No crisis at ACC

A new report shows that the Government's plan to privatise work coverage of ACC will undermine our world leading system and lead to more suffering for accident victims, said the Green Party today.

This morning the ACC Futures Coalition issued the 'Choice in the ACC Workplace Account' report which concludes that the Government's plans to privatise parts of ACC by opening up the ACC work account to international insurance companies is a solution looking for a problem.

"Part-privatisation of ACC will cut support to vulnerable accident victims. It will result in unfair and uneven support for accident victims," said Kevin Hague, Green Party ACC spokesperson.

"This report makes it abundantly clear that a 'crisis' was manufactured by the Government to undermine and privatise ACC. In 2009 when the 'crisis' was supposedly happening, ACC took in a billion dollars more than it spent on claims.

"Part-private models will not work — we have seen this in Australia, and last time New Zealand did this in the late 90s. It is clear that the National Government, despite its protestations, is committed to privatisation."

Mr Hague said that every accident victim deserves a fair go and this will not happen under a private insurance system.