Newsgroups: nz.general,nz.politics
Subject:
ACC's Handling of Claims for Sexual Abuse - Gordon Waugh
Date: Wed, 09
Jan 2002 21:16:04 GMT
Gordon Waugh
Whenuapai
January 9, 2002
ACC's handling of claims for sexual abuse is the
greatest con job this nation has ever seen, and the general tenor of my criticism
of ACC and its method is below.
This new version of the Act will cause all sorts of problems. Government
predicts the new lump-sum scheme will cost $60M per annum. That is intended
to cover all the forms of accident, but with the continued (but unwarranted)
inclusion of sexual abuse claims, I believe it will build to much, much more.
The concept of paying compensation for sexual abuse (or rather the mental
injury supposedly associated with it) lies at the core of the matter. There
is no justification for selecting sexual abuse as a special case in this sort
of legislation - it is driven by ideology and false information on the
supposed effects of sexual abuse. If taxpayer funds are to be paid out, there
needs to be a much greater realistic and acceptable level of evidence of
injury to justify that payment. In most of the ACC claims, there is no such
thing.
ACC relies heavily on its "approved counsellors" and the stories
told by the claimants. It claims to decide coverage on "the balance of
probability" that the abuse occurred. But it is impossible to reach a
balance from just one set of information.
It is wrong in principle and in practice to allow a claimant to get away with
not naming the abuser. I firmly believe that claimants must be required to name
the alleged perpetrator, and he (sometimes she) must also be given a
statutory right to challenge the claim. Because taxpayer funds are involved,
the rules ought to be that ACC claims could not be paid unless a conviction
was entered - and if it later proved to be a wrongful conviction, the
claimant must repay the compensation, the counsellor repay her ACC fees, and
both repay all the associated administrative costs.
Despite the fact that numerous Ministers of ACC, and ACC itself, have said in
the past that "satisfactory, verified" evidence of abuse is
necessary, counsellors do not investigate or corroborate claims. One effect
this creates is that everyone in the country, from the Governor General down,
can get a taxpayer bonus merely by going to an ACC-approved counsellor,
telling a tale of abuse, and feigning some of the "indicators of
abuse". It can't be all that difficult to feign "low self esteem,
depression, nightmares, anxiety, relationship difficulties, irritability,
lack of concentration" (ad infinitum...)!!
ACC has admitted to me that there is no "syndrome" associated with
sexual abuse and agrees that there are no specific psychological or
behavioural factors or symptoms. It is well-known that the effects of sexual
abuse are idiosyncratic and therefore unpredictable, and reliably found that
about 75% of those who suffer sexual abuse have no lasting effects. Of
course, a basic difficulty is the definition of "sexual abuse". At
least the ACC legislation couches it in terms of various sections of the
Crimes Act 1961.
Another vital mechanism which must be introduced into the sex abuse industry
is acceptable training, examination, registration and licensing of
counsellors. These must be open to public and professional scrutiny, and a
transparent and public complaints procedure, operated by an independent
Tribunal, must be installed. Counsellors must be placed in a position of
being capable of losing their licence to practice.
Anything less than this level of management is conducive to continuing the
greatest con job this country has ever seen. The last iteration of lump-sums
for sexual abuse claimants cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. The
forthcoming one is unlikely to cost less.
In answer to some of my questions, Dr Michael Cullen (Labour's initial
Minister of ACC) wrote to me that lump sums will only be available to
claimants who were "injured" after the introduction of the new Act
(now 1 April 2002). Those with claims of historical abuse would only be
entitled to counselling and minor assistance. The amount of lump-sum
compensation is to be on a sliding scale, determined by the assessed level of
whole-body permanent impairment. The minimum is 10%, at which level the
payout equates to around $2,750. To reach the max level of $100,000, the permanent
impairment has to be 80% or greater. It would seem, though, that in further
developing this scheme, changes have been made - for example, the current
view expressed by Ms Kettle of ACC is that the scale has not yet been
finalised. I suppose there will also be other changes.
Newsgroups:
nz.general,nz.politics
Subject: Re: ACC's Handling of Claims for Sexual Abuse - Gordon Waugh
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 03:10:25 GMT
Gordon Waugh
Whenuapai
January 10, 2002
I noticed an error I had
made. The minimum lump sum should
read $2,500, not $2,750.
I should also clarify another point.
Historical claims of sexual abuse will NOT attract lump-sum
compensation, as this will only apply to cases where the injury/accident
occurred after the introduction of the new Act, which I understand is 1 April
2002. Historical cases will receive
the scaled "independence allowance" (min $10 and max $61 per week)
plus counselling and other relatively minor entitlements.
I thought the Marlborough
Express editorial (January 9, 2002) was right on the button.
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