Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill

We now come to a typescript amendment in the name of the Hon David Parker to insert new Part 3. I call the Hon David Parker.

Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

💬 Chris Tremain: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This is an amendment. It is not a debatable motion, I understand.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Before I hear any more, I will take some advice from the Clerk. I will refresh the situation. The Hon David Parker has an amendment to insert a new part. The Clerk advises me that because the amendment inserts a new part it is a separate question and therefore is debatable.

New Part 3, which I and the Labour Party are urging Parliament to vote for, puts a requirement on the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to conduct an annual review of the effect of the amendment bill on injured people. We know that this amendment bill significantly cuts the entitlements of people who are injured.

Most people in New Zealand never suffer a serious injury that has them off work long term, thankfully. So, thankfully, most of us never experience the consequences of having a long-term injury and all the bad things that flow from that, including loss of work, pain, lost opportunities, and constrained abilities to do other things that one used to do before one’s accident.

When we change the rules in fundamental ways—which is what the changes in this bill do—the impact of that on real people must be considered. During the debate on other parts we heard about the change whereby someone is deemed to be vocationally able and therefore is pushed off the scheme. But it is important that we recall that just because someone is deemed to be vocationally independent because in theory the person could work at some job for 30 hours per week, it does not mean to say that he or she will get a job. It is absolutely clear that the “return to work following injury” rules under this scheme are already tough.

In the minority report of the Labour members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee we referred to a published study that was undertaken by Hazel Armstrong and published in the New Zealand Law Review. It showed that even under current rules, which are made tougher by this legislation, people who were deemed ready for work and therefore were pushed off the scheme, did not always get work. Indeed, after quite a significant period the majority of them were still not in full-time work.

In fact, the study found that of those who were found to be vocationally independent and therefore pushed off the scheme, only 32 percent of those who were deemed “work ready” had obtained full-time employment; 21 percent were in part-time employment; 22 percent were on a Work and Income benefit; and 10 percent were not working at all and were on no benefit, probably because the person’s partner was of an income that meant the person was not eligible for any other benefit; and 9 percent remained on weekly compensation.

So the vast majority of long-term injury sufferers did not go back into full-time work after being exited from the scheme. We want to see how this legislation plays out in terms of making the situation even harder on those long-term injured people. We want those additional costs to be assessed by ACC, because the reality is that these changes do not cause costs, following injury, to go away; they just move them on to the injured person.

It is not as though, all of a sudden, pushing those people off the scheme means they are miraculously cured. All it means is that they are no longer getting accident compensation. They are no longer entitled to further rehabilitation treatment. The person could have been in quite a well-paid occupation, maybe a technical occupation, and could be rehabilitated to the stage where he or she could stack shelves in a supermarket and then be pushed off the scheme and get no further assistance towards being rehabilitated to the point of being able to carry out his or her former job.

The person may, for example, have been a labourer or a builder who was being paid more. After such a person is pushed off the scheme, he or she does not get any further physiotherapy, or other services, or orthopaedic interventions to help him or her to get well enough to do their prior occupation. So, effectively, the cost of that rehabilitation either cannot be afforded or is paid for by the injured person. Those effects, in the opinion of the Labour Party, ought to be assessed and reported upon. That is why I put forward new Part 3 in the hope that the Committee will support it. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

It is a pleasure to get a call, albeit under urgency, for a bill that the Labour Party does oppose, and that is why we are putting forward new Part 3. When legislation is done in urgency, when it is rushed through the political process, and when the Government is not listening to what people are saying, then that is the very time that reviews are so important. When legislation is made in haste; when it is not being considered seriously, deliberately, and using the normal process, that is the very time when what the House calls unintended consequences occur. There could be no more serious time for unintended consequences to occur than when they affect some of the most vulnerable in our society, and that is people who have been injured. Often, or mostly, they are injured through no fault of their own.

I hope the Committee will seriously consider new Part 3. We know of a policy change made in the area of sensitive claims under the accident compensation scheme. It has not been a legislative change made by the National Government but a change to the practice of how people with sensitive claims are treated. It has not even been a legislative change but the numbers are horrific in terms of the people who are no longer getting treatment for that very important issue. For example, in the area that I come from, Hamilton in the Waikato, the number of sensitive claims that has been accepted by ACC has reduced in the order of 70 percent. So 70 percent more of those people in our community are wandering around, without the counselling help they need, after having suffered serious sexual abuse. That is an example of the sorts of numbers affected through just a simple policy change that has happened under the National Government.

