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Otago Daily
Times
April 2, 2002
ACC lump
sums 'target for fraud'
Dunedin author
attacks reinstated payments
by Joanna Norris
Yesterday, new laws came into effect which reinstate lump sum compensation
payments of up to $100,000 for victims of accidents and sexual abuse. The
laws have prompted a chorus of controversy
Dunedin author Lynley
Hood has joined critics of new laws allowing lump sum payments to victims of
physical injury and sexual abuse, which came into effect yesterday.
People who suffer from
injury or sexual abuse after April 1 will be eligible for a lump sum payment
ranging from $2500 to $100,000 under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation
and Compensation Act.
The payments will be administered by the Accident Compensation Corporation
and the new law marks a return to lump sum payments which were scrapped by
National in 1992 in favour of an independence allowance, set at a maximum of
$62.48 a week.
Ms Hood, who spent several years researching the implications of sexual
assault allegations for her book on the Peter Ellis Christchurch Civic Creche
case, said the legislation was "a minefield for so many reasons".
"There's the basic issue of lump sum compensation and whether it's a
good idea at all . . . It can encourage people to maximise their agony to
maximise their gain," she said.
"The biggest problem as far as sexual abuse goes is the problem of
fraud, which ACC refuses to face up to."
Ms Hood said there was no mechanism for determining whether the sexual abuse
actually took place and ACC policy guidelines encouraged "vulnerable
people into believing they had been sexually abused and that was the cause of
their problems".
While it was appropriate people who had been the victim of physical or sexual
injury were helped to recover, large cash payments were not necessarily the
solution.
"I think the Government needs to look really hard at what constitutes
safe and effective therapy," she said.
A spokeswoman for Business New Zealand told the Otago Daily Times that
employers were concerned that by reinstating lump sums, "it would extend
the scheme beyond what employers could afford".
But Council of Trade Unions spokeswoman Lyndy McIntyre said the legislation
was long overdue.
"The lump sum scheme had to happen. What's been acknowledged is that
when people lose the ability to work [through injury], it's more than a
weekly thing, it's affected them for life and the law needs to acknowledge
exactly what the loss has been."
She said the law change was a victory for unions, community groups and
disability organisations, which had campaigned for it, particularly the
Coalition on Accident Compensation, a group of union, disability and women's
organisations
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