Latest / Best of Business / Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on ACC Minister Scott Simpson promising a crackdown on fraud

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Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on ACC Minister Scott Simpson promising a crackdown on fraud · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: It's time to welcome Janaye Timshrani to the program. Hello, Janaye.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: G'day, Andrew.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going to talk about the ACC Minister
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  Speaker 2: Scott Simpson who's trumpeting a crackdown on fraud. He reckons
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  Speaker 2: the number of investigations by ACC went up 12-fold. So
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  Speaker 2: tell me the story.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Look, Scott Simpson's office got in touch
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  Speaker 3: with me, very pleased that the number of fraud investigations
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  Speaker 3: ACC did increased 12-fold between 2023 and 2025. So I thought, well,
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  Speaker 3: that sounds good. How many investigations are they doing? And
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  Speaker 3: it turns out they're only doing, they did 24 in 2025.
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  Speaker 3: So 12-fold from a very small number of two. Now, look,
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  Speaker 3: I guess the government is happy about that, even though
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  Speaker 3: it's a tiny number in my view, because ACC, the
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  Speaker 3: scheme is massive. ACC receives 2 million claims a year,
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  Speaker 3: and that's costing us all a lot. Arguably, a portion
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  Speaker 3: of the 2 million claims are fraudulent, or people pushing
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  Speaker 3: the envelope saying, oh, I've got a tennis injury, when
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  Speaker 3: actually they don't. And yes, ACC investigates. Now, the number
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  Speaker 3: of fraud investigations is what the Minister was happy about,
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  Speaker 3: even though it only got to 24 in 2025. But
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  Speaker 3: another detail that it sort of failed to mention was
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  Speaker 3: that the number of fraud interventions ACC did. So that's
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  Speaker 3: intervening before they do a full-blown investigation, that actually halved
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  Speaker 3: over that two-year period. So, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Janaye, come on, come on, you're really throwing them
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  Speaker 2: under the bus here. But remember, in the eight months
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  Speaker 2: to the end of August this year, they have launched
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  Speaker 2: 38 investigations just to August. That's up from 24. They're
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  Speaker 2: getting better, sort of.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, that's what they're trying
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  Speaker 3: to say. The government's trying to get ACC to cut
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  Speaker 3: its costs because they've been soaring. And in fairness, they
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  Speaker 3: really do have a massive impact on the government's books.
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  Speaker 3: So they're trying to crack down. They're pleased the investigations
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  Speaker 3: are going up, but the interventions have gone down. So
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  Speaker 3: that's intervening at a lower level. So in 2025, they
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  Speaker 3: only made 500 interventions. So to be said, they're trying
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  Speaker 3: to promote the fact ACC is doing a good job.
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  Speaker 3: It's hard to know from these numbers whether they actually are.
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  Speaker 3: I'll just give you another statistic here. The number of prosecutions,
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  Speaker 3: so that's taking someone to court, initiated in 2025, that
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  Speaker 3: was only three for fraud.
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  Speaker 1: Three.
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  Speaker 3: So just think, two million claims, really, are the only
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  Speaker 3: three that are done for fraud.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, people will get up in arms, but then at
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  Speaker 2: the same time, how many times have they claimed physio
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  Speaker 2: for a sports injury when all they did was step
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  Speaker 2: off the curb? I mean, it's rampant throughout our society.
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  Speaker 2: So many people do it. But here's the thing. After
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  Speaker 2: all this, what is ACC saying?
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  Speaker 3: Well, ACC is really trying to say that they're trying
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  Speaker 3: to intervene early. So they're trying to intervene before they
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  Speaker 3: open an intervention case. and before they go and do
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  Speaker 3: a full-blown investigation or prosecution. So they're saying they're working
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  Speaker 3: with the IRD. They'll track you down if you're taking
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  Speaker 3: the mickey. And they're also strengthening their frontline teams to
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  Speaker 3: try to pick up on fraud. So ACC sounds like
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  Speaker 3: they are trying to do something. They are really coming
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  Speaker 3: under pressure from the government because the cost is rising
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  Speaker 3: at quite the rate. I suppose we're going to need
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  Speaker 3: a bit more time to get some more figures. But
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  Speaker 3: just if you look at Inland Revenue and Ministry of
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  Speaker 3: Social Development, which are a bit different, but maybe comparisons,
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  Speaker 3: they do quite a lot more prosecutions. So in 2025,
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  Speaker 3: they did 45 and 30 that they completed. So that's
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  Speaker 3: a lot more than the three that ACC completed.
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  Speaker 2: Janaye, very good work. And we thank you for that.
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  Speaker 2: And thank you for joining us tonight. That is Janae Timshrani,
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand Herald's Wellington Business Editor.
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