Fenton Darien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I have news for that member: unions and the Labour Party sometimes disagree. We do not always agree on everything just as I hope that Business New Zealand and the National Party do not always agree on everything. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Business Roundtable. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Or the Business Roundtable—who knows? 
I will talk a little bit about Part 1 but I want to explore the issue of privatisation given that the member has raised it. I look forward to the responses of the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith to my comments. 
Part 1 contains some pretty miserable provisions—the so-called cost containments—despite the fact that just about all the Government departments advised the Minister and the select committee actually that these provisions would primarily affect low-income Maori Pasifika and other workers and the vulnerable and would shift costs to health and welfare and to the injured workers themselves. 
Part 1 creates the platform for returning to the past—or back to the future—and for the privatisation of the scheme. The Government says that the bill is about cost containment and saving our accident compensation scheme but we know that the changes in this bill are a prelude to privatisation which National has admitted it is working on; it is part of the deal with the ACT Party. National wants to reduce the accident compensation costs in order to make the scheme attractive to private insurers. 
Merrill Lynch (Australia) says that privatisation of the work account means $2 billion in revenue for Australian insurers with a profit of $200 million a year. New Zealanders will pay for that. New Zealanders are already paying more and getting less and that situation will only get worse. So Labour opposes this legislation and I will go into why. First of all I say that the scheme is not broke— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are dealing with Part 1. There is no clause anywhere in this bill that has provisions for competition or privatisation. The member says she will go into great detail about it but it is not one of the provisions in the bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Thank you. I ask the member to concentrate on Part 1. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No I have ruled. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I do want to recall what happened the last time National played with accident compensation. National has been in Government before and it created a nightmare for workers in the past. I see Part 1 as a repeat of that. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Going back—back. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is true. The language of the Government is about providing choice. We have heard from the Government in this debate that this bill is about providing choice for people. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: God forbid that we provide choice! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. The last time National had the reins of power it used exactly the same language but the only choice we are talking about here really is choice for employers—to choose between insurers competing for business. There was no choice for injured workers. So what happened? Well it was inevitable. We saw what happened the last time the National Government had a go at privatisation. Privatisation is on this Government’s agenda. It is not in the bill but the bill creates a platform through the arguments about funding and about cost containment for making the scheme much more attractive to private insurers. 
There are several things in this bill that we will talk about as we go through Part 1 and I am happy to address them. But I make the comment that others have expanded their comments way beyond Part 1 so I am a bit disappointed that I cannot do that. The provisions in Part 1 that Labour members will be addressing are things like the lack of focus on the importance of accident prevention. 
The fact that the Government is now proposing to change the bill’s name from the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill to the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill says that this is not about injury prevention; it is about accidents. We are getting something that is all about accidents. There is nothing in the bill about injury prevention. The previous Labour Government was very big on injury prevention but now we are seeing cuts to health and safety training and provisions—cuts here and cuts there—that are cutting back injury prevention. 
The other things we will talk more about in Part 1 are the changes to vocational independence. I am really looking forward to exploring why the Minister does not understand that 35 hours of paid work a week is not the same as 30 hours of paid work a week. It is 5 hours a week less. That is a problem for people— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That’s what they wanted. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well that is true but that is a real problem for people who are trying to get back into the workforce and who are trying to make ends meet. We will also talk about the cover for work-related gradual process injuries. That is also an issue as changes to the three-part test are blatantly unfair. We will also talk about holiday pay; I am looking forward to debating that.