ACC Minister Judith Collins says Ralph Stewart resigned because he could not cope with the political situation and she wants to improve privacy culture at the organisation.
“He said that the whole situation I think the whole political situation the difficulty of working with such a huge corporation in such a diff political atmosphere in terms of the publicity and the media he just said he felt he wanted to go,” Ms Collins says.
She says she does not know if Mr Stewart left because of the Bronwyn Pullar saga.
“I’m not sure, Ralph obviously didn’t mention those part matters but he did say he hasn’t been used to the sort of media scrutiny he’s had in the past few months.”
She says the way forward now is to improve the privacy and culture at ACC.
“I think its time for the board to deal with the number one issue of ACC and that’s the public confidence around the privacy of information.”
Ms Collins says Mr Stewart had been working with the privacy commissioner to improve the privacy, but more can still be done.
“I’m still not happy about the protocols around privacy at ACC and I want the culture around privacy to change.”
She says staff relationships with claimants needs to be looked at.
“I believe there is an opportunity to improve the relationship they have with their claimants but of course not all claimants are ever going to be happy and the vast majority should be and certainly peoples information should be treated with respect.”
She admits there has been failings.
“People should not be spoken about in a rude or derogatory way on files and I’ve been appalled to see a couple of incidents where that has happened.”
But she says the majority of ACC staff are competent and capable.
Watch the video for the full interview