Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for ACC: I present to the House a legislative statement on the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

ACC is an integral part of our social support system in New Zealand and part of the fabric of our country, but we know from research done by this Government that the scheme is not currently the same for all New Zealanders. This bill is a very important step in improving our understanding of how different groups access the accident compensation scheme, and using that information will enable us to figure out what we can do to address disparities and barriers to access through new access reporting requirements. This bill also delivers on the Government’s 2020 election manifesto commitment to return ACC to its original purpose of assisting all New Zealanders who have had an injury.

The new access reports will focus on how Māori and any identified population group experiencing barriers are accessing ACC. Based on what we currently know, for example, that will include access for women, disabled people, Pacific people, and Māori. Māori are specifically named for inclusion in the access reports to acknowledge their status as tangata whenua and Treaty partners to the Crown.

I want to recognise, on behalf of the Minister, all those who submitted to the Education and Workforce Committee on this bill. I also want to thank the members of the committee again for their work, which resulted in changes to the bill to ensure Māori are acknowledged as tangata whenua and Treaty partners. I wholeheartedly endorse that change.

We know that some groups are accessing and benefiting less from the accident compensation scheme than others, but we don’t have good insights into why. We don’t know the barriers that different groups are facing, and we don’t have good information on the drivers of those disparities and barriers to access. If we’re to remove these barriers and make the scheme truly fair, we need to start gathering that information, and that’s what this bill does.

The new reporting duty will improve transparency around access to the scheme. The resulting access reports will not only provide data on how the scheme is being accessed, but these will go those few steps further to understand why people are or are not accessing the scheme when they are entitled to. They will analyse the barriers people are facing and the drivers of those barriers and disparities. It’s important that the Minister for ACC knows about these barriers and how they arise, and where we are offering treatment or the cost of transport. Is there a lack of trust or something else that stands in the way? We need to know these things so we can fix them. These reports will go further than anything we currently do to understand these barriers and to understand access to the scheme.

As well as the new reporting duty, the bill also addresses one of the changes National made when last in office, which unfairly disadvantaged thousands of New Zealand workers. The bill will bring forward eligibility for the minimum rate of weekly compensation from the sixth to the second week of a claimant’s incapacity to work. This means people on low incomes working full-time when they were injured will get access to a top-up of their weekly compensation earlier. It will remove a financial stressor, allowing them to better focus on their recovery. ACC estimates this will help approximately 10,000 people.

By way of conclusion, this bill will give us high-quality data on how Māori and identified population groups are accessing the ACC scheme. Any disparities in access and the causes of drivers of these disparities can also be revealed. The reporting requirement will endure across many years and many Ministers. It will allow for the creation of time series and clear visibility of trends given the extended time for which data will be collected and reported.

I look forward to ACC and the Government having a better understanding of what the big picture is for accessing accident compensation in New Zealand. I intend the changes in this bill to be used as a basis for the improvement of access for those not currently accessing the scheme, to ensure all New Zealanders will be supported by ACC when they need it. I commend this bill to House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Let’s start with what I think we can all agree on—and the Minister in moving the third reading speech alluded to it—and that is that ACC is a very special scheme and an organisation that is very large and very complex. For nearly 50 years, it has delivered support to Kiwis in, firstly, preventing them from getting injured, compensating them when they do, and treating and rehabilitating them back, as far as possible, to their pre-injury state. They were the tenets, I guess, of the royal commission report in 1967 that formed the foundation of the ACC scheme as we knew it. It’s euphemistically known as the Woodhouse report—

💬 Hon Member: Oh, a good name.

—and I can’t take any credit for it. Sir Owen was probably a distant relative, but not close. He identified the dearth of statistics that existed around our injury rates at the time the report was released, and I want to quote from it. He said, “At present, the statistical pattern is incomplete and even misleading. For example, little has been done to overcome the difficulties associated with collating and interpreting information relating to all the various domestic accidents. In the field of industrial accidents there is much more [information], but their causes are often obscured by the sort of information which is currently supplied concerning them. … the information itself is frequently unreliable.”

