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Lawyers are questioning the independence and legal authority of privately contracted ACC reviewers, raising an issue potentially affecting thousands of current and former review decisions.

The Government is being urged to honour a pre-election promise to change an "unfair" law which sees some working people injured in accidents getting less than minimum wage while receiving follow-up medical care. Currently, ACC pays people who are hurt in accidents while they are employed 80 per cent of their previous year's income while they're off work for treatment and rehabilitation. But those who are injured while they aren't working - including people injured as children - are only entitled to "loss of potential income" payments of 80 per cent of minimum wage if they need follow-up treatment, even after they start working.

ACC has told a burns victim he's only entitled to half the compensation he expected while off work recovering from reconstructive surgery because he was a child and wasn't working when he was burned. A lawyer who specialises in ACC claims says the man should be entitled to full compensation. The lawyer believes thousands of people, including hundreds who were sexually abused as children, are likely to be in the same situation and is calling for a law change.

ACC minister Iain Lees-Gal­loway is enthusiastic about a service planned to help ACC cli­ents navigate its claims system but it might not be the service he is expecting. Specialist ACC lawyer Warren Forster claims the corporation and minister’s ambitions are at odds, with the former opting for a low-cost service while the lat­ter is expecting all the “bells and whistles”.

Claimant support group Acclaim Otago is "disappointed and frustrated" with the latest restructuring of ACC’s community liaison committees and will no longer take part. Acclaim spokeswoman Dr Denise Powell has represented Acclaim on the committees for 13 years, most recently as a member of ACC’s advocates and representatives group (ARG), since 2012. Restructuring ARG was "a slap in the face", given that a review report by consultants Martin Jenkins suggested ARG had not been "timely or productive".

In 2005 Dunedin lawyer Warren Forster took on the ACC on behalf of his mother, who was declined compensation despite suffering a serious back injury. The experience was career-changing – he became a leading advocate for claimants turned down by ACC, and a key influencer of current reforms to the ACC appeals process. Now, he was recently awarded the Law Foundation’s 2017 International Research Fellowship Te Karahipi Rangahau ā Taiao and is researching new approaches to disability assistance that would remove the causal discrimination underlying the ACC system.

A champion for the rights of ACC claimants who've been refused cover has been awarded the country's highest legal research award.

He's represented hundreds of embattled Kiwis in their fight against ACC, now Dunedin barrister Warren Forster is gunning the organisation itself. But it's not about trying to take down the multi-billion dollar Government organisation, rather finding a way so that more New Zealanders can benefit from the scheme.

Before the election Labour said ACC was "mean-minded" and promised to make it fairer and more transparent for claimants. But will they deliver for thousands of claimants denied cover? CATE BROUGHTON reports.

New Zealand could become the first nation to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but no country has yet made the "necessary changes". That comment came yesterday from Dunedin lawyer and ACC researcher Warren Forster in a talk given on the last day of a national "disability matters" conference in Dunedin. A UN committee monitoring compliance with the convention had earlier urged New Zealand to adopt a human rights approach to ACC-related access to justice issues, and recommended that we "make steps to change", Mr Forster said.