Sexual offending
isn’t an accident.

1Sexual harm isn’t an accident. Restore the right to sue.

Under section 317 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, survivors of sexual violence cannot sue the perpetrator — or the organisation that enabled or concealed the harm — for compensation, because ACC covers the injury. That bar was designed in the 1970s for genuine accidents — car crashes, workplace injuries, slips and falls — where nobody set out to hurt anyone, and a no-fault trade-off made sense. Sexual harm is nothing like that. It is deliberate. Yet the law treats them exactly the same, and hands offenders and the organisations that protected them a shield most countries would find unthinkable.

This matters for more than compensation. For most victim survivors, accountability is a major contributing factor to recovery and healing — and right now the only official route to it runs through a criminal justice system that convicts in just 1.2% of cases.

The fix: amend the Act so injuries caused by Schedule 3 sexual offences are excluded from the civil claims bar, with ACC payments offset against any damages to prevent double recovery. Survivors keep every ACC entitlement — and regain a path to accountability on their own terms.

2Ban NDAs that silence victims of sexual harm.

Non-disclosure agreements are routinely used in New Zealand workplaces to bury sexual harm. Each settlement becomes evidence of what the organisation knew — and chose to contain. The UK’s Worker Protection Act 2023, multiple US states, and Australia’s positive duty to prevent sexual harassment show where the world is moving. New Zealand is well behind.

The fix: legislate so confidentiality clauses cannot prevent a victim of sexual harm from speaking about their own experience. Confidentiality should be the victim’s choice, never the organisation’s condition.

3Mandatory disclosure of legal rights — for every disclosure, formal or informal.

Right now, an employee who discloses sexual harm has no guarantee anyone will tell them their rights: the personal grievance pathway, the Human Rights Commission, WorkSafe, ACC sensitive claims, the Police. Organisations benefit directly from that ignorance — informal disclosures are quietly managed out while time limits run down.

The fix: a statutory duty on employers to provide standardised, plain-language information about all legal rights and pathways whenever sexual harm is disclosed, in any form. No one can reasonably argue organisations should benefit from employees not knowing their rights.

4Real consequences for organisations that fail to act.

Right now, an organisation that mishandles sexual harm faces almost no financial consequence — and anything it does face can be quietly absorbed or insured away. Every incentive points toward containment. The fix is a graduated enforcement regime:

• Infringement fines for clear-cut breaches — failing to disclose legal rights when harm is reported, or breaching a discloser’s confidentiality under the Protected Disclosures Act (which currently carries no meaningful penalty at all).
• Substantial pecuniary penalties, enforced by the regulator, for systemic failures to prevent or respond to sexual harm — modelled on Australia’s positive duty.
• Criminal liability for knowingly concealing sexual harm, alongside personal liability for directors and officers who fail their due diligence.
• Make every penalty uninsurable. Health and safety fines already can’t be paid by insurers. Extend that to sexual harm penalties, and insurers protect themselves the only way they can: by requiring proper sexual harm systems before they’ll provide cover. Every insurance renewal becomes a compliance check. The regulator carries the stick; the insurance renewal makes sure it never has to be swung.

A duty without a consequence is a suggestion. A consequence you can insure against is a business expense. This makes it neither.