if so, when it would come into effect.

Lawyers, advocates and ACC clients who believe they’ve been shortchanged are pushing for answers.

A bill to amend sections of the act is before a select committee but lawyer John Miller, who has represented personal injury claimants for more than 40 years, said the promised changes to how weekly compensation was assessed weren’t included.

Dr Denise Powell, president of Kiwis Acclaim Otago, a support group for the injured, said the group had been lobbying for years for the “unfair” law to be changed.

“We believe this is a matter of some urgency and encourage the Minister for ACC to make it very clear when this will be actioned and whether it will be retrospective.”

Christchurch man Andrew Hall, who became a C6 tetraplegic after diving into shallow water in 1983, is also calling for a law change.

He was a university student at the time of his accident but has been working fulltime in the decades since.

Last July he needed time off work for a health problem related to his spinal injury.

“I had an acute episode where a loop formed on my large intestine and needed to be cut out,” he told the Weekend Herald.

“It was a consequence of sitting down for 35 years. Your intestines get a bit sluggish.”

Hall needed surgery to remove the section of bowel that was twisted and was required to have seven weeks off work while he recovered.

ACC told him he was entitled only to loss of potential earnings payments — about $500 a week — while off work because he was a non-earner at the time of the injury.

This was much less than he would have got if he was eligible for income adjusted compensation because he had a reasonably well-paying job.

Hall challenged ACC’s decision and it is being reviewed by Fairway Resolution.

Lees-Galloway said he and his coalition partners were discussing the proposals in Labour’s manifesto and planning to introduce a second accident compensation amendment bill.