This bill makes legislative changes that will have serious consequences for people who suffer hearing loss through their work. It will have serious implications for the families of people who have committed suicide, or perhaps people who have attempted suicide themselves. We do not know what the impact of these legislative changes will be. I have heard no information coming from the Government on any research or any evidence that it has been able to put before the Committee to say what the impact of these changes will be. So under urgency, into the unknown, goes this Government, once again, with the most vulnerable in our society.

Yet I hope Government members pick up this opportunity to say that they are only human, that maybe they have not got this right, and, therefore, that they would like to take up the Hon David Parker’s proposal to review what the impact of these changes has been annually, not only in 12 months’ time, but also in another 12 months’ time and then annually thereafter—assuming that this very bad legislation goes ahead and that all those on the Government benches still go ahead and vote for this bill even though some Government members, and this has been quite obvious from their speeches over the course of the last 24 hours, do not actually understand what they are voting for. It is the strong contention of members on this side of the Chamber that, because of the very vulnerable nature of the people being considered here and of the way in which their rights are being retrenched under this legislation, we need not only a one-off annual review but also continual annual reviews.

The nature of hearing loss, in particular, is that it is not immediately obvious what the impact is for the people who are affected by it. Hearing loss is one of those things that happens gradually over a period of time, and often people do not even realise when they first start suffering occupational hearing loss that it is, in fact, happening to them.

Before I was elected to Parliament, the job that I undertook was training health and safety reps in the workplace. So I am absolutely appalled that this legislation is going through, because I heard the stories every day of my working life before I came into this place about the impact on not only working people but also their families and workmates when things go wrong at work. These are not isolated situations. If anyone in this Chamber were to get a group together of 25 randomly selected New Zealanders in a room, then he or she would find that every single one of those people has had some claim before the Accident Compensation Corporation at some stage in their life. That is how all-encompassing this issue is.

It is a pleasure to take a call on this proposed new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. The principle of reviewing legislation that comes in to do something experimental or something unexpected to legislation is an extremely sound one, and I think that David Parker has proposed a great addition to this bill. It would be fair to say that pretty well every submitter and, indeed, officials at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee accepted that some of the changes that the bill introduced to the operation of the accident compensation scheme did not change the actual cost of rehabilitation or of compensation, but shifted where that cost fell. In particular, they shifted the cost of rehabilitation from accidents and injuries away from Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and towards other Government agencies—the Ministry of Health in some cases, and the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income in some other cases. But most particularly—which is for us, I guess, most concerning—the legislation shifts costs away from the State and back to injured persons and their families.

That shift is a fundamental worry and concern for the Green Party. I spoke yesterday about our commitment and support for the social contract that lies at the very heart of the accident compensation scheme, in which New Zealanders gave up their right to sue in return for a 24/7, no-fault scheme that would provide full compensation and full rehabilitation, based on the principles that were outlined in the Woodhouse report. The criticism of this bill that has come from the Green Party has been that those principles have been nibbled away at. Those principles, including full rehabilitation and real compensation, are ones that have been eroded by this bill. Therefore, the cost shifting on to injured people, the re-victimisation of the injured, is of fundamental concern. But right now, we are unable to quantify that. We do not know how big that impact is. So the idea of having an annual review is of fundamental importance since, as Sue Moroney said, in passing this bill under urgency—as I am certain that this House will do, unless Government benches are struck with a bolt of enlightenment in the next day or so—there is the very real possibility of unanticipated and unquantified impacts on injured people. A review provision is a sensible one for any legislation, but particularly so for this legislation, which so fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and the State. Thank you.

I know that the competition is pretty fierce at the moment, Mr Chairman, so I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to take a call in supporting David Parker’s amendment to insert a new Part 3 in this Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. My colleague Kevin Hague from the Green Party, who has just resumed his seat, put it extraordinarily well when he said that it was good practice to review a major change in legislation, like this one, that could potentially have such a huge and negative impact on the citizens of New Zealand. That is what this debate is about. For me, this amendment is about National and ACT putting their money where their mouths are, because every one of the National speakers—sorry, both of the National speakers—in this debate have said that our concerns are unjustified and that this will be a robust scheme under which injured workers will be treated fairly.

