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Child sex
abuse hysteria and the Ellis case |
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The wisdom of
Gordon Waugh - Index |
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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 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 |
