ACC Futures letterhead
Media advisory on behalf of the ACC Futures Coalition - October 19, 2012
The ACC Futures Coalition has organised a one day conference on 29 October to discuss the future of ACC with Sir Geoffrey Palmer as its keynote speaker.

ACC has been subject to considerable criticism in recent years over such matters as its alleged culture of disentitlement and its inability to manage the privacy of claimants.

The ACC Futures Coalition hopes the conference will assist the development of a new and positive agenda for ACC, to help restore integrity and trust in the Corporation and put it on a sustainable footing where it is not subject to the whims of successive governments.

Former Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, has had a lengthy involvement with ACC. He will be speaking at 9.30am.

Sir Geoffrey developed the White Paper in 1969 based on the Woodhouse Report which is considered to be the founding document of the ACC system.

He says the original intentions of the ACC have “been lost in the mists of time’’ and it has deviated from the five guiding Woodhouse principles which underpinned the ACC, that is: comprehensive entitlement, community responsibility, complete rehabilitation, real compensation and administrative efficiency.

“It has turned into an insurance scheme - which it is not.”

He will also look at the future direction of ACC and explain his ideas for the better administration of the Corporation.

“I want to go through how this all happened and how we got here – The Woodhouse Report it was the most influential document of a generation. with It was an extraordinarily high quality report.s. We need to go back to its teachings.’’

Other topics and speakers include:

• Dr Felicity Lamm from AUT (injury prevention)
• ACC Futures spokesperson and ACC lawyer Hazel Armstrong (Rehabilitation, Vocational Independence and Independent Assessors)
• Dr Grant Duncan from Massey University (organisational culture)

A series of workshops will also be held with topics including: review and complaints, injury prevention, funding and occupational disease. The day will conclude with a panel of politicians on the topic of, Can we achieve political consensus on ACC? (This will be at 4pm).

ACC: A Better Future conference, 29 October, Brentwood Hotel, Kemp St, Kilbirnie, Wellington, 9-5pm.

The ACC Futures Coalition consists of community groups, academics, organisations representing people who need support from ACC, health treatment providers and unions who have come together around the following aim:
To build cross-party support for retaining the status of ACC as a publicly-owned single provider committed to the ‘Woodhouse Principles’, and a 'no fault' compensation social insurance system for all New Zealanders. Our commitment is to have an ACC scheme that has integrity and the trust of the public of New Zealand, and is focused on injury prevention, treatment, complete rehabilitation and compensation for the injured claimant.

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