Paul Hutchison
National ACC Spokesman

13 November 2003

ACC fraud unit fails to collect

The National Party says the millions of dollars spent investigating ACC fraud cases in the last four years far outstrips the reparation demands slapped on convicted fraudsters.

Figures obtained by National's ACC spokesman, Dr Paul Hutchison, show that the cost to ACC of using private investigators since 2000 has been consistently more than the total reparation ordered by the courts.

"The figures also show that the strike rate for successful convictions is woefully low considering the number of cases referred to private investigators," says Dr Hutchison.

"In the four years ending June 2003, ACC has spent nearly $5.5 million on private investigators. In that time, the amount of reparation ordered by the courts has totalled just over $3.8 million.

"What these figures show is that either ACC fraudsters are too hard to convict or ACC is wasting taxpayers' money on ineffective bids to catch them.

"Hardworking New Zealanders should not have to tolerate this rip-off. These statistics firmly put the onus on ACC to come up with more cost-effective ways of catching fraudsters," says Dr Hutchison.

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