Estimates Debate — Vote ACC

Certainly, over the last few years under Labour we have seen some very disturbing trends in the Accident Compensation Corporation portfolio. I look to the non-earners account, which has gone up from $500 million in 1999 to $728 million in the current year. Over the same time period we have seen the Labour Government bring in its so-called Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act. There is no doubt that everybody is in agreement with the ethos of concentrating on injury prevention, and this Government has just said it now spends $48 million per year on injury prevention. But what is the real record of injuries under this Labour Government? The real record is an increase in moderate to severe injuries over the last 4 years, despite the increased expenditure, and despite the so-called increase in focus on injury prevention.

We have heard a lot of talk by this Labour Government but have seen absolutely no results in this very important area, apart from barmy practices out there on our roads, where the Government concentrates very rare police resources to give out fines in low-risk areas and totally neglect high-risk areas. One of the reasons the chief executive officer gave for the increased number of injuries was that more people were surviving traffic accidents. Well, that is absolutely pathetic. We see, on the one hand, this utterly crazy policy of the Labour Government that has police officers concentrated in the low-risk areas of our highways and neglecting the high-risk areas, a far higher mortality rate on our roads than we should have—about twice that of Britain—and higher expenditure on injury prevention, but we see the number of moderate to severe injuries going up.

What is more, the Labour Government has, in its new, monopolistic policies, brought in industry risk rating. It has totally neglected the hugely important signal of individual risk rating, which sends a signal to individuals, individual workplaces, and employers that absolutely directly brings attention to greater workplace safety, early case management, and early rehabilitation—the very things that have slowed down under the monopoly that this Labour Government has brought to us with its so-called rehabilitation and compensation Act.

Let us have a look at long-term claimants. In 1997 there were 30,000 of them—hugely important and hugely costly to the Government. Under the National Government that figure had come down to the order of 15,000 by the year 2000, and since then it has hardly budged. This year the aim was to bring the figure down by another 500, but the Government achieved something like only 225. Once again, if we look at the very basis of the State-run, monopolistic system, we see there is very little incentive for early case management, early rehabilitation, and workplace safety. With the introduction of the competition model back in 1999, we saw rapid improvement in all those areas. Despite the Minister in the chair, Ruth Dyson, laughing in her seat, she has failed miserably in the basic statistics that are so important to this country and to any accident prevention scheme. She has absolutely failed. There is no doubt that the key to reducing the tail lies in making sure that the signals are realistic ones so that individuals will indeed respond to them.

I begin by acknowledging the sadness of that speech, and saying it issued a very dire warning to the taxpayers of New Zealand, because there was a commitment from Paul Hutchison to privatise the Accident Compensation Corporation again. If the lessons of our past 1-year experiment with private insurers in New Zealand were not enough, why does the member not look across the Tasman to what happened when HIH went bust? Our private insurers were loss leading in exactly the same way that HIH was. When HIH collapsed it left the taxpayers of Australia owing millions and million of dollars. That has to be a very basic lesson. Loss leading in insurance causes collapses, and in the end the taxpayer has to pick that up.

Despite my disappointment with that speech, Dr Hutchison and other members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had a very engaged and engaging time, and I thank them for the courtesy and genuine interest they showed to me as Minister and to the officials from both the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Department of Labour, when we considered the estimates. I notice that many of the points I went through with the select committee have been picked up in its estimates report, and I would like to share those with other members who may not have had the opportunity to read them in the last little while.

One of the key focuses for the coming year is to improve access to the accident compensation scheme, because, unfortunately, although the majority of members would consider that we know our entitlements and know how to put forward a claim if we have an injury—it is quite straightforward for us—there are many people who are, clearly, under-represented in claim reporting, particularly Māori and Pacific people, older New Zealanders, and people who have English as their second language. For those key groups, who obviously have the same legal entitlement as others, there will be a real emphasis to ensure they have full access to information about their entitlement under the scheme.

The second focus I want to mention is on improving rehabilitation outcomes. That starts right from the beginning by ensuring that we have high-quality early-intervention rehabilitation programmes available to claimants. It also looks at the business centre, where the response time to claimants’ enquiries has been greatly improved. The length of time it takes for the Accident Compensation Corporation to respond to queries has rapidly decreased, and that is a very good thing in terms of the frustration of claimants but also their rehabilitation outcomes.

That aim of further improvement over the coming years has been reflected, though, in the claimant satisfaction survey. I want to report to the Committee that since 2002 the Accident Compensation Corporation has improved its percentage of claimant satisfaction from the low 70s to 84 percent, which is nearly a 15 percent improvement in claimant satisfaction in the last 2 years. For those who have been on the scheme for a long time the claimant satisfaction level has increased from 78 percent to 89 percent, and for those on it for over 52 weeks it has increased from 68 percent to 73 percent. I would like to see continued improvement in those claimant satisfaction levels, and I hope that in next year’s estimates I can report a further improvement.

The other area I discussed with the select committee was my commitment that the Accident Compensation Corporation would work with a whole-of-Government approach, so that its relationships with other departments and agencies—particularly with the Ministry of Social Development, but also with the Ministry of Health and others—are greatly improved. One of the initiatives we have been working on with regard to the collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development is ensuring that people who, under the previous National Government, were totally ignored and denied any support or assistance to move off accident compensation and into a decent job are now offered help by experienced work brokers. People who are on accident compensation long term would much prefer to have the dignity and income of a job, but a lot of support is needed to get them to that position. That is the gap that we have filled, and I am very proud of the Accident Compensation Corporation for doing that.

The final point I want to talk about is one that we also discussed at the select committee. It relates to the legislation soon to be tabled in Parliament that will introduce major changes to the medical misadventure scheme. The medical misadventure provisions in accident compensation have been an anomaly for a long time, in that they are the only part of the scheme where there is a necessity to attribute fault or to meet some bizarre lottery of having both a rare and a severe injury.

The question now is that Vote ACC stand part of the schedules.

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I hate to do this, because it is not a thing I would like to think is happening in this Committee, but I clearly saw you being guided by the junior Government whip.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: You need your glasses.

💬 John Carter: I do not need glasses, and the member should not interrupt while there is a point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There is to be silence during points of order.

💬 John Carter: As much as it may be denied, it was pretty obvious to me what was happening, and it should not happen. If the junior Government whip wishes to make an instruction to the Minister, then he should do so before the Minister gets on her feet, and, similarly, you should stop looking into her eyes to take guidance, as well. So can I suggest that we now carry on, but I just wanted to make the point. [Interruption] I was going to say “longingly”!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I understand where the member is coming from, and I can accept what he is saying. I will just let the member know that I was not looking into the Minister’s eyes, and it was up to the Minister whether or not she spoke.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Child, Youth and Family Services