Workers’ Compensation N.Z. Now Behind Other Countries

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 3

Workers’ Compensation N.Z. Now Behind Other Countries

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 16. A total of about £90,000 in workers’ compensation is likely to be paid to dependents of men lost at sea in the wreck of the Kaitawa. This is about £2850 for each family, plus £5O for each child under 16, or 18 if the child is attending university.

The chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Board (Mr H. L. Bockett) said that the actual amount changed from time to time according to the cost of living and the depreciation of the value of money. The real issue was that the compensation was for six years only, not for life as in some countries.

Many other countries were far more generous than New Zealand in payments for workers’ compensation, said Mr Bockett In Canada there was a system of weekly payments for life, sufficient to maintain the necessities of life, in cases of permanent disablement and for widows. Mr Bockett said New Zealand was once in the forefront with legislation of this kind, but it had now slipped back.

If negligence could be established, more substantial amounts could be paid through claims in the Supreme Court.