Well, that is not true. Under the amendments that we have been debating for the last little while in the Committee, injured workers, injured children, and injured elderly people will be treated unfairly, because this legislation takes away the framework of their entitlement, which had been restored to fairness. So David Parker’s amendment proposes that we put that debate to the test, when we have some facts to weigh up as to whether Labour and the Green Party are right. Our two parties share concerns about cost shifting, about people being moved off accident compensation and on to a benefit, and, if people are married to income earners, about their having no income at all. We are concerned about people being denied support for hearing aids because they have only 5.9 percent hearing loss. We are concerned about the families of people who have committed suicide. Their families are left not only devastated by the loss of that family member but also without any financial support from the Accident Compensation Corporation, because suddenly this House has made a value judgment about somebody who is supposed to be “bad” having committing suicide—rather than recognising that the person was overwhelmed by their life—as opposed to someone who is, I guess, a “worthy” person and who has died by some other means. That is what this debate is about.

Who is right about this matter? I ask whether the costs will be shifted, not into some magical savings bucket, but from the corporation to individuals who have been injured, and to their families. I ask whether people who have a hearing loss will have to do without the essential support they need in order to be able to hear—that is, do without the basics of a hearing aid—unless they can afford to buy it for themselves. Will people who are not able to work, who are not fit to go back to their old job, let alone take any other job, just be pushed off accident compensation and have no financial support at all? Those are the questions.

If the Government had any confidence at all in its words, then it would say yes to this amendment, because the amendment states that we should get the facts of the situation in 12 months’ time so that we can see how injured people are being treated. Let us see where the costs of injury are falling, and let us look at the effects on society of the amendments that we have just put through under Part 1 and Part 2. Then we will be able to say who was right and who was wrong. If National members had any confidence in the words of their Minister Nick Smith, then they would say yes to this amendment, but if I were them, I would not back Nick Smith. I am a little on their side; I would be inclined to say that Nick Smith is probably leading them down the garden path and is not saying anything of substance, let alone the truth, in this debate. So it is a high risk for members opposite to back Nick Smith.

It is a high risk for National to say that it will put this legislation to the test when it has some actual facts. That is why I predict that National and ACT will vote against this amendment. I cannot say that those members are chicken or scared; that is not appropriate language to use. But I can say that they do not have the confidence to back this amendment, which would put their debate to a test based on facts. That is exactly what this amendment does. It is important, when we have Parliament divided on such an important issue, that we are able to review the facts. I remember Kevin Hague’s predecessor, Sue Bradford, coming to me when I was the Minister for ACC and saying that she thought that a lot of people were being turfed off accident compensation and being put on to a benefit. Without the facts of the situation, nobody will be able to say who is correct in this debate, let alone say what to do about it, so I urge support for this amendment.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. How impolite of the previous member, David Bennett, not to thank the Chair for giving him the call after the Speaker’s ruling that we had.

I am very happy to talk to new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. In the debate on Parts 1 and 2, National members said that Labour members were scaremongering, and that what we said we were afraid was going to happen would never happen. Well, here is where the rubber hits the road. If National members truly believe that the changes they are making are benign in terms of the effects on some of our most vulnerable citizens, then let us have a review after a year.

I will speak about clause 60(2) in new Part 3, on which no member has yet spoken. It requires that at the end of a review period the “Minister for Accident Compensation must present a copy of any report provided under this section to the House of Representatives as soon as practicable after receiving it.” This is a very important part of new Part 3. It closes the loop of accountability that has so far been missing when we are talking about the Minister for ACC.

Sometimes Government members have been very flippant and have made jokes about the kinds of things that Labour members and Green members have raised in this debate. They have been sniggering, and they have been joking about us. But the fact is that the decisions we make in here, no matter how lightly they are taken by the Government, have huge repercussions out in the community. The Minister for ACC should be held responsible for any impact as a result of this legislation. The accountability for any repercussions should lie with the Government, but first and foremost it should lie firmly with the Minister for ACC.

What is so important about subclause (2) put up by the Labour member David Parker, our spokesperson on accident compensation, is that it firmly places accountability for those changes at the Minister’s door. If the Minister is prepared to make those changes, if he is prepared to say to workers that just because they had not taken their holidays before they were unlucky enough to have an accident, they lose them, if he is prepared to say to people who have a significant hearing loss that they no longer qualify for a hearing aid, because that is what is done in Australia—which actually is not true—if he is prepared to say that not a single New Zealander will be worse off, despite the fact that New Zealanders will be paying more for accident compensation under his changes, then he should have to come to this House with a report and publicly take ownership of those repercussions. I do not think that Nick Smith and the National Party will be prepared to do that.

