Ballet dancing is as dangerous as rugby? Or is the complex super structure of levy setting dangerous to much needed 21st century reform of ACC
ACC claims dancing is the seventh most popular recreational activity.
It appears that there are lot of injuries from dancing. The Safety Dance: Our data on dancing-related injuries (acc.co.nz):
In the year to July 2018, there were 9,019 new claims lodged for dance-related injuries. The active costs of these claims were $7.5m.
In terms of dance styles, we chose ballet, hip-hop, and ballroom as examples and looked at the injury claims received for each. We found ballet had the most claims of the three, at 427 claims in the year to July 2018.The most common injuries sustained were with the ankle, knee, and foot.
So Ballet is less than 5% of dancing claims! On the basis of the above scanty 6 years out of data that tells us nothing as to the breakdown between professional and recreational dancers injuries, ACC propose that the professional ballet companies levy should rise from $0.39 to $2.61. Professional sports and ballet classification units » Shape your ACC
This is over 500% by my calculations
Understandably the Royal New Zealand Ballet company is most upset. In an RNZ interview Executive Director, Tobias Perkins said that could mean annual ACC levies of up to $300,000 a year. They are currently $53,000.
As Don Rennie and I argue the whole differential levy system is deeply flawed. Don’t most dancing injuries happen as non-work accidents? Many are also incurred by children. The Ballet company say that their ACC claims last year for $63,000 a bit above the levies paid but they were on a downward path. The proposed $300,000 is an impossible load. There has been no consultation. Will show ticket prices have to rise? Will performances have to be curtailed? Will preventative initiatives (massage/Pilates etc) be shelved as too expensive?
So long as we are diverted by arguments over convoluted levy changes we won’t be discussing how ACC must change for the 21st century.
Am I right in assuming that the recreational dance related injuries and subsequent treatment are subsidized by the levies charged to the professional dancers?
So what would a better funding model look like?
No that is not how it works. There is a $1.60 flat rate levy paid by all employees and the self-employed that funds the earners account and pays for all non-work accidents to earners. So recreational dancing has nothing to do with the professional dancers work-related risk classified levy. So what about doing ballet related stretching at home that results in injury to a ballet dancer? As this is not at their place of work it should be treated as non-work and funded from the earners account. If they did stretching at ‘work’ it would be a work accident. All part of the nonsense.
A better funding model would be flat rate for all accidents and include disability from sickness. But reform needs to be seen in the context of the whole social security system.
for more on this see St John, S (2019) The 2019 Sir Owen Woodhouse Memorial Lecture, Wellington law school, 16th October, Auckland Law school 22nd October, 2019.
https://bpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/5/361/files/2020/12/201910-Woodhouse-Memorial-lecture.pdf
Exactly.
The ACC model needs complete reform.
Taking into account the welfare and medical sides.
Acc Needs to become a primary care medical and welfare agency for all sickness and disabilities.
First of all, many G.P.s are loathe to tackle the ACC format on top of every other digital encumbrance upon their time and faculties. It is far easier to fill in the form with something like “injured wrists shifting piano” rather than “repetitive strain injury to wrists due to being tied up and comatose as a result of intimate partner abuse” which would necessitate a lot more enquiry and probable legal action. (unless you live under a rock you will have noticed that these things do actually happen and the brave Giselle Pelicot is to be greatly thanked for exposing this type of behaviour)
Secondly, properly trained ballet teachers are few and far between (great idea to cancel Russian culture, not). The west never produced a Nijinsky or a Nureyev. Dance is not really a sport as it involves the soul. A company like the New Zealand Ballet will feature dancers from all over the world to maintain their standards and repertoire, however woke inclusion and sparing people’s feelings now dominates so accidents are hardly surprising. A harsh word spoken in a moment of exasperation with an inattentive student could spell the end of tenure even though the mistake in question could lead to permanent injury.
She’ll be right, eh Bob, Paula’s in charge.
There was a time when private music teaching (largely sedentary and confined to indoor studios) was classified as “education (other)” and paid the same risk rates as mountaineering instructors/guides, karate instructors and rather oddly, park gardeners wielding chainsaws. I guess piano stools and music stands are hazardous, dangerous objects.
Yes it does your head in to see the fine distinctions and different levy rates. Add to that’ experience rating’ that adjusts levies by a firm’s accident experience with discounts and penalties and you get unbelievable complexities fo no good reason. Even ACC is losing faith in experience rating
Then you have the 2nd opinion Doctors game flicking u off ACC to Winz who in turn play the 2nd opinion doctors game and refuse you supported living benefit or even job seekers with medical exemption game.
It is a time wasting money wasting administrative crap game.
Meanwhile the persons health both medical and mental goes to shit landing up costing the welfare and health systems 10x more.
1. Staff in a telecoms company driving a desk and a computer were levied at the risk rate for a linesman up a high ladder.
2. A mate who had received hearing damage from the rivetting noise of Auckland Harbour Bridge construction had his claim accepted by ACC in the 1980s. Then in the 2000s when he needed a hearing aid ACC conveniently lost his file. When he showed them the original paper work accepting his claim they got a corrupt second opinion consultant doctor (whose main customer is ACC) to reject his claim saying his hearing damage was old age. Great way to treat a ww2 veteran who laboured constructing the Harbour bridge.
In April this year ACC celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Don Rennie, who was a legal consultant to the original ACC of the 1970s, told RNZ that ACC as it is now is “awful… it’s terrible.”
“It is no better now than any other large insurance company.”
The original ACC designed by Sir Own Woodhouse was a commission, but prime minister Robert Muldoon in 1982 changed that to a corporation. With that, he also tossed Woodhouse’s guiding principle – to focus on the injured person’s needs, said Rennie. That was a big mistake, and ACC had never been the same since.
“Comprehensive entitlement meant everybody was automatically covered by accident compensation. Theoretically, that’s what happens now, except if the ACC disagrees, you’ve got to prove that you are covered by ACC.”
The corporation was focused on cash, not those who the system was designed for, Rennie said – and the only way to fix that was to bring back a commission that cared for people.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513378/acc-at-50-a-uniquely-kiwi-scheme
thanks for that John– Don has been unwavering– we are on the same page re ACC today.