Accident Compensation Amendment Bill

Mr Speaker, thank you. As I was saying, this bill is making a series of changes to boundaries. I think that’s probably a good way of referencing it, which the Associate Minister for ACC Hon Peeni Henare said in his speech at the beginning of this reading, rather than at the core of the scheme. It does two things. It’s looking at addressing that gap in ACC coverage for families of employees who were posted overseas in the course of their employment, which is a vital change. It might seem like a small change, but it’s a vital change because it’s about not discouraging people from representing New Zealand’s interests abroad and about the impact that it has on their families by not being eligible for ACC.

The second thing that I want to touch on is that interface between the weekly compensation and superannuation, and the choice that is forced upon people who are injured close to retirement age. What this bill is doing is responding to a declaration by the Human Rights Review Tribunal that was forcing surviving spouses or partners to choose between New Zealand super and ACC’s survivors’ payments. They said that was discriminatory on the basis of age. What they did when responding to the changes that are proposed in this bill is that the Human Rights Review Tribunal expressed its approval, and I do just want to reference this. They said that a person injured in a non-fatal accident is compensated for loss of earnings. Those earnings will necessarily come to a natural end on the retirement of the individual from the workforce, and, logically, compensation must end at the same point. In this regard, they said this change was an appropriate proxy for the fixing of that point. It was also backed up by the Ministry of Justice, which, in a report on consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, said that this policy may have a discriminatory effect on the basis of age for a small group of people, but that they consider it justified, and they went on to explain why that is.

I think we all agree in the House that this is a sensible bill. It is making changes around the boundaries. It is not going to the core ACC changes—those things will come down the track. This is a significant bill. It’s at the boundaries.

I rise to speak on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Education and Workforce Committee as we considered this bill. As previous members have discussed, what was very clear to us in hearing submissions on this bill was the depth of feeling about the ACC scheme in New Zealand. It was a shame that a large number of the submissions we heard were formally outside the scope of the bill, and therefore the committee was unable to respond to those. However, I do want to put it on the record of this House that, as a committee, we recommended that the Minister for ACC note those submissions in the substantive review that is being undertaken. And I want to thank all of those who did submit and who shared with us sometimes harrowing stories of the fights they have had to go through to access compensation under ACC.

This bill, of course, goes to address some of the anomalies that have occurred in the legislation that have excluded some people from accessing ACC compensation which Parliament would have rightly expected them to be able to get.

💬 Hon Clare Curran: What did your Government do about any of that over nine years?

We have had agreement across the sides of the House and I’m not quite sure, therefore, why Clare Curran is addressing me now as I speak, because we have had agreement across the House that these are issues that should be addressed. These are loopholes that should be tied up and that we should ensure fairness in these provisions.

💬 Hon Clare Curran: They could have been tied up in the last nine years.

Clare Curran is addressing me again and I find this most flattering that my speech draws so much attention from her. She sat on the committee, of course, alongside me for the latter stages of consideration of this bill and we did work in a productive, cooperative manner, and I’m sure that this is the spirit in which these interjections in my speech are given.

In terms of the specifics of this bill, of course we have the removing of the requirement for ACC clients and their dependants to choose between weekly compensation and New Zealand super or the veterans pension. This was an issue that we did discuss in some detail and that officials were able to advise on—a long-standing issue that this bill carefully resolves.

Also the issue of the gap for those who have been posted overseas—that their spouses or those in New Zealand can actually get access to ACC—and I think this is very important because across the Parliament we have a view that those who are serving our country overseas are doing us a great public service; that these are people who are, in a sense, being our great patriots, representing New Zealand offshore, being the flag-bearers, the representatives for our people, and often serving us in ways that are brave and further the interests of New Zealand. So it has been a shameful anomaly that in some cases those people’s partners, spouses, and dependants have had difficulties accessing ACC, and it is positive that this can be addressed through this bill.

We then, of course, have the provision allowing surviving spouses to receive up to five years of weekly compensation, regardless of age. Similarly, this goes to the issues that we have heard about, where there was the blurring between superannuation entitlement and ACC entitlement. The simple principle here that Parliament agrees on is that you shouldn’t have your compensation from ACC curtailed in these circumstances. And, as the member Clare Curran has addressed, this bill disestablishes the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority.

