Hodgson Pete: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9216] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I have a question for the Government and it is this: is there anything to be scared of in Labour’s proposed new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill? New Part 3 proposes annual assessment of the impact of the cuts on for example how many people receiving treatment are pushed over into the health system. Is there anything about that assessment that the Government is scared of? If there is nothing that concerns the Government about the part proposed by my colleague the Hon David Parker then it should logically just vote for it. Government members are not even speaking for it or against it. All we have had from Government members is a motion to close the debate. This is a debating chamber. The idea of a debating chamber is to debate. We have had nothing come forward— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is there a Minister in the chair? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: There is a Minister in the chair. That Minister Pansy Wong is able take a call ahead of any other member in this Chamber simply by standing. If the Minister wanted to stand now I would yield at this moment. From the Minister we have had not a twitching muscle and from any member sitting on the Government benches we have had not a twitching muscle yet the idea put forward by the Hon David Parker is an idea that is worthy of some debate. Why do the Government members not get up and say that it is a good idea? Why do they not get up and say that it is a bad idea? Is there anything wrong with the idea of requiring the Government of the day to see whether its law changes have worked and to see whether its law changes have worked in this that and the other way as laid out in the new Part 3 amendment put together by the Hon David Parker? 
If the Government members think that there will be no cost shifting on to the health system or on to the individual and that there will be nothing to review then let them get up and say that. If they think that some cost shifting on to the health system is tolerable or desirable and some cost shifting on to the individual who has had the accident or the injury is tolerable or desirable let them get up and say that. This is a debating chamber and saying nothing speaks volumes. It says that the Government not only has decided to stop question time in the Chamber this day but is not prepared to debate its own legislation in the Chamber this day. That tells me that the Government does not seek to defend its position. If the Government does not seek to defend its position why would any member of the Government vote for its position? There is something going on here that is not very open and not very transparent. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The “Hollow Men” set it all up. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The “Hollow Men” set it all up. I am afraid I have been in the House long enough to remember when the Rt Hon Bill Birch did this last time. I would like to tell members what happened at my electorate office in Albany Street Dunedin North. Many people who had been denied accident compensation and who felt they should not have been denied it came in. Some of them were distressed; in fact most of them were distressed. They not only were distressed about their own position—the fact that their households were short of money or whatever the situation was—but were distressed in another sense. They were distressed that their Government had let them down at the point when they least needed to be let down. So we found ourselves inundated with cases. 
One of my staff developed a speciality in accident compensation. I remember coming to work one Saturday morning and finding this staff member at work. I asked him what he was doing there so early. He said that he had not been home and he had been working on accident compensation cases through the night. I told him that he was not allowed to do that; in fact it was a sackable offence. I put it in writing for him that he may not work through the night. That happened in Dunedin North when National last decided that accident compensation would be for some people but not for others that accident compensation would have this that or the other constraint put upon it of an arbitrary nature that accident compensation would be part of a scheme and not a proper scheme that it would be some-fault not no-fault. That is what happened last time and people kept coming to us forever. 
One gentleman still comes back. He has long since been thrown off accident compensation. In fact he has been to jail and back in the meantime. He comes back because his life is broken. This gentleman went mad with pain. I did not mean to meet him but one day when I flew on an ATR from Dunedin to Christchurch I happened to sit next to this fellow. He did not know who I was and I did not know who he was but he was in pain. I asked him what was going on with him. He said he was in pain and that he had a bad back. I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to Christchurch; he was going to Burwood Hospital to have his back checked. I asked him how he damaged his back and he said the damage was sustained at the Finegand meatworks in Balclutha. I told him who I was and I said that I did not need any more work but he clearly was in some trouble and if he ever felt the need to come and see me he would be welcome. I gave him my card he turned up a few weeks later and he has been coming back for the last 10 to 12 years. That man has long since been thrown off accident compensation. He went mad with pain and I mean that literally. He comes back now for almost a pastoral sort of a reason. He comes in and I give him a telling off. I tell him he needs to look for work to see the bright side to maintain better contact with his kids and on it goes. It seems that that is my job with this particular gentleman. 
The point of the story is that he is a victim of the last National Government changes to accident compensation in the 1990s. He is a classic case of a person who was denied treatment because it would be too costly. He was thrown off. For God’s sake he was told that the damage was degenerative! I saw photographs of where it had happened. One thing led to another his life quietly went backwards and backwards he ended up becoming belligerent and violent and he got himself into terrible trouble. He has that under control now but he does not have his life back. He has some access to his kids but his marriage is gone. He will remain a pauper. He cannot go to work now. He is too dysfunctional and that is because under the accident compensation legislation at the time he did not get treatment for a back injury incurred in a meatworks in Balclutha. The whole thing was stacked against him. He got initial treatment at Burwood Hospital. He got initial physiotherapy. He got quite a lot of treatment in the first few months but he had a badly damaged back and the treatment was stopped because it was decided that he could go and do something else and that part of the damage was not related to the injury. It was the same old same old and that guy’s life has been badly changed for ever. 
I say to members opposite that it is OK to undertake reviews because they might throw up cases like that yet I am finding a Government that will not even engage in a debate. Mr Chair I do not know how you can do your job or how you can decide how long a debate should go on when only one side takes part because then it is not a debate. That is why I have spent my contribution asking members opposite to get up and talk about why they do or do not support Part 3 which has been put forward by my colleague the Hon David Parker. This debating chamber is the shop window of democracy and only one side has anything to say. That does not seem right to me. I say to colleagues opposite who are in the Chamber to feel free to take a call. I say to the Minister in the chair to feel free to take a call. If she ever gets to her feet she knows that as the Minister in the chair she takes priority. But no members opposite are sitting with their heads down apparently studying the daily newspaper. That is their contribution. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No I’d be generous and say its their shoes. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well it might be their shoes but in any case they are not looking us in the eye. An idea has been put up. It has merit. It might not be very good but surely it has some merit— 
Chris Tremain 
: “It might not be very good”. He’s admitted it himself. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: People on this side think it is pretty good but the point is that if National members think it is not any good let them get up and say why they do not think it is any good. Let them say something anything in this debating chamber of New Zealand. There is no other place. This is where laws are passed. This is where debates take place. This is where ideas are teased out or contested. This is where the battle of wills takes place. But only one side has anything to say. One side does not make a debate; it makes for an echo chamber and I think that says heaps about the National Government’s approach to its own legislation.