But the Facts are Different

Gordon Campbell waxes lyrical on the plan to cut ACC benefits to seasonal workers, dwelling on the evils of ideology (National’s, of course. Socialist ideology is not evil in Campbell’s book). My little amphibious friend at FrogBlog uses Campbell’s diatribe as the basis of one of his “Gutting ACC” posts. The only problem is that Campbell’s point is complete baloney and merely indicative of the limited knowledge Campbell appears to have of the scheme.

The real facts are these:

ACC pays you 80% of your wages while you are off work with and injury. Unfortunately, they work out the weekly amount by averaging your last 12 weeks of pay. If you have a fairly static wage packet, this is not a problem. If you are self-employed, or , worst still, a seasonal worker, and your income for the past three months has been low, you are completely screwed. The problem is most acute for seasonal workers who often earn virtually nothing out of season and rely on the good earnings they get in season. If you injure yourself a few weeks before the start of the season, ACC will happily pay you an absolute pittance, while your annual “boost” is slipping by.

In order to make this more fair on seasonal workers, ACC will now be worked out on your annual salary. I am not certain whether this is available for the self-employed as well, but it certainly should be. Take a few weeks holiday and injure yourself at the end of it and see what ACC offers you. Nasty.

Despite Gordon Campbell’s ravings, this is a good deal for seasonal workers, enabling them to get compensation more in keeping with their total wages. Of course, if they wished, seasonal workers could purchase additional income protection insurance while they are working in season, to ensure their income is maintained at this level. They get paid quite well during season and could easily afford it.

As an aside, I am grateful to Liberty Scott for doing something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. He points out that introducing competition back into ACC is by no means “privatising” ACC and, in fact, to use that term in this context is absurd. Read the entire post. Labour is trying to use the bogeyman of privatisation to scare people into railing against the changes to ACC without reason. It is a dishonest ploy which should be exposed continuously by as many bloggers as possible. It serves only Labour’s political purposes and adds nothing to rational debate on ACC. It should be challenged at every opportunity.

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