So this was an issue that was pretty much noted right from the get-go. I’m pleased to note that for the vast proportion of the time ACC has been around, the collection of data to inform decision making and to help us understand questions of equity has overwhelmingly been collected, and this is where I differ from the Minister on the principle of why we need this legislation. She starts from the belief that the scheme is unfair, which is an assertion that I think isn’t borne out by any of the data. She said, “We know there are disparities in the scheme. We know certain groups are benefiting less, but we do not know why.”, and I think that that needs deconstructing, actually, because I’m not prepared to accept that it’s obvious that there are “certain groups” that are not accessing the scheme in an equitable manner.

Now, I will say this: the other feature of the Woodhouse report in 1967 is that it nearly never mentions women, because women in an industrial setting were not considered to be in situations where they would find themselves in a workplace injury, because they didn’t work, mostly. Over time, we have made changes to the scheme which acknowledge that. Most recently and, I think, to the Government’s credit, the question of maternal birth injuries, which wasn’t previously considered to be an external force injury, is now covered. I think that’s a good thing, and it has been supported. But there are plenty of inequities in the scheme where people are overrepresented in ACC statistics, and the thesis that, because a group, or certain groups, for example, are under-represented in certain injury statistics, it automatically presumes that there is some kind of inherent unfairness in the scheme has to be challenged. Actually, while we don’t support this bill and think that it’s a well-meaning waste of time, if there is something to be gained from it, then maybe an examination of the data will reveal that this scheme is actually working pretty well.

There are many areas, actually. If we take it that Māori, who are the only group specifically mentioned in the legislation, are materially overrepresented in ACC statistics, particularly young Māori men, in motor vehicle collisions, in certain industry injuries and accidents—for example, in the forestry industry, where they represent about a third of the workers in that industry, which is a very high-risk industry; in the construction industry, where, again, they are very significantly represented and, sadly, overrepresented in our injury statistics—my wish is not that they are overrepresented but that they are kept safe at the same rate as the general population. But we know this because data is already collected on it, and this bill, as I have said on many occasions, is a well-meaning waste of time because ACC not only is eminently capable and is able to collect the data that can inform this discussion but they’re already doing it.

We know this because of the injury statistics that are collected and, until the Clark Government came along and squashed it, were routinely published in the annual injury statistics reports that were published from about the mid-1980s until 2006. They were a goldmine of information on who was getting injured, how, where, and how long it took them to recover. That was a significant mine of information which informed the best practice in treatment and rehabilitation, and I was the national contracts adviser at ACC. I had a significant budget for contracting with health and rehabilitation providers for the very sorts of treatments and rehabilitation that would enable a fast and lasting return to work or independence. That framework exists about 26 years after it was initially put in place, and what informed that? Data, statistics—the sort of information that’s already there.

So no one on this side of the House is opposed to the goal. It irks me that we have a Government that leaps to a conclusion and then reverse engineers the solution to it, which is a belief in an inherent unfairness or inequity in the scheme that has not been established, and then it says, “We’re going to pass a law to find the information to confirm that belief.” Well, I hope ACC keeps a much more open mind than the Government has about what’s going on, because they will quickly realise that, particularly for Māori—and, certainly, I’m sure, for other groups, where they are overrepresented—our focus has to be on prevention and on reducing the number of injuries that Māori have, at least back to the rate of the general population.

The Health and Safety at Work Act and a number of other initiatives that the previous Government put in place took significant steps towards keeping not only Māori safe but all New Zealanders safe in the workplace and on the roads and in our homes, and, unfortunately, sadly—like many of the trends under this Government—those data are getting worse, not better. So it behoves us to make sure that everybody—Māori, women, disabled, Pasifika, Pākehā, Palagi—is made safer by the actions of the Government and ACC, and it’s my sadness that, where we could be doing quite a bit to enhance that goal, all we’re doing is passing a well-meaning, useless piece of legislation. For that reason, the National Party will continue to oppose it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this, the third reading of the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I support this bill, and I was lucky enough to be on the Education and Workforce Committee when we were considering this bill. The reason that this bill came about, I think, arose from a matter which has been referred to by previous speakers: the issue that we had with birth injuries. That was quite a significant issue, and unfairness within the ACC regime was remedied, to the credit of the then Minister Carmel Sepuloni, in the legislation that we passed to allow those injuries to be considered under the ACC scheme.