The ACT Party claims that it is a party about accountability. I hope the ACT Party will vote for a review clause and will be prepared to say that it is not scared of the changes it is voting for. The ACT Party vote will put this legislation through the House under urgency. I hope the ACT Party has the courage to stand in this Chamber and say that it is not scared of a review clause and what that review process will uncover about this Government’s changes. I sincerely hope the ACT Party will vote for this review clause. It will still be terrible legislation, but at least taxpayers will know that the Government has to be held accountable for the changes it makes, and the Government will be made aware of the impacts of the changes it is making. National members cannot blissfully go about their lives bouncing from cloud to cloud unaware of what happens to people on the ground who are being denied accident compensation as a result of this legislation. These changes are significant.

Where are the great defenders of property rights now, when workers are having their holidays taken off them? Those are pre-injury earnings. Workers have earned their holidays. They own them. It is not something that they get when they decide to take a holiday; it is something they get as they work. National, which claims to be the great defender of property rights, says that the holidays of those people should be taken off them—after they have earned them. If people are lucky enough to take their holidays before their accident, they will be fine and will still get accident compensation. But if people have their accident before they take their holidays, they will lose their holidays. They will not get accident compensation, because they have their holiday pay. How is that fair?

Those are the very issues that Labour and Green members, and I hope ACT and Māori Party members, will be supporting by voting for Part 3. If what I have claimed is not going to happen, and if I am just scaremongering—and not a single National member has stood up to make me feel any better and tell me that I am wrong—then members opposite should vote for this part.

I move, That the question be now put.

I have a question for the Government and it is this: is there anything to be scared of in Labour’s proposed new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill? New Part 3 proposes annual assessment of the impact of the cuts on, for example, how many people receiving treatment are pushed over into the health system. Is there anything about that assessment that the Government is scared of? If there is nothing that concerns the Government about the part proposed by my colleague the Hon David Parker, then it should logically just vote for it. Government members are not even speaking for it or against it. All we have had from Government members is a motion to close the debate. This is a debating chamber. The idea of a debating chamber is to debate. We have had nothing come forward—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Is there a Minister in the chair?

There is a Minister in the chair. That Minister, Pansy Wong, is able take a call ahead of any other member in this Chamber simply by standing. If the Minister wanted to stand now, I would yield at this moment. From the Minister we have had not a twitching muscle, and from any member sitting on the Government benches we have had not a twitching muscle, yet the idea put forward by the Hon David Parker is an idea that is worthy of some debate. Why do the Government members not get up and say that it is a good idea? Why do they not get up and say that it is a bad idea? Is there anything wrong with the idea of requiring the Government of the day to see whether its law changes have worked, and to see whether its law changes have worked in this, that, and the other way, as laid out in the new Part 3 amendment put together by the Hon David Parker?

If the Government members think that there will be no cost shifting on to the health system or on to the individual, and that there will be nothing to review, then let them get up and say that. If they think that some cost shifting on to the health system is tolerable or desirable, and some cost shifting on to the individual who has had the accident or the injury is tolerable or desirable, let them get up and say that. This is a debating chamber, and saying nothing speaks volumes. It says that the Government not only has decided to stop question time in the Chamber this day but is not prepared to debate its own legislation in the Chamber this day. That tells me that the Government does not seek to defend its position. If the Government does not seek to defend its position, why would any member of the Government vote for its position? There is something going on here that is not very open and not very transparent.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: The “Hollow Men” set it all up.

The “Hollow Men” set it all up. I am afraid I have been in the House long enough to remember when the Rt Hon Bill Birch did this last time. I would like to tell members what happened at my electorate office in Albany Street, Dunedin North. Many people who had been denied accident compensation and who felt they should not have been denied it came in. Some of them were distressed; in fact, most of them were distressed. They not only were distressed about their own position—the fact that their households were short of money, or whatever the situation was—but were distressed in another sense. They were distressed that their Government had let them down at the point when they least needed to be let down. So we found ourselves inundated with cases.

One of my staff developed a speciality in accident compensation. I remember coming to work one Saturday morning and finding this staff member at work. I asked him what he was doing there so early. He said that he had not been home, and he had been working on accident compensation cases through the night. I told him that he was not allowed to do that; in fact, it was a sackable offence. I put it in writing for him that he may not work through the night. That happened in Dunedin North when National last decided that accident compensation would be for some people but not for others, that accident compensation would have this, that, or the other constraint put upon it of an arbitrary nature, that accident compensation would be part of a scheme, and not a proper scheme, that it would be some-fault, not no-fault. That is what happened last time and people kept coming to us forever.

