Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13944] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Forty years ago Sir Owen Woodhouse’s report led to the establishment of a comprehensive 24-hour no-fault social insurance scheme. The two most defining features of it are firstly 24-hour cover for all personal injuries regardless of fault and secondly no right to sue for damages for such injuries. The accident compensation scheme has stood the test of time because its principles are clear consistent and concise. The report also outlined the importance of prevention compensation and rehabilitation. National supports those principles and that framework.  
As I say the important features of the accident compensation scheme such as conciseness clarity and consistency are now coming under increasing threat because the Labour Government is helping to make it complicated compromising and unsustainable. Let me demonstrate this by highlighting four provisions in this bill. Currently the Act covers mental injury in only two situations: mental injury suffered because of the claimant’s physical injuries and mental injury suffered as a result of certain types of sexual abuse or assault. This bill will introduce a new cover for mental injury arising from a traumatic event in the workplace. Examples given include witnessing a colleague shot in a bank robbery. The annual cost of the claim we understand could amount to up to $72.2 million and it could lead to a potential increase in levies of between 1.3c and 12.1c of liable earnings per every $100. The cost will be funded solely from the work account and the work account levy is from employers and the self-employed.  
But how about witnessing a colleague being shot in a bank robbery while on leave—outside the staff’s working hours? Would that be less dramatic? If not why is the Government not proposing to cover that situation? The levy would have come from the earners account; the earners levy of course is imposed on the worker.  
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Where’s the consistency? 
PANSY WONG 
: That is a good question from my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison. But what about customers who happen to be in the bank and witness the shooting of a bank clerk or feel the risk of being shot at especially if they are children or elderly people? To cover that situation the levy would have to come from general tax assuming those people were not working. So once again we want to know why traumatic mental coverage in this case is confined to only working hours in the employment situation because one of the features of the Woodhouse report was not to distinguish between workers and non-workers. Therefore different funding streams are identified to cover the various situations but the principle of personal injury or coverage should be the same. No matter whether a person is working or not working—a different funding stream—the cover should be consistent. In this case the Government chooses to cover a situation simply because the funding tends to come from employers. We want to know why other situations are not being covered.  
In the typical Labour way of doing things it went ahead raised expectations and then introduced ambiguous terms so that individuals would have to prove the injury suffered. In this case “The event must be seen heard or experienced by the person directly … and be one which could reasonably be expected to cause mental injury.” One can just envisage the arguments and the views of experts involved. The process will drag on and on and Parliament I have no doubt will be asked to introduce future amendments to simplify the provision.  
We have a case in point because in this bill we are now asked to change the criteria to cover the work-related gradual process disease or infection. No sooner had Parliament passed that gradual process coverage into law than we are now being asked to amend the legislation to make it work because not many people can qualify. I bet in the first instance that provision was brought in without detailed analysis and objective principles. The change now is to shift the responsibility and cost for investigation on to ACC and if a person has exposure to the cause of injury both through work and non-work the person will receive cover if the work exposure was the more likely cause—and who is going to decide that? Also if the person qualifies a claim can be declined only if ACC proves that the work task or work environment places the claimant at no significantly greater risk of developing that personal injury. The estimated additional cost is $11 million and the levy once again happens to come from the work account. I am not too sure these changes will actually make the provisions any simpler. All I can envisage is a lot more work for experts in the field to prove the claims.  
Another devious change is brought about in this bill to undermine Parliament’s power to scrutinise the widening of the scope of schedule 2. At the moment schedule 2 is where individual occupational diseases can be added by Order in Council. But this course is introduced to change occupational disease to personal injuries defined by exposure to agents chemicals dusts compounds etc. or by occupational groupings industry or processes. This gives wide power to broaden the scope of claims without the scrutiny of Parliament.  
It is devious and underhand because if we look at the bill in a clause by clause analysis all it states is that clause 30 will repeal section 336(1)(a) of the principal Act and substitute a new section 336(1)(a) which relates to new section 30(3). That is not exactly alerting Parliament and everybody else to that dramatic widening of the coverage of the claim. This broad brush under-the-radar approach subsequently does away with any cost-benefit analysis. We do not even know how much it is going to cost.  
The fourth provision that I want to comment on is the repeal of the entitlement for wilfully self-inflicted injury. At the moment the Act prohibits ACC from providing entitlements other than treatment for wilfully self-inflicted personal injury and suicide unless that personal injury or death is a result of mental injury. The reason for this change we were told is because apparently the research indicates that the vast majority of suicidal behaviour and wilfully self-inflicted injury is associated with having a mental health disorder. Having further proof of mental injury adds little value to the determination of cover.  
But the Act intended to cover mental injury in only two situations: that suffered because of a claimant’s physical injury and that suffered as a result of certain types of sexual abuse and assault. Now mental health disorder is classified as personal injury and we do not even know how much that will cost. The inconsistency the widening of the coverage without objective analysis and the total disregard of the fundamental principle of accident compensation is irresponsible and unacceptable. We are told in the bill that we could be looking at a cost increase of up to $75 million. ACC is already recommending increases for next year’s levy and no doubt this will ensure escalating costs. Expectation has been raised on the one hand yet the subjective nature of these new claims will ensure ongoing appeals and arguments between ACC and claimants.  
National will not support this bill because it will further undermine and endanger the long-term viability and defining feature of accident compensation as outlined in the Woodhouse report 40 years ago. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The National Party would want the accident compensation scheme to continue with its defining feature: its comprehensive 24-hour claims in exchange for not suing for damages. The last thing we want is any Act to undermine those defining features.