Now this, I think, led to a few questions in terms of who is actually being served by this ACC scheme, which—as all members across the House have spoken of—is so essential to the way New Zealand works. It is fundamental to the way that New Zealand addresses its accidents and, I think, is something that we were all proud of. The issue, really, was that it wasn’t necessarily treating all populations the same. So this bill remedies that and requires ACC to report on it. And it’s great to hear the National Party don’t disagree with that and think it’s well-meaning at the very least.

The second thing is it brings forward eligibility for the minimum rate of weekly compensation from the sixth to the second week. Now, that is not nothing. For those people who are injured, that could be everything—that could be getting by; that could be making do—and, in an era where we have issues with the cost of living, I think that it is absolutely essential that we pass this important piece of legislation. If the National Party do agree with it in terms of the thrust of it, and if they do agree with the fact that people need money in their pocket in the second week, not the sixth week, then they should do what their conscience tells them and support it.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m glad to rise on the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, third reading. As the Hon Michael Woodhouse has articulated before, the National Party will be opposing this bill for a simple reason, in that this bill is a complete waste of time—not untypical of this Government to be passing such legislation; quite typical, actually, of them. But this piece of legislation is a waste of time, and it is absolutely a solution looking for a problem.

The challenges that I’ve outlined in prior calls in regards to this legislation are that the whole point—and the Minister outlined this—is the need for information to figure out what to do. Gee, does that not epitomise this Government in terms of every problem that this country faces—“But we need more information to figure out what we need to do.”? Well, the Minister only needs to ask the department for some of the research that’s already been undertaken on this exact matter. The campaign only run by ACC less than 18 months ago—“Don’t tough it out”—has research in regards to Māori and why they are less likely to seek help for minor injuries and, overall, why they have lower ACC claim rates.

Well, OK, so research has already been done in regards to some of these points. Findings: 20 percent less likely to make a claim; Māori, 2.5 percent, have a higher propensity to incur serious injuries as a result of that. Research again undertaken by ACC in 2019—I could go back 50 years, but let’s just stay in 2019—“Māori have a very low awareness of the ACC scheme.” So it is not that we are sitting around here thinking, as the Minister articulated, “We need information to figure out what to do.” Well, no, the Minister just needs to google the reasons why and see that ACC has already done the research.

They already know the problem, but the problem is that this Government isn’t providing the support to ACC in order to get the solutions required. They are a very capable department. They look after, of course, around $45 billion of Kiwis’ cash and have that under management, so they’re not a small beast, and they have a significant amount of capability, and actually they have done a lot of thinking about this. This isn’t the first time they’ve decided that, “Geez, this is a little bit of an issue, and maybe we should have a think about it.” This is something that they have been considering for a while.

So while it is noble on behalf of the Government to say we are going to collect this information on an annual basis—I mean, that’s nice. But a nice little report around identified disparities, which—I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to put money on it, but I’d say it would probably end up being quite similar to the recommendations that the research has already found in 2022 and 2019 and before. How about we just start doing something about it? How about we just start actually putting in place some plans and some actions to achieve some outcomes? That may sound outrageous; that may sound like, “Wow, that’s a bit crazy. Why would we be trying to actually do something about it and actually have plans and outcomes and, maybe, performance measures—maybe performance measures—around achieving some of this stuff?” Maybe this is a bit sort of blue-sky thinking, but, you know, in 133 days, I am hoping that the sky is going to turn blue and we’re going to see a little bit more sense coming into this. But just get on with the job, Minister. Get on with the job and actually start doing some proper actions and plans and interventions that are actually going to increase the rates at which Māori access ACC. We know it’s an issue. We know some of the challenges around why that is.

I think, as the Hon Michael Woodhouse has articulated, the whole driver around this bill was one of manifesto promises. Well, I think basically what that is code for is that this is a politically motivated narrative that suits a narrative on behalf of the Government, and they want to be seen to be doing something, but they are walking around the hallway, carrying a book, looking busy, but not actually doing anything that’s actually going to result in real outcomes for the people that are obviously not engaging with the system at a rate at which we believe they should be.

