Common law emphasised personal blameworthiness and negligence law required individuals to meet the community average standard; systematic "[r]eprehensible conduct can be followed by feather blows while a moment's inadvertence could call down the heavens" as the Woodhouse Report put it.
Following the Meredith and Beveridge reports, the Woodhouse report also set out five principles upon which its proposed arrangements were based: community responsibility, comprehensive entitlement, complete rehabilitation, real compensation and administrative efficiency.
Wheeldon, Minister for Repatriation and Compensation (1974-75), tabled the Australian Woodhouse report, Compensation and Rehabilitation in Australia: Report of the National Committee of Inquiry; Lionel Bowen tabled the second volume on repatriation and compensation in September.
Compensation for Personal Injury in New Zealand: Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (hereafter Woodhouse Report), New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Compensation for Personal Injury (Wellington: Government Printer, 1967).
(16.) Lord Parker of Waddington, "Compensation for Accidents on the Road: An Address," Current Legal Problems 18 (1965), cited by Woodhouse Report. See also P.
Former Labour ACC Minister Maryan Street said the
Woodhouse Report, ACC's founding document, was "inspiring", entirely underpinned by economics.