Limited support criteria creates 'divide and conquer' situation for March 15 survivors

Wednesday, 10 August 2022

Stuff series ACCountable takes a look at different people’s ACC experiences, considers how ACC can be improved and what an equitable system would look like for injured and disabled Kiwis.

Their son was killed in the terrorist attack, but the Omars are having to scramble to find mental health support. In the fourth instalment of ACCountable, they share their story with JODY O’CALLAGHAN.

While grieving a son murdered on the nation’s darkest day three years ago, Rosemary and Rashid Omar have been “fighting the system” in the background.

Rosemary was on the street outside her family’s mosque – An Nur Masjid – when she heard gunshots. She saw bodies scattered around the street and carpark, and spent hours waiting outside to hear the fate of her son Tariq, 24, before finding out he had been killed by the terrorist.

After taking time off from her retail job to grieve for him, she wanted to get back to work and some normalcy.

But even a sudden loud noise at work would trigger her post-traumatic stress disorder, and she soon realised working was impossible.

Meanwhile, her husband, Rashid Bin Omar, was also struggling with grief and had to take time off from his job as an electrician.

Two traumatised parents – incapacitated by the gruesome death of their son – have not received a cent from the agency designated to compensate the attack’s survivors and families.

Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has a restricted eligibility criteria that didn’t flex to help every survivor of the attack or grieving family.

Survivors who met the ACC criteria told Stuff they were grateful for all the medical support they had received. But those who did not felt let down by the Government.

‘We all suffer the same’

Tariq was a Canterbury University geology graduate seeking work and, despite being a part-time football coach at the time, his family were told they did not qualify for compensation for his death.

According to ACC criteria, only spouses/partners, children and, parents dependent on shuhada (those killed) can receive loss of income payments, or any other support, and it does not cover mental injury.

Which rules out Rosemary for that too. She had no physical injuries and was considered “outside the compound” – a limited diameter of the crime scene at the time of the shooting – at the time.

Rashid says all he and his wife received was Victim Support-funded counselling that expired after 30 visits.

Their GP is now trying to source funding for them to receive more help at the level ACC funds some people. He says his GP is worried about him, and believes he needs a clinical psychologist.

ACC doesn’t cover a lot of people in the community “even though we’re suffering the usual stuff”, Rashid, the co-chairperson of the March 15 Whānau Trust advocating for the community says.

Rashid's wife was a witness, and while neither were physically injured, they “still suffer the same”.

Every time Rashid had to take time off to deal with his grief or get help, he was ineligible for Ministry of Social Development (MSD) assistance because “I earn too much” as the breadwinner for his wife and two teenagers at home.

He is a “bit bitter he gets nothing because he works” but the $5000 they got from Christchurch Foundation “was a big help”.

Rosemary says the Government made promises that those who did not fit the ACC criteria would not “fall through the cracks”, but that has happened and there has been no accountability.

“Three years down the track, that shock is gone, and we’re just left with the crumbs now.”

People cannot be replaced with money, but given the many government failings, families deserve more, she says.

The system to support all injured and traumatised Kiwis needs a “really good overhaul”, Rosemary says.

“If this was unfortunate enough to happen again, the same issues would keep cropping up again.”

‘Every man for themselves’

Many involved with the community say the fragmented financial support for the large cohort of survivors created a “divide and conquer approach” among them.

As individuals went through their own journeys of healing from bullet injuries, other injuries, and mental trauma, each were dealt with piecemeal by government agencies trying to plug holes as they arose.

Rather than fine-tuning the delivery of the care they needed to navigate support networks and the process of healing together, it isolated many.

To most victims, the Government appeared to “bend over backwards” to support them in the immediate aftermath of the attack, while their plight was in the public eye.

Then they became just another number.

Raf Manji, former independent funding adviser to Christchurch Foundation distributing public donations, has always said ACC does not have the capacity to deal with the community’s needs.

He proposed in a November 2020 report based on international best practice that the Government should create a $34.8 million compensation package to families of the deceased, those injured and witnesses.

He never got a reply from anyone in Government, despite sending it directly to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

“They don’t want to face it because you can’t argue with the paper.”

The minister in charge of the response to the attack, Andrew Little, also rejected calls for government compensation for those affected by the shooting, saying reparation for victims came in the form of ACC payments and other agency support.

Manji says his idea of a bespoke agency, one geared up to face the myriad issues that have arisen from the attack, would have been better suited than putting survivors through navigating the welfare minefield “as if they had been in a car crash”.

Leaving survivors to navigate ACC and MSD on their own, battling to meet various criteria, created a “divide and conquer approach”.

“It was every man for themselves.”

The opportunity to learn from and support the survivors – including more than 40 with bullet injuries and many more with trauma-related mental health issues – with wraparound services as a group was missed.

Supporters like Manji could not even find out if each person was receiving the best financial support they could, due to privacy.