So my advice for the Minister, for what it’s worth, is just get on and read the research that’s already been undertaken through the agencies, take some action around that, and do what you need to do. Because what’s interesting—the Minister provided an overview on this, only—what was it?—a couple of days ago, I think. We’ve seen that the health department has now been employing—do you remember the wait-lists for elective surgery, the way in which they’re now assessing the prioritisation? Well, it seems that Māori have been put at the top of waiting lists for elective surgery based on ethnic background and not necessarily on clinical need. Well, again, there’s another example of a Government—

💬 Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Rubbish!

Rubbish. Do I hear “Rubbish”? Did I hear “Rubbish”? Did anyone hear “Rubbish”? Did you hear that, the Hon Michael Woodhouse? “Rubbish.” Well, I wonder whether—I don’t know who said that, but maybe we’ll just have a little check over the written parliamentary questions from the Minister, who actually confirmed that squarely, and I think also Stuff reported on it as well. If you google Stuff and have look at that, they’ve got a nice little write up about Wellington. Guess what! It’s happening in Auckland as well. We know it’s happening around the country, and the washing’s going to be shown on this little issue, the sneaky little issue that they’re at, making and using ethnic background to prioritise surgical wait-lists and not clinical need. I mean, that is a shocker, right? It is a shocker.

But getting back to the political narrative of this bill—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Let’s get back to the bill, not the political narrative.

—thank you, Mr Speaker—the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, third reading. Getting back to this bill, this is a waste of time. Why don’t we use this opportunity to actually do something sensible in this area? Why don’t we do that? That would be useful, instead of wasting our time.

💬 Glen Bennett: Tell us about the bill.

And who’s that? Who’s that? I think it sounds like the member from Northcote, was it? No? Down the back—New Plymouth. Good. Good to see. Lovely place, New Plymouth.

So that’s pretty much it. We’re going to be opposing this. It’s a great waste of time. I don’t know why they’re bothering with it, but, you know, that’s probably typical for these guys. We’ll be opposing this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Mr Watts, not everything has to be about race. The purpose of this Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is to improve the focus on the understanding of how people with personal injuries are accessing the accident compensation scheme. It increases transparency of the levels of access to the scheme, including any disparity in access to the scheme by Māori and identified population groups.

As the Minister said, ACC is an integral part of our social support system in New Zealand and is part of the fabric of our country, but we know that access to the scheme is currently not the same for all New Zealanders. This is the heart of this bill, not what the Opposition is making sounds about—race and division. It’s just simply this: all we are asking for is just that the scheme is accessible equally to everyone, and that we do have some sort of transparency for these disadvantaged groups of the population.

We all know, in our communities, people who rely on this scheme and people who are struggling to access it at the same time as well. This is all about fairness and transparency. It’s a good bill. It’s going to make a difference in people’s lives. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As stated by our peers, this bill will amend the Accident Compensation Act 2001. The bill requires the Accident Compensation Corporation to report annually on the level of access Māori and other population groups have to the accident compensation system. This change is intended to increase transparency, including by identifying any disparities in this access.

ACT has a problem when you are identifying one group over other groups, as obviously there are other groups that are struggling with not making claims with ACC. As we were told in select committee and by many who had come to submit, they felt that we should actually list who ACC have most likely already identified, because why should we put one group over the top of the other?

Now, I’m a little bit disappointed because I actually end up in these other identified groups because—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Other populations.

—populations—I am a woman. Therefore, that means that women, Pasifika, other ethnics, refugees, asylum seekers, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, young, and old—these are the groups that ACC have probably indicated that they need more information on, on why we don’t claim as much. Because, again, I am a woman and I’ve been identified as a disparity that most likely is not claiming ACC as much.

Yes, I commend the Labour Party for the maternal injuries bill. It was much overdue, because we know that this Act was set over 50 years ago and it was done when mostly males were working in the workforce. And I do know that there’s other work going on, but I’m just disappointed that we have to, as I said, identify one over the top of all these other groups, because I feel that we are a multi-ethnic society and we should all be treated as equals and not one group named over the other.

