23/02/2026
I was asked to give an oral submission to the NZ Government select committee this morning about the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill that they are intending to do under urgency. Pretty sure I was the only non-lawyer during the oral submissions!
RNZ picked up the story – see link.
I’ve also copied below what I said to the committee, along with answering multiple questions from them. Photo is of set up prior to speaking including my little teleprompter!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587655/critics-urge-coalition-to-slow-down-on-msd-law-change?fbclid=IwY2xjawQIhQZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETJpSFFZYjZHQnkxelVaejlnc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHrjzmkON1HaFM_Mw8J5WnFkm9efcXT4Z5QkHJ_aHzIG_ii3_1WLIXbi5X4-T_aem_pUlIzfCMPhk8g-lGa4LAyQ
Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission.
My name is Dr Melissa Davidson. I am a consultant specialist physiotherapist in pelvic health and a clinical educator for health professionals. I am currently the only registered specialist physiotherapist in pelvic health in New Zealand.
Over many years, I have represented Physiotherapy New Zealand, physiotherapists, and their patients across multiple government platforms, including:
• the ACC Expert Advisory Group for Maternal Birth Injuries,
• the Ministry of Health Women’s Health Strategy Team, and
• the National Quality Forum for Maternity Health.
I am here today because I have serious concerns about this Amendment Bill.
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My first concern is the use of urgency.
Passing this Bill urgently leaves insufficient time to understand its full impact—particularly on:
• women with maternal birth injuries, and
• people with lower health and systems literacy.
When legislation moves faster than understanding, the harm does not fall evenly. It falls on those least able to absorb it.
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In the maternal birth injury space, there are systemic failures occurring daily.
Women’s ACC claims are being:
• declined, or
• taking many months to be accepted, through no fault of the women themselves.
These delays are most often caused by ACC processes and health system failures, not by missing eligibility.
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The consequences are profound.
These women are:
• recovering from a birth injury,
• healing physically and psychologically,
• caring for a newborn,
• often on capped maternity leave income,
• and doing so in a culture that, quite frankly, does not support women to recover.
New Zealand women put their families first and themselves last.
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When supplementary assistance is provided, it is meant to cover essential costs.
But the reality of living with a birth injury includes far more than water, rates, power, and food.
Essential costs also include:
• treatment co payments for the injury,
• transport to and from appointments,
• childcare to attend those appointments,
• and basic medical resources—such as continence products, scar management supplies, and equipment.
These women face higher costs while living on reduced incomes. To then ask them to repay costs they reasonably believed were covered places them under additional psychological, physical, and financial stress—through no fault of their own.
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My second major concern is who this system works for.
Our health and benefit systems are built on Western, bureaucratic logic. But New Zealand is culturally and ethnically diverse, with widely different values, priorities, and understandings of money, obligation, and authority.
Unless you understand “the system,” you are already disadvantaged.
I say this as someone with:
• multiple postgraduate qualifications,
• a Master’s degree,
• a PhD,
• and specialist clinical registration.
Even I struggle to understand:
• health and ACC processes,
• decision making logic,
• entitlements,
• and shifting rules.
So I ask the Committee: How are people with lower health literacy expected to navigate a system that says, “We will help you now—but we may take it back later”?
That is exactly what this Bill proposes.
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Instead of investing time, effort, and money into an urgent Amendment Bill, I urge you to fix the system-wide failures within ACC.
Stop people falling off the cliff— and you won’t need to be the debt collector at the bottom.
This Bill does not fix the problem. It puts a band aid over systemic dysfunction.
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Finally, I want to highlight a deeper issue.
During another ACC and maternal birth injury review process, I was repeatedly asked to help find—or estimate—basic data, including:
“A rough sense of how many women suffer these injuries per year, so we can calculate the claim rate and cost to the scheme.”
This reveals a lack of robust, evidence based data across ACC, the Ministry of Health, and Health New Zealand— yet decisions with significant long term consequences are being made regardless.
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This Bill risks:
• increasing harm to already vulnerable women,
• amplifying inequity, and
• shifting the burden of system failure onto individuals who did nothing wrong.
I urge the Committee to slow this process, fix the upstream failures, and ensure that any legislative change reduces harm rather than redistributes it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
