Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I too rise to speak on this Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its first reading.As my colleagues have said the National Party is supporting this bill. We are supporting it to select committee at this stage because there are some aspects of it that do need further investigation and I note that while the regulatory impact statement has done a very broad costing quite a rudimentary costing of around $25 million it is not a robust investigation as to the ongoing cost of this. So I anticipate that the select committee will be a lot more thorough in that because we need to know how many more claims this policy change is likely to generate. We don't know if it's 100; we don't know if it's 10000. So we will support the bill at first reading to the select committee. The bill makes changes. There's five additional policy changes in this bill seven regulatory and technical changes. But what clause 6 of this bill does is it amends the definition—so I went to have a look at the existing Accident Compensation Act of 2001 and it talks in there about the purpose of that Act which is to enhance the public good and reinforce the social contract represented by the first accident compensation scheme by providing for a fair and sustainable scheme for managing personal injury that has as its overriding goals minimising both the overall incidence of injury in the community and the impact of injury on the community (including economic social and personal costs)". It proposed to do that through a number of different measures. Number one of those was "establishing as a primary function of the Corporation"—the Accident Compensation Corporation—"the promotion of measures to reduce the incidence and severity of personal injury". We all see that through the prevention programmes that are rolled out by ACC and some of the advertising programmes as well. A second was to provide "for a framework for the collection coordination and analysis of injury-related information". That of course is the data collection which we have heard mentioned a few times tonight and the need for that data to be absolutely secure. Next was "ensuring that where injuries occur the Corporation's primary focus should be on rehabilitation with the goal of achieving an appropriate quality of life through the provision of entitlements that restores to the maximum practicable extent a claimant's health independence and participation". So in those instances we are talking about the recovery from an accident. And in the next item "ensuring that during their rehabilitation claimants receive fair compensation for loss from injury including fair determination of weekly compensation and where appropriate lump sums for permanent impairment". Of course that is speaking to the support that is offered to those people who have legitimate ACC claims. The last item is to ensure "positive claimant interactions with the Corporation through the development and operation of a Code of ACC Claimants' Rights." And that speaks to the relationship between claimants and the ACC Corporation. The Accident Compensation Act of 2001 also goes on to define what is not considered an accident in section 25 in Part 2 of the Act and it states that an accident does not include "(a) any of those kinds of occurrences if the occurrence is treatment given (i) in New Zealand by or at the direction of a … registered health professional". I guess this is where we are with this bill that we are now debating that these are the types of injuries that are now going to be recognised as an accident in terms of the definition of the ACC Act.One of the items that I have a particular interest in is in Part 3 clause 8. It talks to the injuries that are work-related gradual process disease or infection described in section 30. In reading that I had to wonder whether it will mean that our firefighters who are exposed to a range of toxic fumes in the process of fighting fires will be covered under this clause. There was nothing that led me to believe that it would because it's not specified in the bill. But I do hope that during the select committee process that will be identified as a legitimate clause and a claim that is able to be made by firefighters who are exposed over a lengthy period of time to toxic fumes.This was brought to mind when I visited with a number of other members from across the House the Rotorua training facility for our firefighters. I was most impressed by the standard of training that they enjoy out there but also the standard of the facility that they get to train in. But at the end of the day we were invited back into the building their smoko room and we were discussing this very issue around the long-term impacts of being exposed to the toxic fumes within a burning building.It wasn't something that I had turned my mind to at all but of course when a firefighter goes into a building of any sort they have no idea about what the content of that building contains what the furniture is made of or if it's an industrial building what might be inside that building—and so the toxins within that of course can differ. So they may not always be fully prepared for what they are exposed to. So this was something that the Firefighters Union and Fire and Emergency New Zealand were very keen to see progressed—that those workers the firefighters that risk their lives going into burning buildings to save people and property are fully compensated at the end of their work life if they do have these specific problems mainly lung diseases and high rates of cancer that are currently not recognised.I do note that in the national health policy that was released a year or two back that we actually did include the injuries and the illnesses for firefighters that were exposed to these toxic fumes. So I do hope that the select committee identifies that as part of the consideration of this bill.There's a lot being said about the birth injuries—and I do have to wonder why it's called maternal birthing; I don't know that we have paternal birthing anywhere that I'm aware of maybe seahorses. But this of course is for women who suffer from these physical injuries during childbirth and I have to say in looking through some of the data it did make my eyes water and it brought back a flashback for me as well. Some of these injuries are debilitating it's time we recognised them for women and gave them the support post-birth that they deserve and I have great pleasure in commending it to the House."