Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to taker a call at the beginning of the second reading of the Accident Compensation (Interest on Instalment Plans) Amendment Bill. I wanted to take some time at the beginning just to clarify the reason why these instalment plans are in place particularly for our friends—and they are our friends—in the Green Party. But I do just want to talk through why we do these instalment plans and why there is debit interest charged and actually even though we have this practice in place other options for small businesses could actually cost more. The Minister has mentioned that but I want to go into just a little bit more detail.So currently for businesses that wish to they can pay their ACC levy in an instalment. So when the bill arrives at the beginning of a financial year instead of paying the entire bill at that point what businesses can choose to do and it's primarily small businesses sole traders those who for cash flow purposes can't pay the entire bill in one hit what they can choose to do is to have an instalment plan of either three months six months or ten months.Now one of the things when you read through the regulatory impact statement that's really clear is that if businesses didn't have an instalment plan through ACC they would actually have to access some other form of finance in order to pay. So say they had a really large bill that for cash-flow purposes they wanted to smooth across a 12-month period which is very common—particularly for small businesses—they would have to access potentially finance from say a bank in order to pay for that. What ACC does is they charge a small debit interest fee of 2.73 percent which is less than what a small business would have to pay if they sought finance through the usual means. So actually what it does is it means it is beneficial to those businesses. It allows them to access an affordable instalment payment plan.The other thing I think we need to be mindful of is that there are businesses who do pay up front. Actually we also have to remember what the purpose of the levies that ACC collects is and ACC collects these levies in order to provide services to New Zealanders who are injured. So any money that is lost to ACC through allowing instalment plans is actually revenue that is lost to ACC and that revenue lost to ACC is to actually provide treatment and support to New Zealanders through things like rehabilitation through things like remuneration through things like injury prevention. I note that this is an area where ACC is doing some trimming back which we are concerned about but we can talk about that another day. The levies that we pay actually support ACC to continue to be the taonga it is. So I think this is a really pragmatic way and it appears that most of the House believes it's a pragmatic way for ACC to allow small businesses sole traders those who have cash flow challenges to pay their ACC levies in instalments.Now we've had some commentary during the first reading tonight about the fact that this practice has been in place for 20 years since 2004 and I do just want to acknowledge my colleague the former Minister for ACC the Hon Peeni Henare. This work began when he was the Minister. What has occurred is that ACC—Hon Chris Bishop: Great man—great Minister.RACHEL BOYACK: He was a fantastic Minister and a very very good MP and yep I'm sure he's looking forward to getting back into a ministerial role Mr Bishop. What was acknowledged was that ACC in good faith had been operating under the belief that the practice was lawful and in line with the Act and I think we've foreshadowed that we are keen to ask the Minister some questions about this in the committee of the whole House stage. What has occurred is that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has said Well actually we don't read the legislation in quite the same way." and so we do have a difference of opinion between the two agencies. What that has led to is the need for us to get that legislative clarity and that's actually an important thing for this House to do.I think it should be acknowledged that for the most part all of the House agrees that we are in that position where we need to get that clarity so that we reduce legal risk in terms of challenge to ACC but also it's important that ACC is operating within the law. So if the law is not fit for purpose it should therefore be updated.I did just want to talk through that a little bit because I'm very keen to ask the Minister some questions about his views and the advice he's received on that interaction between section 234 of the Act and section 333(1)(b)(i) of the Act because MBIE's view is that when you read them together you wouldn't consider the debit interest fee to be a real version of an administration fee or the cost of collecting—that is MBIE's view. ACC holds a different view and so we are keen to just make sure that that has been tested out thoroughly because as some of my colleagues have mentioned in previous speeches it is appropriate for us to ask those types of questions. What the regulatory impact statement did state was that at a minimum the difference in views is evidence around uncertainty and actually as a House and as a Parliament if we see that uncertainty in law then we should be bringing it to the House to update it so that we don't have that uncertainty going forward.There will probably be a few other questions about how the regulations will be put in place. What the bill does is until such time as regulations are set because the bill sets out the process for stipulating regulations through secondary legislation that until that time—as I mentioned earlier in my first reading speech—that standard percentage of 2.73 percent will be applied for the 10-month instalment plans. It won't be applied for those on shorter plans which again is pragmatic. For those people who are able to do a three- or a six-month instalment plan those particular plans won't be required to pay the 2.73 percent debit interest payment.I also just did want to clarify—and I note my colleague did this as well—that this bill is primarily around instalment plans for paying levies. There has been some commentary tonight around coverage for ACC. As the Labour Party we are very proud of the work that the previous Minister prior to Peeni Henare undertook—the Hon Carmel Sepuloni—to include birth injuries and that was supported across the House as well. So I do want to acknowledge that I think that with ACC it is such an important institution for New Zealanders. It has been operating for 50 years and it was set up by Labour 50 years ago. It's one of those agencies where it's important that as much as possible we can approach changes to what we do with ACC in a bipartisan way because it needs to be an enduring organisation and provide services in an enduring way. So it is pleasing to see most parties come together tonight.I did also just want to touch on the element of retrospective law change tonight because the House should always be concerned when we make changes to the retrospective. That's natural and that's something we should ask questions about and again I would probably expect we will ask questions of the Minister in the committee of the whole House about things being retrospective.I guess the fact is that this has been in place for 20 years. We have had businesses been quite willing to undertake the instalment plans been quite willing to pay the debit interest. We've had ACC operating in good faith. The pragmatic situation is if we don't make this legislation retrospective what will then happen is we will then have the potential for 20 years' worth of challenge from those businesses who have been paying the instalment plans and paying the interest. Of course that provides a risk to the Crown but it also would potentially have a cost to ACC if there was a situation where those debit interest payments had to be repaid. We wouldn't want to see that because again that would actually take away from the moneys available to ACC to actually provide the services to New Zealand that New Zealanders expect from ACC.So I'm really looking forward to further debate on this tonight. It is an important bill. It's surprising to see it right at the end of urgency but Labour is supporting this bill and we are looking forward to engaging in a good debate tonight."