Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2)

Part 1 is the main part of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2), and I trust National will be allowed to take many calls on this very important part. I myself will certainly take quite a few calls on this legislation. [Interruption] It is wonderful to hear that people are looking forward to them!

The first point I raise is a new provision brought into the legislation to compensate those who during the course of their employment witness a traumatic event. The major objection we have against this provision is that the officials themselves had a lot of problems estimating the consequences of it. The cost estimates provided by the officials range from $7.6 million to $72.2 million. That basically means they have no idea of the impact of this provision, and we will expand on that.

Secondly, we object to the fact that the Government’s provision will affect only claimants who will fall into the work account category. The Government thinks it is good enough to compensate witnesses to a traumatic event only if their employers are paying the levy. If the witnessing of the event does not happen in the course of employment—if the compensation has to come from another category that is funded by general tax—it will not be covered. We would like the Minister to take a call to explain the equity of that. Why is Labour favouring one class of New Zealanders over another one? Those members are saying that people who are in employment deserve to be compensated, but people who are not in employment should not be compensated. That is very strange coming from a Labour Government that persistently says how valuable, for example, women who stay at home to look after their family are. On the other hand, if those women witness a traumatic event, because they stay at home and take care of the children, and are not in employment, they will not be compensated.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) has issued a press release.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.