Brown Peter: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and  Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Brown Peter: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and  Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:637;Page:7526] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I want initially to respond to something the honourable member Sue Bradford referred to in relation to New Zealand First. She said she was pleased that we were finally supporting the accident compensation system and had given up our thoughts of privatising the system. Let me put the facts straight. 
Sue Bradford 
: Oh didn’t you support privatisation? 
PETER BROWN 
: No no. If the member listens to me she will hear our viewpoint. When the system was privatised—shortly after National had dispensed with us as a coalition partner—we did not agree with that privatisation. We thought it was too quickly done. But in fairness to National after the privatisation had had its 6-month trial we thought it was working better than National had envisaged. It was certainly working better than the way in which we had thought it would be working at the time of the change of Government. I see the member there is nodding her head. So we did not see any reason to change it after the 6-month trial; we felt it should be given a 2-year trial at least. Then it could have been changed back nationalised if need be. 
However the Government nationalised the system and brought back the Accident Compensation Corporation being the sole provider. In all honesty the Government did not do the job properly in the first instance. The Minister for ACC Ruth Dyson will acknowledge that. New Zealand First had about five areas of concern at that time—significant areas of concern. One of them was medical misadventure. We thought that that should have been covered by accident compensation from the word go. I made personal representation to the Minister—and her predecessor—on that very issue and was told that it was too costly. Since then the Government has addressed that issue and medical misadventure has been embraced by accident compensation. 
National members have come to the party and have raised all sorts of facts and figures. I listened to David Bennett with some interest. He said—and I hope I am correct in this—that the employers’ account is worth $511 million and the self-employed work account is worth $115 million. He said that both of them together are worth in the vicinity of $700 million. Actually they add up to $626 million which is $74 million short of the member’s figure. There is a gap in his mathematics or maybe he is trying to hoodwink people. 
It is well known in the public arena and in this House that the National Party wants to sell a few of our assets and privatise them. I can list quite a few such as Television New Zealand (TVNZ)—[ 
Interruption 
] That was Rodney Hide. He would sell everything with due respect. The National Party would sell TVNZ Air New Zealand Meridian Energy Genesis Energy and Mighty River Power and we know that it would privatise at least the Accident Compensation Corporation employers’ account and the motorists’ account. 
We think there are very good reasons for amalgamating the employers’ account and the self-employed work account. I listened to Pansy Wong; indeed I have spoken to her and she has outlined her concerns personally to me. She may or may not have a point. I am not sure I have got fully to grips with where she is coming from but I am certain that when we come to the Committee stage she will give us a better understanding of this. 
Let me read what the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee said: “The bill however allows levy rates to differ between the self-employed and employers until the end of the 2009/10 tax year.” David Bennett listed a whole range of figures to show how much levy rates are going up and what have you. It was convenient for him to say they are going up by so much and by inference say it is because the two accounts are being combined. That is not true. The levy rates are going up for some reason but it is not because the accounts are being combined. 
The report goes on to say: “The Government has proposed a mechanism utilising different levy rates to equalise the funding reserves. This mechanism would provide rebates totalling approximately $100.5 million to employers and a loading to be applied to self-employed classification units to bring the total levy income up to the level ACC would otherwise receive under separate accounts.” The worst thing I can say about that statement is that it is a blasted long sentence. It should have been split into two or more. But basically it explains that there is a degree of flexibility in the mechanism. 
To some extent all politicians form their responses by gauging the submissions received by the select committee. But equally so they gauge public concern by the number of people who contact MPs about an issue. On this issue I am not aware that any New Zealand First MP has been contacted privately at all by anyone. 
Rodney Hide 
: Why bother? 
PETER BROWN 
: I say to Mr Hide that we are involved with this Government on confidence and supply. We have a great deal more influence with the Government than he has. Mr Hide has achieved exactly nothing since he has been in Parliament. In the last year New Zealand First has achieved a great deal in cooperation with the Government. That is true. 
Much has been said about this bill but the little bit that concerns us the most—and again the public have not raised it with us—is the change of the name of the medical misadventure account to treatment injury account. That sticks in our throat a little. We think that the original name “medical misadventure account” better reflects what it is all about and that the name “treatment injury account” makes it all sound too nice and cosy. We are talking about an account that covers people for accident compensation when a doctor makes a stuff-up or something else goes wrong. To call it a treatment injury account does not sit comfortably with us and we would have preferred to keep it as the medical misadventure account. But having said that we are not prepared to pull the bill down on this. 
Rodney Hide 
: Oh! 
PETER BROWN 
: No we are just saying that this does not sit comfortably. 
Pansy Wong 
: Would the member bring an amendment? 
PETER BROWN 
: I do not know. We may well do that. We will be voting for this bill whether or not the name of the account changes. I say to the House that the name change does not sit comfortably with New Zealand First but in all other respects we are comfortable with the bill and we will be supporting it.