One gentleman still comes back. He has long since been thrown off accident compensation. In fact, he has been to jail and back in the meantime. He comes back because his life is broken. This gentleman went mad with pain. I did not mean to meet him, but one day when I flew on an ATR from Dunedin to Christchurch I happened to sit next to this fellow. He did not know who I was and I did not know who he was, but he was in pain. I asked him what was going on with him. He said he was in pain and that he had a bad back. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to Christchurch; he was going to Burwood Hospital to have his back checked. I asked him how he damaged his back, and he said the damage was sustained at the Finegand meatworks in Balclutha. I told him who I was, and I said that I did not need any more work but he clearly was in some trouble, and if he ever felt the need to come and see me he would be welcome. I gave him my card, he turned up a few weeks later, and he has been coming back for the last 10 to 12 years. That man has long since been thrown off accident compensation. He went mad with pain, and I mean that literally. He comes back now for almost a pastoral sort of a reason. He comes in and I give him a telling off. I tell him he needs to look for work, to see the bright side, to maintain better contact with his kids, and on it goes. It seems that that is my job with this particular gentleman.

The point of the story is that he is a victim of the last National Government changes to accident compensation, in the 1990s. He is a classic case of a person who was denied treatment because it would be too costly. He was thrown off. For God’s sake, he was told that the damage was degenerative! I saw photographs of where it had happened. One thing led to another, his life quietly went backwards and backwards, he ended up becoming belligerent and violent, and he got himself into terrible trouble. He has that under control now, but he does not have his life back. He has some access to his kids, but his marriage is gone. He will remain a pauper. He cannot go to work now. He is too dysfunctional, and that is because, under the accident compensation legislation at the time, he did not get treatment for a back injury incurred in a meatworks in Balclutha. The whole thing was stacked against him. He got initial treatment at Burwood Hospital. He got initial physiotherapy. He got quite a lot of treatment in the first few months, but he had a badly damaged back, and the treatment was stopped because it was decided that he could go and do something else, and that part of the damage was not related to the injury. It was the same old same old, and that guy’s life has been badly changed for ever.

I say to members opposite that it is OK to undertake reviews because they might throw up cases like that, yet I am finding a Government that will not even engage in a debate. Mr Chair, I do not know how you can do your job or how you can decide how long a debate should go on, when only one side takes part, because then it is not a debate. That is why I have spent my contribution asking members opposite to get up and talk about why they do or do not support Part 3, which has been put forward by my colleague the Hon David Parker. This debating chamber is the shop window of democracy, and only one side has anything to say. That does not seem right to me. I say to colleagues opposite who are in the Chamber to feel free to take a call. I say to the Minister in the chair to feel free to take a call. If she ever gets to her feet, she knows that, as the Minister in the chair, she takes priority. But, no, members opposite are sitting with their heads down, apparently studying the daily newspaper. That is their contribution.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, I’d be generous and say its their shoes.

Well, it might be their shoes, but in any case they are not looking us in the eye. An idea has been put up. It has merit. It might not be very good, but surely it has some merit—

💬 Chris Tremain: “It might not be very good”. He’s admitted it himself.

People on this side think it is pretty good, but the point is that if National members think it is not any good, let them get up and say why they do not think it is any good. Let them say something, anything, in this debating chamber of New Zealand. There is no other place. This is where laws are passed. This is where debates take place. This is where ideas are teased out or contested. This is where the battle of wills takes place. But only one side has anything to say. One side does not make a debate; it makes for an echo chamber, and I think that says heaps about the National Government’s approach to its own legislation.

I am pleased to take a call on the amendment to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. I would like to add my voice to the challenge that was issued by the Hon Pete Hodgson to Government members to share with us their views on what I think is a very sensible amendment. I want to broaden the debate a little, by giving additional reasons why a review of the impact of this legislation and of the policy changes we have seen in accident compensation is so necessary. We have already had a discussion around, in particular, the Government’s proposals regarding gradual process disease. I want to touch on that again, because recently in the Justice and Electoral Committee we have been hearing evidence on, and debating with policy officials about, the impact of changes to the Limitation Act. I think this comes right to the heart of this debate. We will be making changes in this legislation, but we cannot anticipate the impact and effect of them on other legislation.

Let me explain what I mean by that. Based on this primary legislation, we have other dependent legislation. The Limitation Bill proposes that we set a limitation of 15 years on the time within which anyone can take a case. We have raised in this Chamber the issue of what happens if someone is suffering from a gradual process disorder or from the effects of continual exposure in the workplace to chemicals, repetitive actions in their job, or repetitive strain injuries. The impact of some of those conditions is not known for quite some time, yet we are legislating in this House to set limitations on when claims pertaining to those injuries can be made. When we have questioned Ministers and officials as to the impact of that in the workplace, the response has been that we have accident compensation. Well, I ask whether we do, and whether we will, have it. I do not think we will know the answer to that question immediately; it will take us time to know that.

