Katene Rahui: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Katene Rahui: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9061] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 The Maori Party has a consistent track record of voting on legislation at its first reading in this House. Where there is any room for question we always apply the benefit of doubt principle and vote the bill through to the select committee. This was precisely the position we found ourselves in with the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. 
Accident compensation is one of the issues in which every New Zealander has an interest directly or potentially. On this important basis we thought people should be given the opportunity to have a say on the proposed legislation. We had many questions that we wanted to put to New Zealanders and indeed to those involved in the accident compensation scheme and the wider industry. We wanted to know purely and simply whether there was any ground for the changes required to a scheme that has been described as a “ground-breaking world-leading no-fault compensation scheme”. In fact the PricewaterhouseCoopers report of 2008 described the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) as having the best rehabilitation rates of any comparable scheme in the world which is high praise indeed. 
We wondered about the broader question of accident rates. Why is it that New Zealand is 23rd in the workplace fatal accident rate league table of developed countries? What is it about our wonderful country that sees our accident rates jump to more than five times those of the best countries? Do we take the No. 8 wire mentality too far and cajole workers into a point of view that suggests that injuries are to be endured and that rehabilitation is for sissies? Of course a key issue for the House must be that Maori are overrepresented in injury statistics across all age groups in employment and sports. As most of these injuries are preventable why is it that Maori particularly men are more likely to be injured at work than non-Maori? 
When we are focusing on a scheme that has performed so highly on international standards and that has been demonstrably relevant to New Zealanders it surely makes sense to go back to the reason why the accident compensation scheme was established in the first place. Before the 1967 royal commission into workers compensation a person wanting compensation after an accident had to establish fault; that is that something had been done to him or her. The process was often drawn out expensive unfair and rewarded lawyers more than it did claimants. The principal architect of the scheme Sir Owen Woodhouse negotiated a virtual trade-off between the right to sue and comprehensive no-fault cover in the event of an accident. The scheme was developed out of what has come to be known as the Woodhouse principles. They emphasise community responsibility comprehensive entitlement complete rehabilitation real compensation and administrative efficiency. This history provides us with a very strong context within which to view the changes tabled in this bill. 
The rationale provided by the Minister for ACC is certainly compelling. The Minister has claimed that costs over the last 4 years have risen 57 percent which is approximately five times the rate of inflation unfunded liabilities have grown from $4 billion to $13 billion and across all amendments there is the overriding principle of the need to be fair to claimants and levy payers. This aspect of fairness is one that I want to explore in more depth. In our policy statement  
He Aha Te Mea Nui? He Tangata He Tangata He Tangata 
 the Maori Party supports the right for workers to be treated fairly and with dignity to work in a safe and healthy workplace and to hold employers accountable for preventable workplace-related deaths and injuries. We are also committed to reviewing business compliance costs so that there is no increase in such costs.  
These principles have influenced the way in which we have viewed the bill and the advice in the 133 submissions received. Although the context for the bill is to make accident compensation affordable and fair the changes will disproportionatly impact on vulnerable workers and low-income families as the bill decreases access to cover and decreases the level of compensation to these claiments. The impact on vulnerable New Zealanders is varied. For young people the loss of potential earning compensation is reduced from 100 percent to 80 percent of adult minimum weekly earnings. The most significant health effect of the bill is in the reduced accident compensation cover for those already on low incomes who cannot afford health insurance or income insurance to cover them when injured. This can force people into untenable positions including returning to work before they are ready or resorting to criminal activity to cover household costs.  
Reduced access to accident compensation will also impact negatively on child poverty rates. The National Council of Women suggested that women are more vulnerable to negative outcomes through a lack of social services and the bill will reduce those services further. The council also noted that many of the service providers counsellors physiotherapists and home-care workers are women depending on ACC funding to deliver those services. Of course some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders those who have made sensitive claims will suffer from both levy increases and a restriction of services. Again this was an issue that the National Council of Women brought to our attention. It was the council’s assessment that the ACC sensitive claims clinical pathway was being followed in such a way as to be discriminatory on the dual grounds of gender and race. The council described Maori women seeking to access ACC’s subsidised counselling but leaving in tears unable to know whether or what kaupapa Maori treatment plans will be utilised.  
The issue of vulnerable New Zealanders is particularly relevant to this debate when looking at the experiences of Maori workers. Access for Maori has been consistently lower than for other groups. Maori receive treatment at a lower level than non-Maori. When Maori do access services they access them later and they also exit programmes earlier. Against this backdrop it certainly seems unfair that under this bill Maori in high-risk occupations will pay higher levies. 
There is a clear hierarchy of accident rate by industry with energy and water forestry construction transport and storage and agriculture in the top five. Maori are overrepresented in all of these industries. High-risk occupations have significant numbers of Maori workers. The bill provides for a matching of risk environments and levy rates so the costs of cover can be expected to increase. This would have the most atrocious outcome on low-paid workers who have the least power to negotiate and of course many Maori are in that situation. 
Because Maori are a small population group and constitute a small group of claimants under a privatisation model they would not be considered a high-value market segment to provide a financial incentive for private insurers. The drive toward privatisation therefore is implied around the full funding of the residual claim liability fund and it not only increases the cost contributed by claimants but could be expected to impact negatively on Maori claimants through reducing access and lowering compensation. 
Finally I return to the submission from the National Council of Women which threw doubt upon the impact of the ACC investment fund suggesting that it is now fully recovered and the crisis is all but over. I quote directly from its submission: “It seems unfair and indeed ‘repugnant to justice’ to raise levies for some sectors to exorbitant levels and to reduce entitlements and rehabilitation avenues for a population still suffering the effects of the recession in order to achieve cost containment that is seemingly no longer necessary”. The Human Rights Commission adds further to this view noting that “tinkering with entitlements at the margins undermines the concept of a truly inclusive scheme.” On the basis of the submissions made during the select committee process and the independent advice sought and attained by the Maori Party we are unable to support this bill at its second reading. Kia ora.