Dunne's Weekly: ACC Rules On Volunteers Need To Change

New Zealand’s accident compensation scheme has long been hailed as world leading. Introduced just over 50 years ago, ACC (as it is widely known) provides comprehensive coverage for personal injuries for all New Zealanders and visitors. In return for ACC’s no-fault coverage, New Zealanders have given up the right to sue in cases of personal injury.

ACC was intended to make compensation for personal and work-related injuries fairer and more accessible for everyone, not just those in paid employment. However, as with all broad-brush approaches to complex and varied questions, it has not always worked out that way.

While dealing with physical injuries (falls, fractures and the like) has been comparatively straight-forward, there has been a greater understanding in recent years that long-term, often life-threatening conditions can be acquired in a workplace environment and are therefore also a form of personal injury that ACC should compensate. Within that, some glaring anomalies have become apparent.

One of the most obvious impacts relates to volunteer firefighters. While they are covered for physical injuries incurred while performing their duties, they are not covered for any wider work-related illness or injury because they are volunteers and therefore not in paid employment as firefighters. Indeed, ACC categorises volunteer fire fighting as a “leisure” activity, because no taxable income is involved. Employed firefighters, by contrast, are fully covered.

But 86% of all firefighters are volunteers. According to the “Hidden in Plain Sight” report last year, volunteer firefighters are the primary responders to most fires, motor vehicle accidents and medical emergencies across New Zealand. The annual economic contribution of their services is more than $820 million. Yet ACC treats them less favourably than it does the much smaller number of employed firefighters, who do the same work.

For some years now, the United Fire Brigades Association, which represents volunteer firefighters and whose Board I chair, has made representations to successive ACC Ministers under both governments to change this anomaly so that volunteers are treated equally with their employed counterparts. With one exception, our representations have been met with polite indifference. We have been told any change along the lines we have been proposing would have to be applied to all volunteers across the community, which would be far too expensive.

That is a spurious argument. The issue we have been raising relates specifically to emergency service volunteers and the special risks they are exposed to. It would be comparatively easy to craft an amendment to deal with this situation, if there was the political will to do so.

The only ACC Minister to show any real interest in and understanding of the issue was Matt Doocey, who was, unfortunately, reshuffled out of the portfolio earlier this year. His successors are yet to show their interest.

Earlier this week, Queenstown volunteer firefighter, Katherine Lamont, launched a petition to Parliament to change the ACC legislation to give volunteer firefighters the same ACC coverage and benefits as employed firefighters. The United Fire Brigades Association has welcomed her initiative and fully supports the petition. In its first few days, the petition has already received more than fifteen thousand signatures. It can be signed at https://petitions.parliament.nz/5872f736-ed2f-443c-f919-08dd5b668762 before April 30.

The egregious anomaly regarding the inferior treatment of volunteer firefighters is reflective of the extent to which our volunteer emergency workers are generally taken for granted. Yet, without them we would have no effective national emergency management response.

The government likes to talk of the work of the National Emergency Management Authority. But without the on-the-ground input of volunteer firefighters, it is no more than an irrelevant bureaucratic paper tiger. Our volunteers need to be nurtured and treated equitably, rather than ignored. If NEMA counted for anything and was worth taking seriously, it would be prominently advocating for the volunteers on whom it relies. But, to date, there has been nothing – it is no more than a handful of people running round central Wellington with clipboards and spreadsheets. NEMA’s annual operating budget of around $50 million could be far more effectively applied to meeting the needs of volunteer firefighters in emergency situations.

The United Fire Brigades Association will continue, now bolstered by the strong support for Katherine Lamont’s petition, to lobby the government to amend the ACC Act to ensure volunteer firefighters are treated equitably with their employed counterparts. The petition also provides a wider opportunity for New Zealanders generally to have their say on the issue, which is why the UFBA is encouraging people to support it.

The “Hidden in Plain Sight” report made clear the value of the contribution volunteer firefighters make to the wider national community. It is not unreasonable to expect the government to recognise that contribution by ensuring they are treated fairly and equitably for the service they provide.

That, after all, is supposed to be the New Zealand way.

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