Nick Smith must take action to ensure ACC is focused on delivering vital counselling and support services to sexual abuse victims instead of defending senior advisers who threaten legal action against those who raise concerns, says Carmel Sepuloni.http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1104/S00355/acc-minister-needs-to-sort-out-culture-in-his-corporation.htm
“The situation where ACC’s senior medical adviser Peter Jansen slapped a $250,000 lawsuit on a sexual abuse victim over her blog should never have been allowed to happen.
“Labour understands this is not the first time that employees/contractors to ACC have taken this approach to critics of ACC’s changes to counselling services for sexual abuse victims.
“The ACC Minister claims Peter Jansen is acting as a private individual rather than an employee of the corporation. But Peter Jansen is in fact taking legal action against people who criticize his actions as an ACC adviser. You cannot separate the two.
“As Minister, Nick Smith should have been advised about the legal action. Clearly there is poor communication between him and his own officials.
“This whole debacle is a symptom of a culture that Nick Smith has defended and continues to defend within the corporation. He should stand up and say publicly that this kind of behavior from the ACC adviser is unacceptable.”
15 April 2011
ACC Minister needs to sort out culture in his corporation
A press release from the Labour Party by Carmel Sepuloni
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While you happen to be right about this, Carmel, I can't help but comment on the hypocrisy you and your party exhibit every day. When in government Labour would not accept responsibility for one thing it did wrong, and defended anything through the courts like there was no tomorrow, especially ACC and welfare cases where it's invariably the little guy that's taking you on. There are just too many things Labour complained about when it was the government then turned around and did the same things itself. Labour is a bunch of filthy lying hypocrites who deserve nothing but disdain. I hope you never become the government until all the lying filth are dead and long gone, and just maybe then we can have an honest group of individuals who will stand up for the vulnerable instead of constantly crapping on them from a great height.
ReplyDeleteWell previous writer: two wrongs don't make a right and . . . this is now not back then . . . the level of power mongering by the national government in the same style that the acc scu changes were implemented should be challenged in every way they manifest. Your style of argument is the equivalent of a preschool card game "snap" where you try to cover the other card with your own - this is stupid and only serves to distract from the real issue. The changes to the acc scu alone will cost this country billions of dollars - read the mountains of international research to verify the effect of sexual violence on a quarter of western world populations (Canada, Australia, USA etc) before 18 years of age. And yes, remarkably only about a third of these survivors go on to develop PTSD, Depression, Anxiety disorders etc to the extent that they require therapeutic intervention. Further, consider the sophisticated research that 90% of psychiatric patients, the majority of prisoners, suicides and substance abusers have histories of sexual abuse and you may be able to write more coherently about this subject. Any foolish government with a short term focus pretending to save money to get power by dismissing and marginalising these issues and forcing our future generations to carry that weight should be challenged at every turn - this is now!
ReplyDeleteHEAR HEAR!!
ReplyDeleteWELL STATED