We don’t have a problem with the bill where it’s been added what they call the “other matters”, which is hidden in this bill, which is to bring the eligibility for the minimum full-time rate of weekly compensation from the sixth week of incapability to the second week. We agree with this because we do know that a lot of people are struggling, and especially after you have an injury and have to get treatment and rehabilitation. This is what this is all about. There must be data already that we should have as to why people aren’t getting treatment, or what sort of treatment and, if it is working, what rehabilitation. Do we make claims and then not follow through on our rehabilitation programmes? So, then, pretty soon there’ll probably be data around how much people are actually claiming.

Now, we know that data is very good in order to be able to supply good services, but then I start to wonder if why people aren’t claiming is because they don’t feel that ACC is offering good services for them once they have had an accident or how much people have to fight to be able to get their claims heard. There could be many reasons why we have these disparities. And, yes, we should have that data, and I’m assuming that we do, but it’s just how we get our hands on it.

The other thing is that when groups come to us—was it 15 interested, and nine submitters?—they state that they mostly want things to be spelt out. And I’m thinking, well, if these groups really say that these things should be spelt out in black and white—the likes of what groups we have identified. And I’m pretty certain that covers most of what New Zealand represents today. And the other thing is we are doing claims these days online. It’s obviously why we have these disparities and why you think that we need this bill. It’s about how much of it has gone online and the cost for people to do things, because most people don’t necessarily have access to computers in their homes or have access to somewhere close by to go in and make these claims. Or the fact is that we’ve got busy lives—“Oh, I’ve sprained my ankle. Oh, I don’t think I need to claim. It’s just a sprained ankle.” This is the sort of thing that most people do.

The majority of the people that I know that go and do lots of claims are usually people that are sports-orientated, and they need to because, again, with their sports, they want to make sure they’re right. But the everyday mum who sprains her ankle, has got two kids that they have to get off to school, they will just wrap their ankle and carry on. I think that’s a big thing that goes on in today’s life—that people, when they perceive it as something very minor, do not claim, and that’s what this will show, probably. And, like, it’s just a huge thing. When I look at this and see that Pasifika is also a group that’s identified, why, then, if you know that this is a group that’s not claiming, can’t we at least name them, like the other groups? And also why, again—there must be data, because I’m pretty certain that would show who is claiming, who is not claiming, what sorts of accidents, and in what industries are they occurring. It would be a good indication, because, as Michael Woodhouse said, especially within the construction industry and forestry, we know who are in those. Most of the time, when you have to fill in a form, you have to put down your sex, your age, and your ethnicity, so I’m pretty certain we should have a lot of that data floating around.

But, again, I think this is another bill that is, again, just taking up time—another feel-good factor and also a way to include a little bit of our diversity and ethnicity without naming all of New Zealand, but just Māori. I’m very upset that I couldn’t even get a mention of disparity as a woman in this bill. So ACT cannot support the bill in the way it is formed. We think, again, it’s a well-meaning bill, but when you put one group of people over the top of another, I think it is totally unfair. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure. I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I would have to say, though I’ve agreed with some things in pretty much every speech—it’s been kind of interesting to me. Like, I do support this bill, and part of what I am hearing from a lot of the parties who are unsure about it is the sense about “The data’s already there; you don’t need a bill to do that.” A lot of the conversation about the data and the disparities seems to be about the entry to the scheme in its first instance and barriers to that. We do have quite a bit of information about that, though there is a lot more research to be done in those areas, I would say as well.

But what the bill does is it goes further than that and actually requires reporting to Parliament on those disparities and “the level of access to the accident compensation scheme in that financial year by Māori and identified population groups”; and any disparities the corporation identifies in access to the scheme and any barriers that they identify that affect Māori or any population groups; and “the causes of, or factors contributing to, those disparities and barriers as identified by the Corporation.” We had discussion within the Education and Workforce Committee because there was a suggestion that the bill should be more specific about access, that it’s actually access to all parts of the scheme, and that we have the expectation that ACC will be reporting on that. I have not seen that public information—I’ve found it very hard to get, and what I hear from people trying to access the scheme is that they find that information really hard to get. So I believe that annual reporting to this House with that information is a valuable first step.

