Little Andrew: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is subject to correction 
Little Andrew: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4222. Text is subject to correction.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 As we all know ACC is a very vital institution to the well-being and the livelihood of this great country of ours. It contributes enormously and it is a key part of the productivity of this country. Every wage and salary earner contributes to it every business contributes to it and every owner of a motor vehicle contributes to it. It is a very vital institution in this country. This House appropriates around about $1 billion a year for it in this current financial year both for the non-earners account and also to fund the work of what was the Department of Labour which is now a division of the ministry of various other things under Steven Joyce in terms of the support work it does on ACC policy. Because of the importance of ACC in New Zealand the need for careful stewardship cannot be understated or underestimated. So the question has to be asked: why is it that this Government has made such an almighty hash of this vital institution?  
We all know it started with the previous Minister for ACC who will go down in New Zealand’s history as the worst Minister for ACC in the entirety of the life of that institution. He ran it in such a way that he has fleeced New Zealanders of $5 billion or more over 3 years. He ran down the quality of the service of ACC and led a culture of disentitlement that the present Minister has now had to try to fix up. The question now looking ahead will be: is this Minister for ACC and the measures that she has put in place up to the job of restoring confidence in ACC?  
Until now we have had the massive levies that had to be cut because this Government was so embarrassed about the size of them.  
The number of reviews and appeals being applied for by claimants has shot up. The proportion of cases lost by ACC has shot up because the truth is that the previous Minister for ACC and the previous administration could not care less about what happened to ACC claimants until Bronwyn Pullar came along. Then the previous Minister showed an interest in ACC that hitherto had not been shown. It was his old mate Bronwyn Pullar. The Minister intervened. It was a bit like an episode of  
Undercover Boss 
 where in a large organisation the boss descends from on high finds one problem with one person and fixes that problem but forgets that there are systemic problems throughout the organisation. So he did such a fantastic job that when the Government was re-elected he had to resign as a consequence. That is the successful performance of the previous Minister for ACC with this institution.  
But the truth is that that privacy breach—that massive privacy breach—was symptomatic of much deeper problems in ACC. There was a total failure of service and support to so many claimants particularly those who were long-term claimants who had serious conditions and who needed the attention of ACC. It has led to a meltdown of catastrophic proportions. What have we seen? We have seen a chair of ACC go. We have seen the chief executive officer go. We have seen three directors of ACC—and it does not have that many—go. We now have three separate inquiries two by the Privacy Commissioner and one by the Auditor-General into this once-fine institution. Public confidence in ACC has been totally shattered and it is entirely because of the failure of political leadership.  
The fact that so many people at the governance level have left ACC is in my view a stunning vote of no confidence in this Minister. But let us give her the benefit of the doubt. She has set out a new plan. There is a new service and purchase agreement with this Minister which she herself signed last month. Let us just have a look at it. “Priority 1:”—for ACC in the period ahead—is “Improved Trust and Confidence”. Then let us have a look at the detail of that. Improved trust and confidence—a demand for a culture change. It says: “ACC will invest in ensuring quality leadership of the Corporation through increasing management capability and training. The investment will aim to facilitate a real culture change within ACC resulting in better management of relationships …”.  
What is the measure for this improvement? What is the measure for this lifting of public trust and confidence? “Quality leadership will be measured by an increase in the number of managers who participate in management and leadership training modules.” That is the measure. It is not about the number of complaints that go to ACC’s internal complaints office. It is not about the number of reviews and appeals that it faces because people have had bad decisions made about them. It is about the number of training exercises that management have been on.  
So what is the answer going to be to a claimant who is deprived of their just entitlements in the scheme? “We have declined you but goodness me don’t complain because the person who declined you went on a management training regime just recently.” Well that is not an answer. That is not about lifting quality. There is no measure in the service and purchase agreement that is about measuring what actually matters to people who use ACC and that is the quality of support and service that they are getting.  
What else have we got? Vocational rehabilitation and home care—under this Minister a whole new arrangement has been entered into a procurement arrangement for rehabilitation and home care. A contract has been let for the management and coordination of vocational rehabilitation. The largest contract has gone to would you believe it an Australian company to manage ACC vocational rehabilitation. This is another Australian company—30 percent of ACC’s vocational rehabilitation is now going to be managed by an Australian company.  
The way it works is this. ACC decided that 12 percent of the cost of vocational rehabilitation is tied up in management so ACC is going to give that to the Australian contractor—at least the 30 percent of the business that it has got. That is going to come out of the back pockets of the service providers who are stressed enough as it is and ultimately the price will be paid by those who look to ACC for vocational rehabilitation. It will be paid through fewer visits and less service and support by those providers. So much for the culture change. So much for improving public trust and confidence in ACC.  
What else have we got? We have got the Cabinet decision made in October last year on the eve of the election to expand the Accredited Employers Programme. This is the private part of ACC but we do not hear much about it. It has got its own problems. But under this Minister we have a plan by this Government to expand it. The complaints we are getting about the Accredited Employers Programme are that HR managers are intervening in decisions about health care treatment and rehabilitation which are properly the province of medical providers.  
What else have we got? Spending on injury prevention has been going down steadily under this Government and is expected to go down more in the year ahead.  
Then what about this? ACC—more than $20 billion of funds under management—is expected to have an ethical investment regime. What do we see it investing in? ACC is a 30 percent investor in the private company now set up to build and run Wiri Prison. ACC is an investor in the Wiri Prison. How is it that an institution that is set up to provide care and support for those who are injured those who are victims of accidents finds itself investing in locking up people removing their liberty and penalising and punishing them? That is not part of ACC’s remit. That is not part of its mandate.  
I say to this Committee that if the current plan is anything to go by this Minister who is called upon to restore public trust and confidence is simply not capable of doing it. Restoring public trust and confidence is not going to be measured by what we know is written in the plans for ACC in the year and years ahead. That is the appalling thing about it.  
The challenge for this Government is to restore this institution to what it once was—an institution that was about giving people the support and assistance the medical care the medical treatment and the vocational rehabilitation that sometimes are needed for those who are victims of accidents. That is what ACC was set up for as part of a community partnership between people wage and salary earners business and the Government—not as an investor in prisons and not about cutting vocational rehabilitation and making it worse for those who need it but as an institution that we can look to again to be proud of and to do the job that we expect of it.