Davidson ReubenREUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill the Accident Compensation (Interest on Instalment Plans) Amendment Bill. I think with the current speed of some speeches it's probably good that we just—Hon Simon Watts: Don't read your speech.REUBEN DAVIDSON: Oh trust me my friend—trust me Mr Speaker. You can assure that member that I will not be reading my speech. That would be far too fast. As I was saying the current speed of some of the speeches concerns me. It makes me think that possibly at the speed that people are standing up they should be wearing a seat belt and at the speed that they're crashing back down into their seats they possibly need airbags because the speed is far too fast. To bring it back to ultimately what the role of ACC is—because of the speed those members are moving at they may well need their services.ACC—just to remind us—provides cover for everyone in New Zealand who is injured in an accident. I'm just reminding us because having some people not taking the time to speak on it makes me concerned that possibly that's not known. It's the safety net to get people back on their feet. Now I've had some personal experience with ACC. Thankfully it was only minor injuries back in my much fitter days when I made the mistake of running a half marathon and ended up spending the next six weeks in a moon boot whereas now thanks to my belt I just model the squeezed middle quite frequently. But as an employer I've also known that our ACC levies are crucial and important. Now there's a few things that I want to single out about what this bill does. One of the things that I really want to look at here is the retrospective validation factor because that's where we get into tricky ground. That's where we get into an area where it's crucial that we take the time to get this right because we're not just talking about a plan for the future; we're talking about going back over the past.On this side of the House we are very committed to making sure that we take the time to address this very thoroughly and look at the issues very specifically because in the regulatory impact statement—and this is where it's a concern that we're really skipping out the proper select committee process. There's two points I'd like to raise on page 8 in paragraph numbers 27 and 28. Paragraph 27 states that There is likely to be some negative reaction to the legislation as it will highlight that ACC's past and continuing practices may not be lawful. That said"—it goes on; I am reading now for that member who queried earlier—"we would expect businesses to be supportive of the principle that a levy payer's choice to use an instalment plan should not advantage or disadvantage them compared to other levy payers."Now that kind of concern being raised in a regulatory impact statement would suggest to me that there are multiple players and multiple layers who deserve the respect of the select committee process to put their cases forward and for that tidily summed up in one paragraph issue which really is the tip of the iceberg to get the attention the focus and the cross-party scrutiny of the select committee forum—not doing that seems to me like a very very rushed process and not like good process.So I really think—Hon Member: Tell us what you think.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —thank you for reminding me—that the opportunity here is to give this process the respect that it deserves and take the time that we need—Todd Stephenson: You've had 20 years.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —to do this properly. If we've had 20 years as that member piped up it's probably not a huge issue if we take 20 more minutes or 20 more days to get it exactly right rather than trying to rush it through in 20-second calls where the greatest risk is that the microphone isn't turned on by the time the member sits back down. Thank you Mr Speaker."