Hague Kevin: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hague Kevin: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9154] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 The accident compensation scheme has over $10 billion in reserves and last year had an operating surplus of $1.5 billion. From where I stand that does not sound like an organisation in financial crisis. The financial crisis exists only as a trick of accounting an artefact of accounting. Probably all members of this House recognise that if we were to change the way that the scheme is funded away from this full pre-funding model back to the “pay as you go” model the crisis would disappear overnight. 
I thank Michael Woodhouse for providing earlier this evening the long list of trade unions that came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and supported exactly the position of the Green Party which supports a move away from full pre-funding and back to “pay as you go” funding. To the list of organisations that Mr Woodhouse spoke about I add the National Council of Women the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services the ACC Futures Coalition the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and perhaps most importantly the Retirement Policy and Research Centre. Economist Susan St John and accountant Michael Littlewood of the Retirement Policy and Research Centre have both provided very eloquently argued papers supporting the case for returning to “pay as you go”. 
I have listened with interest to the debate at all stages of the passage of this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. Tonight in particular I have listened for the arguments against that for the arguments in favour of retaining full funding as the mechanism for funding the scheme and I have to say that I have not heard any. In the more general debate in public I have heard three. I have heard members from the Government benches talk about the need to be fair to future generations. That is an interesting and wry argument for the Government to mount because typically it is the Green Party that is saying that we need to be thinking about the long-term future and that we need to be thinking about the legacy we are leaving for our kids and for their grandkids. In no area of Government policy have we been able to make any headway at all on that front. 
Funding the accident compensation scheme is the single area of Government policy and activity where the Government has said: “Actually we really need to make sure that we bear the costs of this not future generations.” But when the Green Party argues for intergenerational equity we are saying that we ought not to put off to future generations any cost or burden that will be exacerbated by that delay. By returning to “pay as you go” funding we would not further exacerbate that burden. 
Earlier this evening the Minister in the chair the Minister for ACC made the case that the position I had outlined on suicide was incompatible with the position in relation to health. Firstly this Government funds health on a “pay as you go” basis. The funds required to deal with health costs in the future will be the same as the funds required to deal with accident compensation and rehabilitation of injuries in the future. “Pay as you go” funding of accident compensation is no greater burden than “pay as you go” funding of health. 
Secondly Government members have talked about the bind New Zealand is in because of our requirement to comply with the New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards which are accounting standards—in particular to comply with standard 4. That standard imposes some requirements in relation to insurance schemes. In relation to commercial insurance schemes there are sensible reasons for compliance with that code. But this is not a commercial insurance scheme. This scheme is not at risk of disappearing or collapsing and therefore triggering those New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards requirements. That is a false argument. 
Thirdly the Minister has argued in several contexts that in order to prevent accidents we require a full funding model.