Perhaps we now find more courage in our female leaders than the males. Or is it just that the whinging media cut them more slack to be "macho" than the males. Whatever the case I long to see more macho staring down of  the privacy abusers, as Paula Bennett did several years ago.  Judith Collins could offer the ACC complainants the chance to go back to the privacy levels replaced by ACC.

 Judith Collins can probably now safely ignore the media  yapping about ACC's accidental release of information, and leave that part of the non-story to die. Sean Plunket's encouragement was welcome.

It has been overtaken anyway by a new non-story, trying to draw in Nick Smith for his normal (for an MP) character endorsement of someone known to him. Ms Pullar's lack of balance and self-absorption, as revealed by Whale Oil's correspondence, looks characteristic of a brain injury victim. Nick must regard that reference as one he got wrong.

Privacy enthusiasts don't care that privacy cloaks rip-offs. ACC replaced civll law suits tort for negligence compensation. Though most claims were settled, those that were doubtful ended up in court. In those days our senior lawyers still thought that justice being seen to be done was more than a quaint notion. People accordingly knew that  accounts of grotesque suffering from a bad back might be published, to be remembered when next they were seen practicing their golf swing.

As President of the VUW Law Students' Association I supported the replacement of  tort with the ACC scheme.  I naively never thought of  ACCbecoming a political slush fund for politicians to prove their generosity with with other peoples' money. I  did see the risk of it becoming the resort of hypochondriacs. We imagined that a vigilant and cynical press would patrol that boundary.  I doubt whether any of us foresaw the counselling scam – where people demand paid friends because their actual friends have got sick of hearing their complaining.

I guess it will be just too much trouble even for Judith Collins, but  after Nick Smith reined in the great physio scam the next reform would be to end payments to counsellors until there is research proof that they are worth what they cost, and that they are not just sucking up money that should go to more rewarding therapies.