Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9162] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 As is clear by now the Labour Opposition strongly opposes this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill for very very good reasons as my colleagues have pointed out. 
I will talk principally about Supplementary Order Paper 111 which is an interesting number considering that Dr Nick Smith is in charge of an emergency-style recovery in terms of the way he handles legislation going through the House. Members will recall that this bill started out with Maori Party support. That fell away so the ACT Party was put in the ambulance of Nick Smith’s bill. Its members said that they would support the bill’s second reading provided only that all the privatisation measures come in at the Committee stage. Well here we are at the Committee stage and the bill goes much further than Labour wanted but nowhere near as far as the ACT Party wanted. I can only imagine that all of this was happening in the December period when there was a slight distraction in that particular caucus room. 
Labour members oppose this Supplementary Order Paper quite strongly and I will come to the reasons for that in just a moment. Firstly though I will spend just 1 or 2 minutes rebutting some of the points that have been made in the Committee tonight by the Minister in charge of the bill the Minister for ACC particularly his comments about the financial viability of the accident compensation scheme. People listening to the debate tonight can ignore vast tracts of it but they cannot ignore the fact that Nick Smith has played fast and loose with figures concerning the accident compensation scheme. He decided to declare the scheme near bankrupt. In what we were told by the Government was the worst recession in 80 years—though that did not turn out to be right—he looked at all the investments that the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) had made and said that a terrible amount of money had been lost and therefore the whole scheme was busted. It was the same logic that the Government used on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund; it said that all the money was draining out of it and that we would be borrowing to invest in a fund that was losing money. But as soon as the world economy recovered the two parts of the Government accounts that recovered the fastest were the accident compensation scheme and the Government superannuation scheme. 
One of the difficulties politically for Labour in Government was that the Accident Compensation Corporation used to perform so well in terms of its investments that we would get big headlines saying there was a $10 billion surplus in any 1 year as though that money was cash that was available to be spent in that year. In fact it was from the corporation’s investments. Government members have said tonight that the scheme is broke but they fail to focus on whether its investments have recovered since the period that Government members have spoken of. I think some of the attacks made by Nick Smith were more a reflection on him than a statement of the facts. 
I also want to refer to what Mr Peachey said. I see that he is in the Chamber. I thought he would be busy reading the Ministry of Education website for data and information just in case that call finally does come. I know that we have teased him but I think that the call from the Prime Minister must be hours away rather than days away in regard to a particular portfolio in which I know he has a certain interest. Mr Peachey got stuck into us about our supposed love affair with criminals—which I have never noticed before but there we are. The Labour Party makes it very clear in its minority report that we do not believe there should be any compensation for people like Graeme Burton under the accident compensation scheme. We support the provisions in Part 1 that enable disentitlement of people like him. All that we are asking is whether somebody who is incarcerated for 1 week should lose all of his or her accident compensation entitlements when a judge in a court of law has decided based on all of the facts and none of the politics that the crime was not worthy of the maximum 2-year penalty that that person could have been sentenced to. I must say that I watched the weekend news and it is with a shudder that I see Graeme Burton with all the evil crimes that he has committed walking along on an artificial leg to stab somebody with that artificial leg having been paid for by the taxpayer. None of us would support any support at all being given to somebody like that. Thankfully in our country people like Graeme Burton are an extraordinary exception. Thousands of people pass through the criminal justice system every year. We should be tough on the worst offenders but for those who have been sentenced to only 1 week I think it is hard to argue this particular course of action. 
I want to comment on new clause 22 on Supplementary Order Paper 111. It is about the rate of levies. There is particular reference in the amendment to the fate of motorcyclists. Nick Smith talked about the number of motorcyclists who have turned up at Parliament and last year there were thousands and thousands of them. They were all pretty decent hard-working Kiwis who were desperately concerned about the way that they were being treated. The Committee has not had a chance to consider their circumstances. For example if we consider the vast increase in the number of motorcyclists on our roads in the last few years we find that the actual rate of motorcycle accidents has been going down. One would not think that from the comments made by the Minister because he took the raw number of motorcycle accidents. It is like saying that compared with the road toll in the 1960s there are many more accidents now so things must be much much worse now—without taking into account the increased number of cars on the road at this time. 
As we know one of the great things from humanity’s point of view but one of the more challenging things from the point of view of ACC is that many more people survive accidents now than used to be the case. That is a wonderful wonderful thing but it makes for a challenge from an accident compensation perspective because very intensive and expensive care is required. None of us would complain about that at all. In fact we welcome it. We think it is a great thing that Kiwis now survive accidents that they previously did not survive but there is no question that that has an impact on the ability to run a no-fault scheme. 
Where the rubber hits the road in a literal sense for motorcyclists is that they have been demonised by the Government in its advancement of Part 1 in this debate. In fact the new clause 22 refers to the motorcycle safety levy which the Government wants to set up. I want to know from the Minister in the chair Pansy Wong who from an Opposition perspective is one of the most excellent Ministers at answering questions in the House whether—[ 
Interruption 
] She puts the Attorney-General to shame in that respect! I want to know from Mrs Wong if she would deign to address us how much of the levy will be spent on motorcycle safety given that only $130000 is being spent on it right now. How much does she believe will be raised from the motorcycle safety levy and where does she think that money will be deployed? I think that is quite important given how little of the debate tonight has been on the plight of motorcyclists. That is what a large amount of the public concern has been about. I ask the Associate Minister Pansy Wong to tear herself away from her no doubt crucial briefing papers on whatever matter it might be in order to tell us whether there will be a massive increase in the amount of money spent by the corporation on motorcycle safety. The levy is referred to in new clause 22 but we are none the wiser about how much of it will be spent on that particular topic. 
I would also like the Associate Minister to answer for us why the levies on motorcyclists have increased so markedly when the scheme has a no-fault principle. I do not think that has been sufficiently explained. We talk the language of it being a no-fault scheme yet that does not seem to be the case in relation to motorcyclists who enjoy New Zealand roads and enjoy being outside and who in my opinion are often among the safest people on the roads. Normally motorcyclists are not at fault in respect of crashes and accidents that they are involved in. I think that speaks volumes for their commitment to road safety yet the levies do not reflect that. Maybe Pansy Wong would be able to tell us about that. 
I wonder whether she could also tell us whether new clause 22 takes into account that some bikes that have bigger engines are older bikes and therefore are not capable of the kinds of speeds that some of the smaller engines are now capable of. Why is there a disparity in the way that those levies are charged? I think there are some equity issues there for motorcyclists. 
The other point that I think has been overlooked by the Government in this respect—and new clause 22 goes some way to deal with it but not as far as we would like—is that some motorcyclists own many bikes but are not riding all of them on the road at the one time. There is no real way for the Government to take account of that. I can see by the Associate Minister’s intense interest in the questions I am posing to her that either this matter was the topic of her PhD at university or I am not making my points clearly and succinctly enough to elicit an answer. But knowing her respect for the parliamentary process and the deft and elegant way in which she answers members’ questions I am sure a detailed answer is being prepared by her at the present time. 
Those are the issues for Labour members around motorcyclists. We believe that an injustice takes place in Part 1 that has not been addressed by the Government despite the very constructive way in which the motorcyclist community around New Zealand has put its arguments. Phil Goff has done very well in trying to put those arguments. He has been meeting with motorcyclists and trying to articulate their concerns in Parliament but so far there has been no joy from the Government. I hope Pansy Wong will answer those questions. I know that she is interested in them.