Warren Forster: Lawyer and researcher on the need for a review of ACC

There’s hopes a major new review of ACC will take a long-term view. 

ACC Minister Matt Doocey has ordered a six month review into the agency after it reported a $7.2 billion deficit and a drop in the rehabilitation rates. 

Levies for earners and businesses are set to increase 5% each year for the next three years. 

Lawyer and researcher Warren Forster told Heather du Plessis-Allan the scheme has been failing for years. 

He says the Government needs to look at how ACC can better get people back into work. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
ACC levies. They're going to go up. They're going to
rise steadily over the next three years, are going to
fill at seven point two billion dollar DEFICEI, or at
least help to And there's going to be a review
of ACC with us now, is ACC lawyer and researcher
Warren Forster Hey, Warren.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, good worrying, how do you doing well?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thank you? Do we need this review?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We absolutely need this review. And the reason is that
ACEC has really failed New Zealanders over the last few
years and the Minister's at the point now where he
needs to decide does he keep going with the status
crow or do we really pause now and think what's
going on there?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
When you say failed us, is that because of not
getting us back to work and out of the rehab.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, and that's that's the key thing. So New Zealanders
get into it all the time and what we need
to do is rehab to get better. But things have
just slowed down so much that it's taking longer. And
the really important point there is that we shouldn't blame
New Zealanders. We're out there doing our thing. We're not
the experts and rehabilitation aceies is that when it's taking

(01:01):
sort of months to get medical evidence or a SEC
can make decisions months to get decisions on treatment. The
bureaucratic process has overtaken people's needs and that's costing us
more and ACC now by upping these levees is passing
that cost back to us. And what the minister's saying
is we need to stop here and have a think,

(01:23):
and that really is, you know, we need to do
that because we can't keep going in a direction where
things aren't working, and we need to understand why they're
not working. And that's what the minister is talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now, Hey, those motorcycle levees are pretty hefty. Do you
reckon is this going to get people to give up
their bikes?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Look, I've got no idea. I don't ride bikes myself.
But the whole point is we need to pay for
the scheme somehow, and we either do that by levees
or we do it by return on investment. And one
of the it's missing here is that ACC's got sixty
odd billion dollars in a big fund. They don't need

(02:07):
to click levies every year to fully fund the scheme
because they can use return on investment to do it,
and we just need to be really careful when we're
having these discussions to take a long term view. Putting
my motorcycle levees up and down to something that happens
every few years and it just makes very little sense.
What we need to do is look at the big

(02:28):
picture and say, Okay, what is costing us, how do
we click that money, and most importantly, how do we
help people get back to work, get back to their
lives and not just cut them off the scheme. That's
what we're seeing now. We're starting to see thousands of
people who've got brain injuries. A SEC's just decided, look,
we don't believe in post concussion syndrome anymore. So thousands

(02:50):
of people are just going to get cut off. And
that's the exits that we start to see. And we
need to stop looking at exiting people and start looking
at rehabilitating people.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
And thanks, I appreciate you expertise and getting up for
us as that's Warren Foster, acc lawyer and researcher.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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