However, I do agree with the points that I’ve heard from National as well, about the sense of “Just reporting? Come on, we need some action.”, and quite a few submitters also raised that, where they wanted this bill to require ACC to report on what actions they would take to remove the disparities. The point was raised by officials that ACC won’t be responsible for all of the barriers that are in the way of people accessing schemes; some of it will be the health system, in terms of referring people to ACC—like the woman who’s sprained her ankle and is just dealing with it, who maybe went to her doctor, and did her doctor refer her and get that covered by ACC or not. But that’s pretty easily covered by the framing in the bill, in terms of it can be ACC working with other agencies. Part of their actions could be advocating for those other agencies to take action, and that is part of their role as an agency within a part of our rehabilitation and health and compensation system. I argue, as many submitters did, that that would have strengthened this bill significantly.

Also, like the member from ACT, while I don’t have a problem that Māori are specified in this bill, and, in fact, through the committee we strengthened it, where initially it was “Māori and other identified population groups” which just had Māori as—just forgetting that we actually have a Treaty relationship between the Crown and Māori that actually means there’s a responsibility, legally, for the Crown to ensure access for Māori to the scheme. So the committee changed the language to “Māori and identified population groups”, recognising that there’s a different status between Māori and women, LGBTQIA+, Pasifika, young, old, disabled. However, a lot of submitters wanted those groups specified in a non-exhaustive list so that it could be added to over time. The Greens also supported that. I don’t mind not seeing women in there; I don’t feel it’s any slight on me personally not to have women listed when Māori are. But I just think having that consistency for a few years into the future would have helped us all have comfort in the intentions of the scheme being realised across those groups—and for it to be specified to be intersectional analysis, because we know that Pasifika women exist, not just Pasifika people here and women here, and, actually, we need the analysis to include that kind of nuance and information.

Ideally, we would have liked to have seen a Te Tiriti clause in this bill, acknowledging, again, that ACC is part of our health system. We’ve acknowledged, through our health reforms, that there is an obligation on the Crown in terms of Te Tiriti, and ACC is part of that system; it’s just inconsistent that we don’t have it in this legislation. I understand, from the Minister, that there is intention to be working with iwi to develop that in the future; would also point back, though, that this was raised through the maternal birth injuries legislation, as well—of submitters calling for a Te Tiriti clause at that point—and it would have been great to have seen more progress made on that, because it is pretty fundamental.

I do want to, also, just speak briefly, which I haven’t managed to previously—and noting our very specific and wholehearted support for the change of when people can access their minimum rate of weekly compensation, which is 80 percent of the minimum wage, which is still a struggle for a lot of people, just to have that cut when they’ve been existing on minimum wage. But that’s a separate issue. But under current legislative settings, people can’t access that until their sixth week after incapacity, and this moves it to the second week. That will help out people really significantly.

However, again, this is a pretty minor change. We’ve been hearing the call—like, the people I speak to out in the communities, including lawyers and people struggling to access the system—that there are real issues in terms of people feeling as if they’re battling a culture of disentitlement, where the information about how to access the scheme is not readily or transparently available. The systems are overly onerous and provide massive barriers for people getting the assistance that they need, and it can take years.

Initially not having needed ACC, except for anything, embarrassingly, beyond a jandal injury—I know, I am one of those people with those embarrassing claims; however, a jandal injury it was, truly—I thought that you got your claim accepted and then that was sorted around rehabilitation, if you needed to be off work, or if there were other situations in terms of loss of potential earnings. I’d naively thought that that was all just one thing—that, if you went to ACC and they accepted your claim, then all of that was just kind of worked out. I had no idea that they are three separate processes, with multiple assessments and requirements for medical information, many times for each of those systems in different cases. I just don’t think that serves us or our communities, and there is work to be done to transform the system and to ensure equity.

I do need to touch briefly on the point that’s been made around women’s access and how it’s because they’re not being injured, the inference was, by a previous speaker. Well, actually, the most common injuries that women suffer in their workplaces are around bullying and harassment and burnout; they are not covered by this scheme but have lifelong consequences in terms of people’s earning potential, something that should be covered by this legislation but isn’t, because it was written 50 years ago when women-dominated professions possibly weren’t even imagined at that point in our history. We need to be doing this work, and this is a timid but effective first step.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.