Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): 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. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —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."