Our first instinct is to say we should firm up the provisions and not to make significant changes to accident compensation that will impact on those people. Our second back-up option, if the changes are going to happen, is to say we should put in place the ability to review those decisions. That is perfectly sensible, because at the moment we do not know what their effects will be. It is not just their impact on accident compensation, but also the impacts in terms of other legislation. We have had assurances that may be false.

I always come to this issue with a particular case in mind. In the area where I do constituency work from time to time, where cases have come to us as list MPs, individuals have been the subject of diseases as a consequence of exposure to chemicals in a hospital environment dating back to the 1960s. In that particular case, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) acknowledged those conditions; it was almost forced to because of a court case in which a hospital was ordered to pay compensation to ACC for the continuing care of these individuals. ACC has continued to support those individuals until recently. Whether there have been legislative changes, policy changes, or directives from Ministers and head offices, we are seeing a difference in terms of what happens in our areas. One such difference I have seen is that an individual, after receiving years of support from ACC, was suddenly told that the person does not have a workplace injury caused by continual exposure to chemicals but has a degenerative disease. Is it up to ACC caseworkers to tell an individual that he or she now has something like Alzheimer’s disease? Is that their job? I seriously question whether that is their role, yet that is what we are seeing come through our doors. The psychological impact of that on individuals cannot be measured, yet that is what we confront on a daily basis.

If that is not the intention of some of the changes we are seeing, whether they be policy or legislative changes, then let us have a review. What is the harm in doing that? I pose that challenge to the members on the opposite side of the Chamber. Another reason for a review is, I think, that, realistically, the impact of these changes is not on the elderly demographic. The biggest impact of these changes will be on the demographic that probably is not well represented by claimants at present. The impact will be on my generation, and on the generations that will follow it, not on the generation of those in this Chamber who have had continuous, no-fault accident compensation coverage for a number of years. Those young people are unlikely to know about the true impact of the accident compensation scheme until these changes have been in force for at least a year. So why do we not give them the chance to see that impact, as well? I pose that challenge to the Ministers opposite. I would have thought that having a review would appeal to the Government.

It is a great pleasure to rise and speak in favour of the amendment proposed by the Hon David Parker to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. I think, as other colleagues have said, that it is a very important proposal to undertake annual reviews of the impact of the various changes that are being forced through this House under urgency. The changes, which we have been arguing about now for probably close to 8 hours, include many that are arbitrary, changes that are patently unfair, and changes that are discriminatory. It seems to me that very much part of any review of the changes should be making sure that we identify circumstances where unfairness has occurred, where blatant examples of discrimination have been found, and where cost shifting has taken place under the changes proposed by National.

I find it deeply disturbing that in the course of this debate there have been so few speakers from the Government side of the Chamber. It is particularly annoying that we have a Minister in the chair who, amongst her other responsibilities, is the Minister of Women’s Affairs. I have raised a number of concerns about this legislation being discriminatory. I have raised the fact that the Human Rights Commission has raised some very specific concerns about the discriminatory impact of the proposed changes. I have raised the fact that the National Council of Women has raised concerns about the disproportionate effect of these changes—a whole number of them—on women. Has the Minister of Women’s Affairs, who is also the Associate Minister for ACC, bothered to get up and justify these changes, or explain to us why, in fact, these changes are not discriminatory and will not disadvantage women? No, she has not. I think that is absolutely appalling. The women of New Zealand should note this, and, certainly, we will make sure that they know about it.

But likewise, there is a Minister of Labour, who I now see is back in the Chamber. This is the Minister of Labour to whom I specifically posed a number of questions earlier this morning in relation to holiday pay, and the provisions of this legislation that effectively ensure that some people will fund, at least partially, their own earnings-related compensation. One would think that the Minister of Labour might have a view on this matter—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: A clue.

—yes, a clue or a view, really, on this matter, because, frankly, this is one of the examples of a patently unfair provision.

