Policy | ACC

Everyone in Aotearoa should be protected and rehabilitated when injured. MANA fully supports the original intent of ACC as a universal, 24 hour, no-fault system for accident compensation and support, including injuries that arise as a result of medical treatment. Everything should be done to return ACC to this system and its founding ‘Woodhouse’ principles (community responsibility; comprehensive entitlement; complete rehabilitation; real compensation; and administrative efficiency) so all individuals and whānau can get assistance when they need it most.

MANA policy priorities are to:

  • Keep ACC in public ownership
    • Oppose all moves to fully or partially privatise ACC, and stop the contracting out of ACC claims management to private companies.
    • Return ACC to a ‘pay as you go’ scheme instead of requiring ACC to build up funds to cover the full costs of today’s injuries well into the future (which makes ACC ‘cash rich’ and more attractive for private sale), and use any annual surpluses to keep the earners’ levy as low as possible.
  • Ensure those who are eligible for ACC receive the cover they’re entitled to
    • Ensure that people who suffer from work-related gradual process injury, disease, or infection, including chemical poisoning and hearing loss induced by industrial noise, receive full cover from ACC.
    • Require ACC to continue cover as long as an injury remains the cause of a person’s current condition, rather than using pre-existing conditions or age related degeneration as an excuse to withdraw support.
    • Ensure it is up to ACC to prove that someone is no longer eligible for entitlements, rather than the injured person having to prove entitlement themselves.
    • Fully restore the ability to make sensitive claims without the 2010 restrictions, and remove barriers that deny and limit access to compensation and support.
    • Remove the inequity in access to services and healthcare between ACC and Ministry of Health clients, bringing all recipients to the higher level of access to resources.
  • Enable claimants to remain on ACC until they are fully rehabilitated
    • Make health and wellbeing the priority, rather than forcing people off ACC as quickly as possible, and bring ACC under the Ministry of Health.
    • Provide quality, appropriate social and vocational rehabilitation to all injured people with the goal of maximising their ability to return to full participation in home, work and community life, to the extent that they are able.
    • Cut the unnecessary vocational independence (work capacity) test which is often used to force people off ACC at the soonest possible opportunity.
  • Ensure ACC claimants get the best service and advice possible
    • Change the culture of ACC so that all claimants are treated with respect and in a culturally appropriate way.
    • Provide stable, on-going funding for community based beneficiary and ACC advocacy groups throughout the country.