Roy Heather: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Roy Heather: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20288] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 When we are considering clauses 1 and 2 of this amendment bill I too would like to ask the Minister for ACC to explain the confusion that may well exist amongst some members because of the repeated use of the word “different” as read out by Katherine Rich. There may well be funding implications in amongst that confusing sentence in places and that is something I have repeatedly outlined. 
When we look at this bill we see there will be one or more Orders in Council. Obviously the dates will be determined by the Accident Compensation Corporation probably through the Department of Labour. It may be that some are held up for a while because funding has not quite been sorted out or it may be that they are rushed through. Despite my request to the Minister and that of some other members particularly Peter Brown from New Zealand First we never had an explanation from her about new clauses 26A 28A and 29A—on Supplementary Order Paper 365—in regard to the employers account the residual claims account and the self-employed work account. When we look at Orders in Council being used for the appointing of different dates for different provisions and different purposes including different dates for different repeals as set out in clause 3(2)(a) to (t) we see that that does leave us with a great unknown as to exactly what it means. 
As for clause 1 “Title” the National Party member was quite right when she said the bill is about compensation but does not deal at all with injury prevention or rehabilitation. We in the ACT party would agree that it is very important to have a clear title so that when those who do not have a legal background read the legislation they do in fact have a reasonable idea and expectation of what they might find in the bill or the Act that they reading. So the bill probably is not aptly named despite the fact that it is amending original legislation of that name. We do like to see some clarity in those things. 
It is worth reiterating why ACT is opposing this bill. I have mentioned the funding issues and the confusion that may exist with the provision in clause 2 for Orders in Council. We will be opposing that clause. The funding issues are a great unknown and we raise an objection to competition being ruled out completely from the accident compensation regime. The National Party members have also outlined as has New Zealand First that they would like to see competition existing within the sector but unfortunately they do not feel quite strongly enough about it to oppose the bill. That is a great shame. To have the courage of one’s convictions is a great thing. It seems that the ACT party is alone in making a stand about this issue tonight as we go through the Committee stage of this bill. 
Some clarity about the title would have been welcome as would an explanation from the Minister about the gobbledygook of the wording of those amendments to clause 2 on the Supplementary Order Paper. Some competition and choice within accident compensation would also have been very welcome but obviously that is not to be. However ACT will be registering very strongly in future votes its opposition to that.