Author: william mcdonald

Accident Compensation Act: Key Sections and Commentary Publication

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ACC-Art-KeySections-CommentaryBen Thompson, Senior Associate at Hazel Armstrong Law has published Accident Compensation Act: Key Sections and Commentary

The authors’ targeted legislative analysis will assist injury prevention practitioners, employers, treatment providers and third-party administrators in gaining a practical understanding of ACC policy and practice, as well as the prevailing judicial attitudes. This authoritative guide is an indispensable resource for anyone dealing with accident compensation legislation.

Features:

  • Annotated legislation
  • Practical guidance
  • Authoritative commentary
  • Preface by Hazel Armstrong

The publication can be purchased here: store.lexisnexis.co.nz

Further information is available here: lawsociety.org.nz

Read the review by New Zealand Law Society here

Further Injury Weekly Compensation Policy

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We recently made a request to ACC, under the Official Information Act 1982, for their policy in respect of weekly compensation when an injury resolves and the person is no longer deemed to be incapacitated, but they have then suffered a new injury which is covered by ACC. Attached is a copy of ACC’s response.

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Hazel Armstrong Awarded Health & Safety Lifetime Achievement Award

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Hazel Armstrong, principal of Hazel Armstrong Law, was awarded the Countdown Supermarkets Lifetime Achievement Award for her success in the occupational health and safety field. The award was given at the Safeguard New Zealand Workplace Health & Safety Awards ceremony in Auckland, on 28 May 2014. Hazel has been involved in working with unions, employees, employers and government departments throughout her legal career. Hazel was given the award for “her determined advocacy for better health and safety and improved access to the ACC scheme via trade unions, the ACC board, commissions of enquiry, two books, and her legal practice.”

If you would like to discuss your health and safety, ACC or employment issues, contact us.

Hazel Armstrong Law’s UN Hearing Loss Submission on Stuff

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Hazel Armstrong Law recently made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding discrimination against hearing loss claimants in ACC legislation. Shane Cowlishaw wrote an article on the firm’s submission and ACC hearing loss claimants in the Dominion Post. The article is also featured on news website Stuff.

If you’d like to discuss this submission, or any other ACC problems you may be having, with our staff, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Submission to the Eighteenth Session of the Universal Periodic Review

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The United Nations is preparing to conduct a review of human rights issues in New Zealand. This process is called the Universal Periodic Review, and interested parties are given the opportunity to prepare submissions for the United Nation’s consideration.

Hazel Armstrong Law has completed a submission addressing discrimination against hearing loss claimants in the ACC legislation. Under the Act, claimants can only be covered for noise induced hearing loss if at least six percent of their total hearing loss was caused by occupational noise exposure. There is no threshold for cover for any other injury under the Accident Compensation Act.

You can find Hazel Armstrong Law’s submission to the Universal Periodic Review below. If you have any questions on this submission, or any other ACC problems, please contact us.

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Your life for the job: New Zealand rail safety 1974-2000

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Hazel Armstrong’s book Your life for the job: New Zealand Rail Safety 1974-2000 is now available.

 

This book, written by New Zealand’s foremost legal expert on workplace health and safety, concludes that the appalling rate of death and injury on New Zealand’s railways in the 1990s is ‘the story of de-regulation and privatisation’.

In the early 1990s new workplace health and safety legislation ‘obliged employers to take all practicable steps to prevent harm to their employees’. Your life for the job makes it clear that New Zealand Rail (NZR) was secretly exempted.

Soon afterwards, NZR was sold to a consortium of private owners which renamed it Tranz Rail, cut staff numbers and reduced spending on equipment and maintenance. Eleven of its employees were killed on the job between 1995 and 2000. This shameful record was brought to an end after the RMTU, the rail workers’ union, successfully called for an independent inquiry.

Author Hazel Armstrong points out that both the 2000 Tranz Rail inquiry and the 2012 Pike River inquiry illustrate what happens when regulators are ineffective and are captured by the employer; Parliament and the government of the day are prepared to compromise worker health and safety for some other end-game; and directors and managers turn a blind eye to hazards.

Copies of Your life for the job can be purchased from Hazel Armstrong Law for $20. Email legal@hazelarmstronglaw.co.nz to order a copy. Alternatively, you can read Hazel’s book online.