Minister apologises for calling a member of the public a 'loser', as crime and the cost of power continues to bring worry.
WARNING: This story discusses distressing content, including child sexual abuse.
The Accident Compensation Corporation is putting nearly $3.6 billion aside after a rape survivor’s four-year legal win is expected to see more than 100,000 people become eligible for support from the state injury insurer.
The multi-billion dollar figure is forACC to pay people, who are unable to work as adults due to unreported mental injuries suffered as children.
Before the rape survivor (referred to as Sarah) won her legal battle against ACC in December, ACC only compensated adults from the time they sought treatment for their childhood injuries.
Because children are often are unable to report abuse, and survivors can take years to seek help as adults, people missed out on support.
In Sarah’s case, she was abused between the ages of 2 and 17, including by her grandfather and uncle. Her parents told her to “shut up” about the abuse and prevented her from going to the doctor on her own.
When she had her application for a “loss of potential earnings” claim declined by ACC, she took to Google to find a lawyer to seek justice.
“It made me angry, blaming children for not seeking help. It was victim-blaming,” she told the Herald.
Her dispute made it all the way to the Court of Appeal, which sided with Sarah.
So, ACC back-paid Sarah 80% of the minimum wage, for the years she couldn’t work due to the trauma inflicted on her by her childhood abusers.
Others in her situation, who meet ACC’s criteria, will now be able to do the same.
“I’m really happy for them. But at the same time, my brain’s thinking, what about the rest that haven’t been able to come forward; the ones that probably will never come forward?,” Sarah said.
She acknowledged approaching ACC and giving it sufficient evidence that the reason you can’t work is because of the abuse inflicted on you as a child could be traumatising.
Sarah’s past haunts her every day.
“I have a lot of trouble being around people. There are triggers like smell and music. All I wanted to do was be normal,” she said.
“My childhood was pretty much stolen. I would love to have a job and just be a contributing member of society.”
Despite this, Sarah worried the court ruling could expose ACC to fraud.
“I don’t know whether I should be saying this,” she admitted, but said she feared some people would pretend to be victims “just to make money”.
“That keeps me awake at night.”
While Sarah’s perpetrators were incarcerated after she laid criminal charges against them when she was 35, ACC chief executive Megan Main explained ACC doesn’t require claimants to use criminal convictions to prove they were abused.
She said ACC was still figuring out how it would change its systems to ensure its interpretation of the law aligned with that of the courts.
“There isn’t a hard line around the ACC scheme. That’s what can create a lot of difficulty for clients and potential clients,” Main said.
She acknowledged how sensitive the situation was – ACC would need to be mindful of getting the facts required to ensure people received what they’re entitled to, without re-traumatising them.
ACC chief executive Megan Main wants to ensure ACC doesn't re-traumatise victims of abuse who apply for support.
“It’s a really complex decision to implement,” Main said.
She made the point that ACC would also need to factor in other payments - those applying to be back paid might have already received payments from ACC or the Ministry of Social Development.
If someone had been on Jobseeker Support, for example, ACC might only pay them the difference between this, and the “loss of potential earnings” owed to them.
Sarah said the type of support provided mattered.
“The Ministry of Social Development is limited in what they can do for people like me, who want to work, but can’t work,” she said.
“ACC provides psychologists and councillors, where Work and Income is more trying to get you to do your CV.”
Sarah was grateful to her support network, as well as her lawyer, Beatrix Woodhouse.
“If she hadn’t believed so strongly in what I was trying to achieve, we wouldn’t have got over that finish line,” she said.
ACC’s deputy chief executive and head of finance, Stewart McRobie, explained it was very difficult to figure out how the court ruling would affect ACC’s bottom line.
This exercise involved estimating how many victims there were in New Zealand, how many would come forward, and how much they would be eligible to receive.
ACC’s finances made headlines on Wednesday, after the state insurer reported a whopper $7.2 billion deficit in the year to June.
McRobie partly put this down to ACC increasing its outstanding claims liability by $3.6b, nearly entirely due to the case Sarah brought forward.
In other words, ACC put nearly $3.6b aside to cover the current and future costs of claims related to people who have already suffered injuries and are now expected to make claims.
This sum contributed to ACC’s total outstanding claims liability of $60.2b.
Minister for ACC Matt Doocey will have the final say on how ACC levies are set.
Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald’s Wellington business editor, based in the parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.
