Latest / Best of Business / Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on ACC chief executive Megan Main defending her record

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Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on ACC chief executive Megan Main defending her record · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
• 0:12
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• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Bryan Bridge Training Heralds Wellington Business Editor with us Jay
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  Speaker 2: Good Evening, Hi Ryan. Now we've got the outgoing ACC
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  Speaker 2: c O Meghan Maine defending her record on the way out.
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  Speaker 2: It's not it's not a great one, is it really
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  Speaker 2: when you look at the.
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  Speaker 3: Numbers, No, it isn't. So Meghan Maine is actually leaving
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  Speaker 3: ACC this week. She was due to end her five
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  Speaker 3: year term in November. She's going early, she says, sort
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  Speaker 3: of suits her family better. Now under you know Meghan
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  Speaker 3: Maine's watch, a CC's costs have really blown out. Something
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  Speaker 3: that I guess ACC was really focused on and same
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  Speaker 3: same with the government was the number of people that
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  Speaker 3: were off work and on income support for a year
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  Speaker 3: or more. That's why ACC calls long term, it's long
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  Speaker 3: term claims pool. Now, Meghan Maine has pointed out that actually,
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  Speaker 3: since ACC has put this turnaround plan in place that
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  Speaker 3: has finally turned a corner, the number of people on
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  Speaker 3: that support longer term has finally stopped rising. So I
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  Speaker 3: guess we're banking that as a win.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: Possibly a reason for this cost sort of escalation we've
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  Speaker 3: seen in recent years is that ACC had changed to
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  Speaker 3: group case managers. So instead of you with your injury,
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  Speaker 3: a serious injury, just having one person who looks after you,
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  Speaker 3: it goes into a pool. Now they've gone back to
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  Speaker 3: the more one on one sort of attention for serious claimants.
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  Speaker 3: So that seems to be helping. I think the government
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  Speaker 3: is going to be keeping a really close eye on
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  Speaker 3: things looking ahead, because the numbers we're talking about are
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  Speaker 3: absolutely enormous, you know, so much so that Nicola willis
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  Speaker 3: created a whole new measure of debt, basically of a
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  Speaker 3: fiscal deficit or surplus to take ACC out of the picture.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, is there any way around this without cutting you know,
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  Speaker 2: without saying to long term claim more long term claimants
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  Speaker 2: or you know, because even as we talk to know
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  Speaker 2: that there are whether it's firefighters or whether it's new
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  Speaker 2: pregnant women, we are still in now expanding the criteria
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  Speaker 2: to allow more people to make more claims. At some
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  Speaker 2: point that it's all going to come to a head,
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  Speaker 2: isn't it, Or is it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, that's the thing. It's easy to sit
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  Speaker 3: here and look at the numbers and go, oh my goodness,
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  Speaker 3: how are they blowing out? Something needs to be done.
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  Speaker 3: But if you are someone that is, you know, found
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  Speaker 3: yourself in an unfortunate situation with an injury, you're going
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  Speaker 3: to be, you know, wanting that support. You've paid your
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  Speaker 3: tax and that's your entitlements, So you're right. I think
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  Speaker 3: a thing that has seen ACC's costs increase a lot
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  Speaker 3: is a court ruling that that expanded accs coverage for
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  Speaker 3: that relates to people with sensitive claims. It's people who
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  Speaker 3: are the victim of sexual assault as children. So you
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  Speaker 3: had one court case that really expanded ACC's mandate quite
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  Speaker 3: a lot. Now, the government did actually look at changing
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  Speaker 3: the law to shrink the coverage back again, but you know,
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  Speaker 3: it decided not to go ahead with that because how
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  Speaker 3: awful would that be. You know, you're a victim of
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  Speaker 3: sexual assault and you don't get ACC cover for whatever reason,
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  Speaker 3: but then you've gone out and played rugby and you
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  Speaker 3: do get ACC cover. You know, that seems sort of
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  Speaker 3: grossly unfair, so the government decided to leave it. But
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  Speaker 3: you have these sorts of situations. You know, you have
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  Speaker 3: a court case that changes the remit ACC in its
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  Speaker 3: efforts to contain its finances has come up against a
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  Speaker 3: bit of you know, unhappy people. So Megan Main said
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  Speaker 3: that actually the disputes that ACC received went up twenty percent,
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  Speaker 3: and of that of the of those, seventy three percent
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  Speaker 3: of the time, ACC was correct. And she said that
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  Speaker 3: even though the disputes went up, that's seventy three percent
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  Speaker 3: scent figure was kind of on track with where where
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  Speaker 3: it had been in the past. So I don't know
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  Speaker 3: what people think about that seventy three percent. You'd hope
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  Speaker 3: it was a bit higher than that.
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  Speaker 2: You certainly would wouldn't and especially what do you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's such a shame, do you know? It's just thinking
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  Speaker 2: as you're talking, it's such a shame because it's ACC
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  Speaker 2: is one of those systems that we are apparently we're
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  Speaker 2: held up in high regard around the world because it's
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  Speaker 2: an insurance you know, we all pay in its insurance
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  Speaker 2: model and it's worked. And to have a deficit like
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  Speaker 2: this is takes the shine off. That's a sure bad
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  Speaker 2: taste in your mouth.
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  Speaker 3: It does well, it does. And look, I think any
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  Speaker 3: department that has related to health comes up against these issues.
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  Speaker 3: Like you look at the health situation, health costs have
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  Speaker 3: got blowing out. So even though we have this these
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  Speaker 3: amazing systems and people who get treated by them are
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  Speaker 3: usually really grateful and say they have great service, it's
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  Speaker 3: still just difficult to make the numbers that up.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Janet to Traineer, our Herald Wellington business, it's a
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  Speaker 2: good Tavy on the show tonight tonight.
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