By Richard Braddell
Between the lines
Tonight will be the end of the beginning for ACC Minister Murray McCully's reform of workplace accident insurance. Owing much to concerns that specific risks weren't accurately priced and that ACC might have been soft on injury claims, the reform is without doubt driven by a dose of ideology that says the Government should be involved in as little as possible.
But before those of the left embark on a sweeping dismissal, it should be remembered that union members are among those who complain of ACC's less than illustrious history in managing injuries, whether in the workplace or for the non-work injuries for which it retains 24-hour coverage.
In contrast, there is no way that private insurers will entertain the 13-week pause - once mandatory at ACC - before efforts to rehabilitate serious injuries began.
Borne of self interest, the private sector will do all it can, not just to drive down New Zealand's unacceptably high workplace injury rate, but also to ensure that injured workers make quicker and better recoveries so they are earning rather than costing money. Well, that's the pink spectacled view, and one employers and insurers are now challenged to justify.
If they do, the benefits in employee well-being and to New Zealand's competitiveness could be immense. Already, one estimate puts the possible savings to business from lower premiums at about $300 million a year.
Beyond doubt, some of that is due to intense competition among insurers to build positions in a new market which could manifest itself in higher charges if losses mount. If so, that will be due, in part, to the indecent haste with which the market has been created - out of a desire to have it too deeply embedded for an incoming Labour Government to abolish it.
That is a shame because there are a host of benefits other than lower costs that a more considered market might bring.
Fletcher Challenge is one of the employers that has already grasped the nettle, expanding on the accredited employer scheme that existed under ACC to bring all its insurance in-house.
Aside from saving itself possibly $50 million over five years, Fletcher Challenge anticipates it will be able to build on its "captive" scheme to provide a wider range of sickness and other benefits that will promote employee health, and performance. Utopian, perhaps.
But one of the surprises of the accredited employer schemes was the support they won from unions. A committee of unions and Labour MPs has already decided that concentrating on the employer scheme is the best way to go if the new legislation is repealed.
It is up to employers and insurers to prove Labour has too-blinkered a vision and that the broad scope of the current reforms benefits companies and their employees.