I think, in considering this bill on the select committee, the reflection that I had was that when it comes to a scheme as complex as ACC and as far-reaching as ACC, actually there will always be loopholes and things in the legislation that Parliament must be prepared to address, as we are in this bill. And that’s because we can never, in this House, predict the individual circumstances, tragedies, and events that will unfold in people’s lives, or the particular circumstances in which they find themselves. So as we see ACC in action, in effect, it’s appropriate that we take the opportunity to review it to ensure that it’s living up to our intentions of providing compensation to those who have suffered accidents. These amendments, as proposed in this bill today, achieve that, and I think also go to the willingness of Parliament to work in a cross-party way on issues of this gravity.

So I commend this bill to the House. I again thank my fellow members of the select committee for their due consideration of it; I thank the officials who advised us as we considered this bill; and, in particular, I thank those submitters who, with significant passion, came and spoke to us about their experiences of the ACC scheme. We offered them our compassion, but in the future it is beholden on this Parliament and it is beholden on the Minister to ensure that there are further opportunities for their concerns to be addressed, as they lay outside of the scope of the bill. I commend the bill to the House.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Mr Speaker.

💬 Erica Stanford: Mr Speaker.

Erica Stanford—a five-minute speech. We’re sort of doing a slightly different order.

Mixing things up—thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill at second reading. The bill, obviously, makes some technical changes to the primary Act, the Accident Compensation Act, to ensure it’s up to date and fit for purpose—a bit of a tune up, if you like. It’s been pointed out across the House during this debate and at different readings that our ACC scheme is the envy of the world, so of course the National Party is supporting these very sensible and straightforward changes to the Act.

I wasn’t a member of the select committee that considered the bill, the Education and Workforce Committee, but I read the select committee report that came back to the House and hear Parmjeet Parmar did a great job at chairing that committee and taking us through the process. The select committee made a minor change to the commencement date, the timing of the bill, to ensure the timing of the changes to the Act is aligned with the funding allocation of Budget 2018.

I just want to focus on the one thing that I think is of particular concern to New Zealanders, and especially people in my electorate that I have spoken to, and that is the anomaly under the existing legislation whereby a person who is at or above the age of superannuation who is eligible for both super and ACC payments has to choose between those two payments in the second year of their injury. In most cases, they forgo their superannuation and collect just the ACC, forgoing the superannuation payment that they should be entitled to. So currently, if you’re working and receiving super and you get injured, you get both ACC and super entitlements for a year, and then in the second year you have to choose which of those entitlements to take. Most people choose to take ACC and therefore forgo those super payments, and in the third year they go back to super.

There’s no rationale for having to make this choice between the two payments in year two, and it’s not in line with the premise that superannuation is a universal benefit and not means-tested. If a person is working past 65, they’re entitled to both superannuation and their working income, so there’s no logical reason why, in year two of an injury, a person aged over 65 must choose between those two payments. The current legislation also has an anomaly whereby, if a person is injured prior to their 64th birthday, they’re actually worse off than if they were injured prior to their 65th birthday, because they’re not eligible to collect both payments. So this bill tidies that anomaly up, and I think there will be many people out there who will be quite pleased about that.

There are a number of measures included in the bill—other measures addressing the gap in coverage for family units in dependence on New Zealand employees posted overseas, allowing surviving spouses to receive up to five years of weekly compensation regardless of their age, and abolishing the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority. One of the things I’d note from select committee that I’ve heard a lot about through my colleagues who sat on that committee were the submissions that were out of scope. I get a lot of those through my electorate office—people who have concerns about the way that ACC operates and works. I understand why so many people submitted to this process, and I understand why it was out of scope, but I can see where there are a lot of changes that we need to make to ACC. There were a lot of heartfelt submissions, and I hear there were a lot of tears and people wanting to have their say.

I know that there are more changes coming. I look forward to debating in the future a more comprehensive reform to ACC that the Minister for ACC I think has talked about delivering in the new year, and I hope that the reform will consider and address some of the concerns of those submitters that brought up issues that were outside the scope of the bill. But this is a sensible and positive piece of legislation to improve our ACC scheme. I endorse it, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an honour to speak on this second reading. It’s a very short bill, so I’ll be very short as well. Basically, we’ve heard that this bill is not changing any of the core of the Accident Compensation Act; it’s just changing some of the inconsistencies, tidying it up. I do want to also mention the 25 submissions we received, 13 being out of scope, but the majority of those, as we have heard from previous speakers, having very heartfelt, deep concern about the ACC Act and the scheme. As we’ve heard, we have a commitment to do some further work on this Act, and I’m looking forward to being part of that. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.

The House adjourned at 12.55 p.m. (Wednesday)