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The government has agreed to work on opening ACC's work account to competition in return for the Act Party's support for a bill making changes to ACC.
National has already announced changes to ACC, including cutting entitlements and increasing levies.
Now it has agreed for the stocktake group looking at ACC's structure to also consider the possibility of opening up the work account to competition.
"We believe in competition whether it's in airlines, whether it's in telephone companies," says Prime Minister John Key.
Act leader Rodney Hide says his party will support the bill through all stages, which gives the government the numbers to pass it.
He also says the previous time the ACC account was opened to competition, between 1998 and 2000, was a success.
"The intention is to open it up to choice and competition to get a better deal. But we're not blindly going down that path we actually want to see the analysis."
But businesses have the same concerns now as they did after the changes in 1998.
"Employers found that they were getting quotes, some of them higher than what the ACC costed," says Alasdair Thompson of the Employers and Manufacturers Association.
The Labour Party also has its doubts.
"Very clearly this is a stalking horse for the full privatisation of ACC," says party leader Phil Goff.
But Key says it is too early to jump to conclusions.
"The main area of work will be on the workers' account as a starting point. But of course they'll look at other aspects of the scheme and how it operates."
