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| Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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Between 2015 and 2025, ACC had lost its way. Injured people waited too long for help, many became stuck on long-term support, and the future cost of open claims roughly doubled. So, the government stepped in. It ordered an independent review, demanded a turnaround, appointed a new chair and made ACC report its numbers every month. And indeed, the numbers have moved. The long-term pool, once swelling by nearly 15 percent a year, stopped growing by April. That is welcome progress. Yet, what does that headline number actually measure? To decide whether someone has gone back to work, rather than asking them, ACC simply stops their weekly payments. If, after five weeks, they have not complained, it records them as recovered. That makes the figures easy to improve. All ACC has to do is decline more claims and suspend more payments. This takes more people off the books and counts each as a recovery, whether they have really recovered or not. Over the past year, ACC declined cover or support almost 173,000 times and suspended weekly payments 80 percent more often. A record 8,700 left long-term support, yet only 13 in 100 are recorded as returning to their old job, and ACC could not say why about half of them left. It does not track where people end up. Some may have moved into work that suits them. Others may have been pushed off too soon. Nobody knows which. Some of ACC’s claims tightening was overdue. But a measure that cannot tell genuine recovery from simply moving people off the books cannot, by itself, demonstrate that the crisis is over. In their analysis, Treasury credited the real gains to an earlier change, when ACC brought back one-to-one case managers who follow through with claimants. But there is another promising option ACC should utilise more, and that is doing rehabilitation properly. ACC’s external actuary, the independent expert who estimates its future bills, reckons better recovery could take 500 to 800 million dollars off those costs within two years. Our new report, Half a Turnaround, makes the case for finishing this job by speeding up rehabilitation and measuring outcomes. Done right, this would not only be welcome news for those who suffered accidents. It would also complete ACC’s financial turnaround. Explore Oliver's research through our new research note, our NZ Herald column and our latest podcast episode. |
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| Dr Michael Johnston | Senior Fellow | michael.johnston@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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The NZPB claims that “…concepts of privacy and confidentiality may be somewhat altered [for Māori] when the sharing of information leads to additional support and culturally appropriate processes…” In other words, psychologists may be required to water down the privacy rights of Māori clients based on the NZPB’s characterisation of Māori as a “collectivist culture” in its draft code. The issue was surfaced in a recent article by Dr Arna Mitchell, a Māori psychologist, published in the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists (NZCCP). Dr Mitchell raised the privacy issue in the context of the NZPB compelling psychologists to adopt practice based on cultural values rather than scientific evidence. Under pressure from the College, the journal editors retracted the article. They justified the decision on the grounds that the article is “not aligned with the values of the NZCCP” and “could perpetuate harm to Māori”. A peer-reviewed article published in an academic journal should be retracted only in extraordinary circumstances. Proven plagiarism or falsification of data would be grounds for retraction. Saying things that powerful interests do not like should not. Dr Mitchell argued that the NZPB has expanded its scope beyond its statutory function and abandoned political neutrality. Most New Zealanders would probably agree that the Board should be a neutral regulator. Instead, it has become, in its own words, a "values-based organisation". This stance, Dr Mitchell argued, threatens the scientist-practitioner model under which psychologists operate internationally. The model requires psychologists to follow scientific evidence in their practice, rather than spiritual or cultural beliefs lacking empirical support. She supports psychologists learning cultural competence. Psychologists should be aware of their clients’ cultural backgrounds to ensure that treatment is conducted with sensitivity to their beliefs and customs. However, Dr Mitchell objected to Māori being treated as a homogeneous group. The NZPB is not alone. The Real Estate Authority, the Teaching Council and the Nursing Council have all adopted provisions that threaten practitioners with consequences if they don’t toe the ideological line. These bodies must be brought back to their core business. ACT’s new policy to require professional regulators to be politically neutral would be a good start. |
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| Lewis Carroll | Author and poet | insights@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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The consenting authority first required Meridian to spend three months searching for a lamprey. But lamprey tend not to prefer the high country. Lewis Carroll explained the problem to us. The Hunting of the Lamprey (an Agony, in eleven Fits) "Just the place for a lamprey!" the Council declared, As it landed its clipboard with care, Though the ecologists, frankly, had long since despaired And insisted: "There's nothing up there." Now the lamprey's a fish — primeval and eel-ish, Blood-sucking, and ancient, and rare; So threatened, so precious, the law gets quite squeamish, And demands that you prove it's not there. For the site was a ridge where the southerly roared, Inland, and ferociously high; But the lamprey keeps low, by the coast and the ford — Here it sooner would swim through the sky. Now ninety-one turbines they hoped to retire For thirty-nine, taller and true, From forty-six megawatts, something far higher — One-seventy, humming and new. "But first seek the lamprey – and seek it with zeal; You may hunt it with surveys and stress; You may threaten its life with a Resource Consent seal, You may charm it with forms to assess!" So Meridian sighed, and Meridian sought, With waders, and torches, and net, For the lamprey that science had said was just not — And, reader, they've not found one yet. They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with rigour and hope; They searched in each trickle, they sampled the air, They surveyed each rivulet's slope. Three months they did tarry, three months they did wade, While emissions kept mounting, unchecked, And the megawatts idled, the savings unmade, For a fish that no one could detect. The firm wept, "We have proved it!", with a quaver of pride, "Unequivocally — none can be found! There is no shape of lamprey on this mountainside, As we said, ere we started, all round." And the moral, dear hunter, is plain as the air On the ridge where no lamprey can be: You may sample, may search, and may search yet elsewhere For a thing that was never to be — For the Boojum of Process, the Snark of Delay, Softly and suddenly looms, And the wind that might light all our homes, day by day, Just vanishes. Into the glooms. |
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