Accident Compensation Amendment Bill

It’s deeply rewarding to stand and take what will probably be the only call on this combined debate in the committee stage on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill, as I presume that you will be reporting progress in five minutes. Just as the debate on the previous bill was uncontroversial—and members who were speaking commented that its provisions were not exactly earth-shattering—I have to say that a similar description really does apply to this Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. However, its great redeeming feature is that this is a bill that originated under the last National Government and so it, again, of course, reflects very sensible and timely amendments.

It’s good to have the Associate Minister for ACC in the chair and I’m hoping that he will be in a position—obviously, not this evening because of the limited time remaining—to take note of some questions that I would like to put to the committee. While I don’t anticipate that we’ll need to spend a long period of time in this committee stage, nevertheless there are some issues that probably would require some elucidation.

Perhaps, just for the benefit of those who are listening, it should be pointed out that, as I mentioned, we believe that these are sensible changes, so the National Party will continue to support this bill. They had been identified under the tenure of the previous Government and, in fact, the bill was initially drafted at that time. The main changes that are outlined in the bill are to ensure fairness for those who are injured near retirement age, and also to streamline the complaints process to remove some confusion, so the Associate Minister may wish to draw attention to some of those. But because of the very limited scope of the bill, one of the things I would just like to reiterate—it has been mentioned in the previous readings but I think it’s valid to mention it again—is that when members of the public came to make submissions on this bill in the select committee, a fairly common response was for them to be told that while their submissions were worthy, covered issues that were certainly valid, and reflected the concerns of many New Zealanders, nevertheless this was not the bill to address those particular concerns because it is a bill that, essentially, is dealing with technical adjustments.

So one of the first questions that I’d be grateful if the Associate Minister, or perhaps the Minister when he is here, could answer, really, on behalf of the many New Zealanders who have raised this issue is—it is our understanding that the Minister is working on a more comprehensive package of reforms and a bill that, I understand, he plans to bring to the House to deal with many of the things that submitters wanted to raise but were told they couldn’t. So could I ask the Minister if he could just indicate if that is indeed the case and, if so, if he’s got an idea of the timeframe that that might occur within, and also the scope of the changes that any such reform might bring to the House.

Essentially, the submissions that were—I don’t think “rejected” is the right word, but the submissions that, we were told, were out of scope were to do with policy, and, as I say, this particular bill is very much dealing with technical adjustments. I’d like, therefore, as I say, for the Minister to indicate if I’m correct in making that observation and if it’s still the Government’s intention.

Further, since the Government has had a very light legislative programme throughout 2018 and frequently resorted to filibustering during debates on uncontroversial common-sense legislation that was carried over from the previous Parliament and that had been the work of the last National-led Government, I’d also like just to ask when a more substantial update of ACC legislation will be introduced to the House, if that is the case, because, after all, the Labour Party and, I believe, at least one of their Government support parties, did campaign in the 2017 election on this. Their election manifesto for ACC indicated that they believed that there were many areas for improvement; now would be the time for the Government to tell us what those are. It would, obviously, be helpful to know if that’s something that the Minister and his officials are currently advancing in that particular direction.

I’m very mindful, Madam Chair, that any moment, I think, you’re probably going to stand up and tell me to take a seat. So I’m reluctant to get into another substantial topic in this call, although I hope that I will be in a position to do so next time the committee is under way.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill, and no progress on the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.