Let us take the case of two workers who both get injured. One happens to have, fortunately, taken a paid holiday and enjoyed a holiday that he or she had accumulated leave for. Another has not had the chance to take a holiday, or is about to—nobody can predict when an accident occurs. Those two workers will have very different outcomes, and one of them will have to partially fund his or her own earnings-related compensation. Now that is just unfair. Where is the Minister of Labour to answer that question? She also has not bothered to get to her feet to comment on that, and I just think that is appalling. It is appalling behaviour by Cabinet Ministers when they will not get up to defend the legislation that they are pushing through this House under urgency.

There are many, many examples throughout this bill of matters that are arbitrary, unfair, and discriminatory. Let me give members another one: the 6 percent hearing loss threshold before people have coverage for work-related hearing loss. This is an arbitrary provision. There is no medical, scientific, or other good reason for the figure of 6 percent. It could be 26 percent, or it could be 2 percent; it is an arbitrary figure. But it disentitles people, and that is a serious matter. Potentially it returns to workers the right to sue, which I do not think New Zealanders actually want to have. It will disproportionately affect older workers; probably men who work in primary industries or manufacturing will be particularly disadvantaged by this provision. Among them will be many Māori workers, many Pacific workers, and workers who have worked in places like meat plants and shearing gangs. Are we hearing any response to the concerns that we are raising? We are not.

The reality is that this Government will force this legislation through the House, so let us at least review its operation. Let us find out what has happened to these people, because this legislation is about people. The failure to respond to the concerns that we are raising, that submitters have raised, and that advisers to the Government have raised is just appalling.

I am really pleased to take a call on the amendment to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. If a Government member stands up in this Chamber and takes a closure motion again without following the principle of responding to the argument raised in the debate, I say he or she can expect big-time criticism from this side of the Chamber. We have seen two Ministers—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am very reluctant to do this during a call by one of my own colleagues, but it appears that the Government whips have gone on strike and are refusing to take points of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not a point of order. The whips have the discretion to determine when they want to take calls, and it is up to them. There will be no inference or guidance from either you or me as to when a Government whip wishes to take a closure motion.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I had not actually got to the point of order. I was only indicating that I was being of assistance to the Government in this particular point of order. I thought that this was probably an opportune time to point out to my colleagues that when the Chairman has made a ruling on a closure motion, even if it is a ruling that is supportive and the member is being supportive of the Chairman in his role, it is not appropriate for a member to comment on that. I would say my colleague should take some care.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do not need any further help on this.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This is a new point of order, which is quite separate from the interesting observation and intervention of my colleague Mr Mallard. It relates to the Government whip. From time to time throughout the course of the debate, it is necessary for whips on both sides of the Chamber to approach the presiding officer in the middle of the Chamber. I have noticed that the senior Government whip is making many, many trips to consult with the Minister in the chair, to talk to you, and to ask questions of you and the Minister. That has to happen, but it is just the frequency with which it appears to be happening that is causing some dismay.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You are bringing the integrity of the Chair into question when you—[Interruption] Well, I am the sole judge, and if the senior Government whip wishes to come and talk to me, then I will accept that. If you wish to come and talk to me, I will accept that. But I can assure you that there is no interference or anything untoward occurring when the senior Government whip comes to talk to the Minister in the chair or to me.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek an assurance, and I do this in a way that does not reflect on you in any way, because there is no suggestion—or I hope there is no suggestion—that the senior whip has been asking you for procedural advice, because that would, of course, be—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I have made my position very clear. I am the sole judge, and that is how it stands. Lynne Pillay has the call.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Chair, I think my colleague Trevor Mallard—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no.

I want to clarify something, Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am giving you the call and I ask you to continue. You have 4½ minutes left.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I urge members of the Opposition to take a call on this bill—

💬 David Garrett: You’re in the Opposition. Have you forgotten?

—members of the Government, I am sorry. I am just jumping ahead 2 years.

In speaking to Part 3, I say it is very important that with our amendment that asks for a review, we are not asking for just one review to be held after 1 year. We are asking for a review to be held every year thereafter. As the ACT member very clearly pointed out to me, we are not in Government currently. But when you are in Opposition—

💬 David Garrett: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I know what the member is going to say, because I had to bring this point of order yesterday. The member cannot bring the Chair into the debate. This is a one-clause debate. It is not a wide-ranging debate; this is on clause 60. It is a very, very narrow clause, and the member cannot bring the Chair into it.

Let me address just the review. In terms of the review, we are requesting a commitment to conduct a review within a year and every year thereafter.

My colleague Sue Moroney talked about what could be the unintended consequences of this legislation. I put it to this Committee that it is not even the unintended consequences that we are worried about; it is the intended consequences. The intended consequences will cause real havoc. We have seen two Ministers sitting in the chair whose portfolios are directly affected by this legislation. As my colleague Sue Moroney said, it will be very much to the detriment of women, of women workers, and also, as I said before to the Minister of Labour, it is an attack on the right of workers to take a holiday—

💬 Hon Member: What did she say?

