Roche Denise: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4208. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):I rise to take a call on the first reading of the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill. We support this bill because while it does not come anywhere near close to the Green Party vision for a fairer more transparent and people-focused ACC it does take a few tiny steps in that direction. I will start by looking at the things that we like—the positive aspects. We like that the bill improves the framework for determining ACC’s levied accounts. The changes provide improvements on the current models ensuring that the levy-setting process is more transparent and reducing the shock caused by sharp fluctuations in levies. We support the provision to adjust the dates to avoid the over-collection of the residual claim levy by removing the fixed state that is in the current legislation.We also support the policy objective of the bill to improve the governance process by setting levies through the requirement on the Government to set a funding policy in line with the statutory principles. As well as supporting improving the transparency of the levy-setting process we also support the objective of the bill to ensure that the public is better informed. Better reporting makes for a better-informed public and policy makers have more information as well.Although we do acknowledge that the bill has some positive changes we regard the funding model of this scheme as fundamentally unfair and flawed. Furthermore we think that this bill is a lost opportunity. We could have been a lot more ambitious.So what would the Greens do? What would our solutions be? As my colleague Kevin Hague has outlined numerous times our vision for ACC is where it continues to be a world-class service and honours the social contract it was founded on. We want an end to the shift towards a profit-driven insurance model a shift that this Government brought in through the abolition of the pay-as-you-go system and when it shifted to this one.In 1974 New Zealand broke new ground with the introduction of the no-fault Accident Compensation Act. It created a social contract embodied in the five Woodhouse commission principles that the scheme was founded on and I remind the House that those five principles were community responsibility comprehensive entitlements complete rehabilitation real compensation and administrative efficiency.In the 41 years since that original legislation was passed we have seen successive Governments tinker with our law. Since its inception in 1974 there have been five substantive legislative changes to the Accident Compensation Act and as a result many of the original principles have been undermined and people’s rights have been eroded.We have seen under this Government a transition away to a profit-driven insurance model away from an ACC that served the public good. There have been countless incidences where the access to ACC has been restricted and these have been well-exposed in the papers over the last few years. In 2012 in what could serve as a warning to the Minister of Health about the social bonds policy that he is introducing my colleague Kevin Hague exposed how ACC managers’ pay was linked to the number of long-term claimants they were able to remove from the corporation’s books.We hear more and more stories from people who should receive compassionate and equitable service from ACC but are wrongly denied compensation. That includes last year when claimants were denied access to the scheme because they refused to sign privacy waiver forms that were eventually found to be illegal by the courts.When the focus is on the bottom line the social-good aspect of ACC is completely ignored and lost for ever. We believe that we could have an ACC scheme that is fair comprehensive efficient transparent and more people-focused. If given the chance we would guarantee that all people who have genuine work-related gradual-process injuries diseases or infections including occupational overuse injuries and chemical poisoning—people like the sawmill workers from Whakatāne who were poisoned over three decades ago and are still having to fight for compensation—could obtain ACC cover. We would ensure access to specialist assessors to ensure that people can receive full entitlements. We would revoke co-payment requirements. We would establish an independent ACC ombudsman to improve accountability against abuses. We would also support specific risk-based levies to encourage injury prevention where appropriate. That would have a huge impact on health and safety in agriculture construction and forestry.We would fund ACC through an equitable mix of levies on employers employees motor vehicle usage and general taxation. We would ensure the maintenance of a rigorous ethical ACC investment policy that would prevent ACC from investing in enterprises that provide products or services that significantly increase rates of injury illness or otherwise significant adverse social or environmental aspects. I think ethical investment is something that we should be looking at a lot more closely.We would also support and strengthen ACC’s focus on injury prevention including integration with broader preventative health programmes and interventions in communities in workplaces in schools and in homes. We would fix ACC by reverting to a pay-as-you-go model. It was a working model that produced a different culture in ACC—one focused on rehabilitation and care. ACC is not an insurance scheme.There are many reasons for going back to a pay-as-you-go system—sound economic reasons outlined specifically by an expert from the University of Auckland business school Michael Littlewood. He suggested and has assured us that the pay-as-you-go model has less volatility on investment returns and has less uncertainty than the current actuarial calculations. He also says that the flawed nature of applying actuarial assumptions is intended for a private market rather than a Government one and a pay-as-you-go system is cheaper to administer—and I guess this Government is all for wanting to reduce the expense of bureaucracy. There is also the increased transparency of a pay-as-you-go system due to the ease of understanding it. Mr Littlewood concludes his research by saying: “A PAYG approach to levy-setting should be simpler more transparent and less risky financially. It would also lower the investment risk for New Zealand.”We support this bill because it is a small improvement to the inadequate status quo but New Zealanders deserve an ACC that tries to maximise the well-being of our people and its clients not one that relentlessly pursues the financial bottom-line.