He recalls a conversation he had with Ardern who was shocked to learn that Manji was sending survivors to his own dentist for free dental care. She said, “Don’t they already have dentistry covered?”

He spent many hours plugging holes in support as he was inundated with calls from affected whānau and specialists.

“If they had got it right at the beginning, everything would be so different.

“We’re very good at emergency response, but then we kind of forget about it.”

Put money where apology is

With a team, including barrister and designer of an ACC overhaul announced on Wednesday Warren Forster, dedicated to finding a support solution in the initial aftermath, ACC figured out a way to support every one of the March 15 survivors – including the unwaged – without changing the legislation within five days of the attack.

But when the proposal went to Cabinet, it was not approved based on advice from Treasury.

It completely overlooked the option to support all victims within the current ACC legislation, and FIANZ wrote a detailed report and identified where Treasury’s analysis was incorrect.

Treasury Secretary Caralee McLiesh told Stuff in response that it wanted to support March 15 victims, but did not believe that ACC was the right agency for that support.

Treasury’s intention was “always to ensure necessary support was in place for victims of the March 15 terrorist attack”, she said.

But financial support – like counselling – from other agencies like MSD ran out faster than it has from ACC, Federation of Islamic Associations (FIANZ) Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) chairperson Abdur Razzaq says.

In the end it was a political decision, since Ardern stated she couldn't extend ACC cover to all those traumatised, without extending access more widely to others.

But the attack was a “massive failure” of state agencies to keep Kiwis safe, and it was about “doing the right thing for the victims … all the victims”.

The Government apologised for its failings following the royal commission of inquiry into the attack.

”[So] give an equity value to this apology by ensuring all the victims are covered in an equitable way.”

There is still no comprehensive list for the Government to know how many are impacted, and neither has it ever done a needs analysis to gauge improvements.

When previously booming businesses failed after the Christchurch earthquake, the Government offered handouts. But there was no such help for March 15 families whose businesses suffered in the attack's aftermath.

“With political will, the growing social, psychological and financial problems which are now very apparent can be mitigated … it’s a no-brainer,” Razzaq says.

ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni admits that its legislation does not cover all victims of the attack, but says it created MSD’s Kaiwhakaoranga Specialist Case Management Service to support the others.

But that is still income-tested, so survivors like Rosemary and Rashid Omar are once again left out.

All those people remain uncompensated for the loss of their loved ones.

‘I didn’t ask for any of this’

Feroz Ditta was a trucking contractor with 20 years’ experience before he was shot twice in the leg in the attack.

When he tried to get back to work, his injuries – particularly the nerve damage – flared up again.

“I’m living with pain 24 hours a day. The intensity changes with the activity levels.

“It’s like having somebody hanging off your calf all day.”

It drives him crazy, he says.

ACC covers his doctor visits, home help using specialists from third-party contractors, and “other help is available, but I have not needed it”.

Ditta’s main aim is to get back to where he was, and ACC has agreed to peer-review his case to see if there are any other medical interventions available to get him back to work.

If not, he hopes to retrain in another role, even though he worries about changing careers at his age and whether he will ever be able to earn the same salary as before.

“I didn’t ask for [any] of this.”

ACC “bent over backwards” to meet the needs of the victims immediately after the attack, but he worries the legislation makes it unable to be flexible with each case.

“[Victims] need somebody to advocate for them”.

Sad legacy

One of the most severely injured victims from the attack – who was not ready to talk about it publicly for this series – receives only medical support despite life-long injuries making future work or a salary near impossible.

Parents who invested life savings into putting their child through university would not get income support for their death if they had not yet graduated.

But the family of another person of similar age working at the time they were killed would.

That is “absolutely unfair” and is contributing to inequities being created out of people’s circumstances, Razzaq says.

Rashid Bin Omar says the way survivors have been dealt with has them comparing and suspicious of what each other is receiving.

Razzaq says the RCOI stated it was important to look at the welfare and wellbeing of the victims.

“The issue here is creating intergenerational inequities and poverty, and an intergenerational mental health crisis.

“That would be a sad legacy of March 15.”

It may be too late to create that bespoke terror attack response agency that Manji suggested in the aftermath, but Razzaq says it is still not too late to create a better, more co-ordinated solution for the survivor community.

Otherwise, unresolved issues will lead to multiplied trauma and costs.

Lawyer Warren Forster presented a reform to Parliament this week which proposes replacing ACC with a people-focused, single system for impairments so everyone gets what they need no matter what the issue.

The disabling experiences created by the current flawed system that he outlines is the best way to describe what Ditta, the Omars and many of the multi-ethnic Muslim community are going through.

“We can’t undo that but we sure as hell can help people now,” Forster says.

Even Little advocated for a similar idea himself in 2012, saying ACC was “unjust and discriminatory”, calling for the next Labour-led government to overhaul ACC.

So after saying that broken system – or social welfare if the buck is passed to them – is the only compensation victims will ever see, perhaps it is time to make that happen.