LYNNE PILLAY:—What did the Minister say? That is my point. That is the point I was trying to make. It was not about the closure motions but about the fact that members on the other side of the Chamber are not engaging in this debate. My view, and the view of the Opposition, is that if you feel very strongly—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

If the Government feels very strongly that this is the right thing to do, then the Government should take a call.

We are the first to accept that yesterday Nick Smith really showed the Government’s true agenda. I suspect that the other Government members have said they have actually let too much out of the bag about how callous their attitude is towards workers and injured people in New Zealand, so they should all be quiet. But this amendment is something that the Government can respond to. It is about accountability. It is about accountability for changes that the Government is pushing through under urgency that will cause much heartache, anxiety, and stress in our communities right throughout New Zealand. I would urge Government members not only to consider very carefully this amendment—I think it is a very good amendment on the part of both David Parker and Ruth Dyson, who has expanded on the amendment—but also to consider taking a call to explain their view of it, or to give us a clue. They should give us a clue as to the Government’s attitude towards the amendment. If Government members do support the amendment they should take a call.

My big concern is, as has been outlined, about hearing aids. When we see that people with 6 percent hearing loss will not get support from the accident compensation scheme, we know that will be very much to their detriment. I want to draw attention to the National Foundation for the Deaf, which has a very good magazine. What did it say? What is its cover story? “ACC delivers a cruel blow to older people.” It talks about the absolute unfairness of that change.

It is great to be able to take a second call on this. I echo the calls that come from the Labour members to the Government, challenging Government members, and perhaps the Associate Minister sitting in the chair, Pansy Wong, to respond and to actually set out a position on the proposed amendment, because on the face of it we have here a dispute about some of the effects of provisions of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Bill. Labour members and the Green Party say that some of the provisions in the bill will shift costs from the scheme and from the State on to injured people and their families. We are not entirely clear whether the Government accepts that that is the case. I think Government members probably do accept that. I am not sure whether they would be prepared to admit it in the Chamber. If there is a dispute about that, then surely the sensible way of resolving that dispute is through some kind of review mechanism, as David Parker has proposed in his amendment. It would make sense for the Government to take a call to set out its position about that sensible proposal.

I want to come to this business of “must” or “may”, because to me that is one of the kinds of provisions that are in the bill that in fact give rise to some of the concerns about cost shifting, that we are moving from a situation where the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) must take into account certain considerations, to a situation where it may. If it may, as has been pointed out in the debate on earlier parts, then also it may not. That means that a much greater degree of discretion will be required from ACC officers. What we know about the exercise of discretion is that it may be subject to pressure from Ministers. I think what we have seen in the ACC portfolio in recent months is exactly that kind of problem. We have seen the kind of problem where provisions in relation to mental injury in the case of sexual abuse, for example, have given rise to a different interpretation of the provision.

Why this is important is that we will see more and more of that kind of problem in the future over the provisions of this bill, because ACC will be required not simply to be implementing the law as it exists but to exercise discretion. So if there is cost pressure, for example, on the corporation, that may lead it to start making decisions that significantly change where costs fall. If that were the case, then it would represent a significant cost shifting that is not set out in the bill, but has resulted from it.

It may well be that my fears about this could be answered by the Minister or perhaps the Associate Minister. I would very much like the opportunity to ask the Minister in question time today about the Government’s intentions on those issues. Sadly, that will not be possible; there will not be a question time before the Government intends to push through this bill, so I am not able to address that.

What I want to come down to is the issue of discretion, and the discretion that is opened up by the bill, and therefore the increasing possibility of cost shifting that cannot be quantified at this point. In recent months we have seen not only those changes to sensitive claims processing, where ACC has changed its interpretation of what the law says about mental injury and about the way that that test is applied. That has resulted in a significant shifting of cost from the State on to the victims of sexual abuse, effectively re-victimising them. The bill opens up the possibility—in fact the probability, I would say—of very much more of that occurring.

We have seen an increased incidence in recent months of claims being turned down. We have seen an increased incidence of compensation payments being abruptly terminated. I remember the bad old days of ACC when this used to happen routinely. In the 1980s and early 1990s I took a particular role in advocacy around ACC standing up for some of the people who had been victims of accidents or who had sustained injuries in all sorts of ways.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Debate interrupted.