Editorial: Shot tourist's scaled back compo unfair

Matthew Purchase, a 21-year-old English exchange student who was shot in the head while out rabbit shooting in 2007.

Opinion

ACC ought to accept full liability for gravest injuries

It is not difficult to feel sympathy for Matthew Purchase. He is a young Englishman who in 2007, while on a working holiday here, was shot in the head and left permanently brain damaged. The Danish tourist who fired the shot was found not guilty of carelessly using a firearm and Matthew Purchase received almost $300,000 from this country's accident compensation system.

After a review of his file, however, the ACC has reduced his payment from $534.38 a week to just $95.72, a figure based on the fact that he had planned to work in New Zealand for only six months. That may be how the scheme is designed but it seems hardly fair in his circumstances.

ACC provides earnings-related compensation for accidents and injuries suffered in this country. Visitors qualify for the scheme and last year 1294 overseas claimants got $7.9 million. But the scheme's no-fault principle prevents them suing for damages as they could if the injury had occurred in their own country.

In Matthew Purchase's case, this would have involved suing the Danish citizen who shot him while they were spotlighting for rabbits near Putaruru. The shooter had insurance cover at the time, and Matthew's father, Ian, suggested in a letter to the editor of this newspaper that a personal-injury case would have reaped a substantial award to provide for his son's need of lifetime care, his loss of earnings, rehabilitation and reduced quality of life.

As it is, Matthew Purchase finds himself with the worst of all worlds - receiving a level of income far less than that provided for a New Zealander stricken by the same injury, and unable to receive the normal amount of compensation in his own country. Ian Purchase said the $95.72 weekly ACC payment was not even enough to live on. "ACC legislation can and does cause very real hardship and unfairness for an unlucky few," he said.

How much Matthew Purchase would have received after suing Bjarne Jensen is a moot point. A jury in the High Court at Rotorua took just 30 minutes to find Mr Jensen not guilty of the careless use of a firearm. That, however, is beside the point. This case may appear rare, but there must have been other examples of overseas visitors being injured and then receiving compensation that bears little relation to the extent of the injury and the sum they were likely to have been awarded in their own country.

It is easy, for example, to envisage a scenario in which the flawed operational procedures of a jetboat operator are responsible for an accident in which a tourist is incapacitated for life. That person would receive a relatively small weekly payment based on the time to be spent in this country, while denied the normal recourse to a larger sum as a result of legal action in his or her own country.

In no way does this appear fair. Any rational relationship between the size of the ACC payment and an overseas person's planned time in New Zealand breaks down when a serious injury is involved.

If the no-fault provision is considered inviolable, the only fair response is for the ACC to accept full liability for those whose working life has been effectively ended. This would be expensive when the compensation for loss of earnings involved, say, Norwegians or Swiss whose salary rates are considerably higher than those in this country.

But if this country is to do the right thing by those who come here to enjoy New Zealand's well-promoted adventures and outdoor experiences, it is the price we probably ought to pay.