Mackey Moana: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair. How impolite of the previous member David Bennett not to thank the Chair for giving him the call after the Speaker’s ruling that we had. 
I am very happy to talk to new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. In the debate on Parts 1 and 2 National members said that Labour members were scaremongering and that what we said we were afraid was going to happen would never happen. Well here is where the rubber hits the road. If National members truly believe that the changes they are making are benign in terms of the effects on some of our most vulnerable citizens then let us have a review after a year. 
I will speak about clause 60(2) in new Part 3 on which no member has yet spoken. It requires that at the end of a review period the “Minister for Accident Compensation must present a copy of any report provided under this section to the House of Representatives as soon as practicable after receiving it.” This is a very important part of new Part 3. It closes the loop of accountability that has so far been missing when we are talking about the Minister for ACC. 
Sometimes Government members have been very flippant and have made jokes about the kinds of things that Labour members and Green members have raised in this debate. They have been sniggering and they have been joking about us. But the fact is that the decisions we make in here no matter how lightly they are taken by the Government have huge repercussions out in the community. The Minister for ACC should be held responsible for any impact as a result of this legislation. The accountability for any repercussions should lie with the Government but first and foremost it should lie firmly with the Minister for ACC. 
What is so important about subclause (2) put up by the Labour member David Parker our spokesperson on accident compensation is that it firmly places accountability for those changes at the Minister’s door. If the Minister is prepared to make those changes if he is prepared to say to workers that just because they had not taken their holidays before they were unlucky enough to have an accident they lose them if he is prepared to say to people who have a significant hearing loss that they no longer qualify for a hearing aid because that is what is done in Australia—which actually is not true—if he is prepared to say that not a single New Zealander will be worse off despite the fact that New Zealanders will be paying more for accident compensation under his changes then he should have to come to this House with a report and publicly take ownership of those repercussions. I do not think that Nick Smith and the National Party will be prepared to do that. 
The ACT Party claims that it is a party about accountability. I hope the ACT Party will vote for a review clause and will be prepared to say that it is not scared of the changes it is voting for. The ACT Party vote will put this legislation through the House under urgency. I hope the ACT Party has the courage to stand in this Chamber and say that it is not scared of a review clause and what that review process will uncover about this Government’s changes. I sincerely hope the ACT Party will vote for this review clause. It will still be terrible legislation but at least taxpayers will know that the Government has to be held accountable for the changes it makes and the Government will be made aware of the impacts of the changes it is making. National members cannot blissfully go about their lives bouncing from cloud to cloud unaware of what happens to people on the ground who are being denied accident compensation as a result of this legislation. These changes are significant. 
Where are the great defenders of property rights now when workers are having their holidays taken off them? Those are pre-injury earnings. Workers have earned their holidays. They own them. It is not something that they get when they decide to take a holiday; it is something they get as they work. National which claims to be the great defender of property rights says that the holidays of those people should be taken off them—after they have earned them. If people are lucky enough to take their holidays before their accident they will be fine and will still get accident compensation. But if people have their accident before they take their holidays they will lose their holidays. They will not get accident compensation because they have their holiday pay. How is that fair? 
Those are the very issues that Labour and Green members and I hope ACT and Maori Party members will be supporting by voting for Part 3. If what I have claimed is not going to happen and if I am just scaremongering—and not a single National member has stood up to make me feel any better and tell me that I am wrong—then members opposite should vote for this part.