Street Maryan: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Street Maryan: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:16937] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I would like to take this call to refute some of the nonsense we are hearing from across the other side of the Chamber about the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2). The National Party has never really understood accident compensation. Its members have never really understood the detail and they certainly have never understood the policy since the days when the system was brought in by National members who had a more expansive vision than those who have come after them. National did introduce accident compensation—it is true. If members go back and read the words of Jack Marshall they will see the vision behind the introduction of accident compensation. Jack Marshall was one of those who acknowledged the purpose and the visionary concepts and principles behind the Woodhouse report. It is a sad tragedy that latter-day National members have lost the vision of Jack Marshall—they need to go back to that. 
I would like to say a couple of things in particular in response to the points made by National members. First I will address the issue of mental injury caused by a traumatic event. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee heard from a milk tanker driver and I think from a train driver and we know also of a bank teller and of a miner. These people have all experienced an extraordinarily traumatic event which has left them with a mental injury that has prevented them from returning to their workplace. It seems to have escaped the attention of National members that the reason we are introducing some redress and compensation for mental injury for workers such as those people is that these events have happened in the workplace. 
These events have happened because this group of people comprises a bank teller a train driver a miner and a milk tanker driver. When the milk tanker driver and the train driver saw people throw themselves in front of their vehicles which they were unable to stop they suffered a mental injury as a result. That is a diagnosable injury. There is a diagnostic process that I am sure select committee members were exposed to in the course of their deliberation and it is referred to as the  
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 
 or “DSM-IV”. This is the set of internationally accepted diagnostic guidelines that have come out of the United States and it provides for a diagnosis that allows somebody to recognise whether a worker has received a mental injury as a result of a traumatic event. 
The four people I have been talking about have suffered a mental injury that has made it impossible for them to go back to their work. In the space of 3 years the train driver was subjected to that event twice. It is almost incomprehensible that somebody should suffer such an event once in their work career but to endure it twice is an absolute tragedy. That demands our compassion. Those people came to the select committee knowing that the legislation was not retrospective but they wanted people to be covered by such events in the future. Those events are drastic events. 
I personally think that our accident compensation scheme is the best in the world. Certainly it is recognised as being amongst the best. It is second to none because it is comprehensive and covers work injury and non-work injury. 
I would like to greet the children from Prebbleton School who are up in the gallery at the moment and the teachers and adults who have accompanied them. I am glad they are here today. I happen to know that currently there are members among them who are receiving benefits from the accident compensation scheme and that is what it is for: it is for work injury and non-work injury. It is for children in playgrounds and for people who engage in sporting activities. It is for people who fall off the roof of their house when they are mending it. It is a scheme second to none. It is not just about workplace injuries; it is about injuries that anybody sustains. 
The Labour-led Government recognises that compensation for workers who are taken out of the workplace as a result of an injury is an economic and social good for those workers. Rehabilitating them which is another part of the accident compensation scheme is good for them. Getting those people back into work fit and healthy benefits both them and the economy. 
Pansy Wong 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I just wonder whether the Minister has mistaken this for a third reading debate. I thought we were talking about Part 1. The Minister’s description of accident compensation in respect of those specific cases is in no way relevant to Part 1. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Thank you very much. That really is not a point of order but I will take the point. The member has been referring to clause 5 and also to mental injury. I have been reading the legislation as it has been debated. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: I would be very interested if National members in opposing this improvement to what is already a scheme that is second to none in the world— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: It’s the only one. It’s the only one like it. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Exactly. It is second to none as I say. What I want to know from National members is whether in objecting to this legislation they are looking to expand the coverage of accident compensation. Are they wishing to make the legislation retrospective? Are they wishing to make it apply to non-work mental injury experienced as a result of a traumatic incident? We have not heard that from them. I would be very interested to hear whether that is the case. If that were the case it would seem to me that their underground plans for privatising the accident compensation scheme would have to take on a different colour. I would be most interested to know whether the provisions that we have in the bill currently would be expanded upon given the song and dance we are hearing about them from those members. 
I turn to the issue of costs. The National Party has made a substantial play about the range in costs. Coverage for mental injury as a result of a traumatic event is new to New Zealand. This is another incremental improvement on a good scheme and because it is new to New Zealand we do not have the costings we can draw on from past experience. It stands to reason that we will range widely across the possibility of costs in order to get some indicative idea from comparable jurisdictions about the cost of such coverage. We do not anticipate that there will be many of these claims. If one looked back over the last 10 years one would be able to count the number of mental injuries sustained from a traumatic event. These are not common everyday experiences. The fact that there might be a range of costs simply means that this is an indicative idea. We are going forward into an area we have not covered previously. 
I return to my original point which is that the National Party has never quite frankly understood the issues surrounding accident compensation—not in recent times. National’s only concern at this time it would seem is to ensure that it prepares for privatisation and that it sells the scheme to its friends in the insurance business so that all levies will go up as a result. All levies without a doubt would go up.