Accident compo bill amended

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 1

Accident compo bill amended

PA Wellington The Government has backed down on certain proposed changes to accident compensation legislation before Parliament.

The Opposition said yesterday that the changes were insufficient and opposed the amended Accident Compensation Bill as reported back from the Labour and Education -Select Committee yesterday. The chairman of the committee, Mr R. Mi Gray.(Nat., Clutha), said the bill was designed to increase the efficiency of the accident compensation scheme, reduce abuses and provide practical improvements evident after. eight years of the scheme’s operation. One of the principal changes the . committee agreed to was the reinstatement 'of compensation for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life, Mr Gray said. .the present legislation provides for this form of compensation, but the amending bill had sought to abolish it and instead increase the total payment for. loss of bodily function to a maximum of $17,000. The provision now is for a $lO,OOO maximum payment for pain and suffering and a ’ $17,000 maximum payment for loss of bodily function?;?. Mr G. W. Palmer (Lab., Christchurch Central) welcomed this change. It would cbsf the nation an extra $3O million but: preserve the original intention of the act, hesaid.,,.’ > *Mr Palmer said the Government had been “mindlessly” cutting accident compensation < without reason since it was introduced, but had been forced to retreat in the faceofthe submissions . put to the bill. He said he agreed with, the Law Society, which called for a total review of the scheme. and the rewriting ;of the legislaition. :■

The amended bill did not update the scheme or save it from the “ravages of inflation/’ he said. Future inflation would erode the benefits just as surely as past inflation had. Mr Palmer welcomed the increases in payments for surviving dependent family members of a person accidentally killed. The benefit for a dependent spouse has been increased from $lOOO to $4OOO and for children from $5OO to $2OOO.

However, those changes merely implemented recommendations made to the Government by the Accident Compensation Corporation two years ago, Mr Palmer said.

The Opposition not only objected to some of the provisions of the bill, but also the way in which it had been formulated. The bill was “not yet in a fit state for further consideration by the House.” “The corporation which had drafted the bill appeared to have done very little research. It appeared to have consulted none of the interested groups, it appeared to have listened to none of the relevant overseas experts or if it had it took no notice of what they said and certainly we heard none of it in the select committee,” Mr Palmer said.

The amended bill, which was reported back to the House after a 37-36 division in which Social Credit voted with Labour, retained the provision to exclude people from compensation for in-

juries suffered while committing a crime. The provision had been criticised by the Law Society for violating the original principle of the bill for nofault compensation.

The amended bill also retained the provision, opposed by the Opposition, for firstweek compensation paid by enployers to be only 80 per cent of wages. However, the bill was changed from 80 per cent of ordinary income to 80 per cent of actual income. Mr Gray said the committee felt this would alleviate some of the problems people saw in the lessened payment. Another change had been to emphasise the independence of review officers, Mr Gray said. A number of groups making submissions had believed that review officers were under some jurisdiction from the Accident Compensation Corporation and to emphasise the independence, the words ... “by reaching his decision the review officer shall act independently” had been inserted. The Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, who is in charge of accident compensation, said most of the 74 submissions received had pushed for their own benefits from the scheme “and to hell with the principles.” Many of the changes advanced would have. been costly to implement. It was a simple fact that if someone was getting more out of the scheme, someone else had to pay for it. It was only lump sum payments that would be altered by inflation, he said, as other payments related to real wages.