Lees-Galloway Iain: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18558. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):The Accident Compensation Corporation is a Kiwi treasure. For 40 years now it has been providing no-fault no-liability compensation and treatment for people in New Zealand who are injured. We all pay into it and we all expect it to be there for us when we need it and for the most part it is. There is almost nothing like it elsewhere in the world. It is something that New Zealanders should be immensely proud of. But over the last 5 years under this National Government the faith of Kiwis in ACC has been sorely tested. We know that it has been overcharging people on their levies. We know that it has been finding spurious reasons to avoid paying out compensation to avoid providing treatment and that it has dramatically cut its investment across the board in preventing injuries.We know as well that people have lost their trust in ACC to keep their private details—their medical details—private and available only to the people who really ought to have them. And we know with recent developments that ACC has actually been collecting far too much information. For those people who actually turned round to ACC and said; “I’m sorry but the law does not allow you to collect this much information.” we know that under National they had their compensation cut. That is why people are losing faith in what ought to be an absolute national treasure.But the abuse of the ACC has reached new heights this year as this Government has struggled to prove to New Zealand that it has managed to get the books back into surplus. That was the big goal for the 2014-15 Budget. It was that the National Government would get the Government books back into surplus. My goodness it has stretched the truth in all manner of ways to try to convince New Zealanders of that but the biggest travesty is what it is doing in ACC.ACC came to the Government and said: “You know when you put the fees up when you first came into Government? You know when you racked everybody’s ACC levies up far higher than they needed to be? Well we’ve taken enough money. We’re more than fully funded.” In fact the work account has nearly 140 percent of the funding it needs not just to meet this year’s claims but all the future costs of those claims. It has not just the 100 percent that it needs to meet those claims but another 40 percent on top of that. The earners account is 130 percent funded—Dr David Clark: 130 percent?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —130 percent funded—and yet this Government continues to overcharge Kiwis on their ACC levies. Why? Because the levies that come in go towards the National Government’s supposed made-up phoney surplus. So New Zealanders are paying far too much on their ACC levies and $50 a year too much on their car registration just so that the National Government can pretend that it is doing a good job with the economy and that it has got the books back into surplus. Look getting the books back into surplus was a really positive goal for this Government to have had—we applaud that—but it should have done it through economic growth. It should have done it by getting Kiwis back into work so that it was taking more income tax—so that Kiwis could afford to spend money at the supermarket so they might pay more GST. That is how the Government should have got the income up not by charging people far more than it needed to on its ACC levies.And the Government is not doing it just this year; it is planning to do it next year as well. ACC has said that it can cut levies by $650 million and the corporation would still be sustainable. Is the Government going to do that? No way. No way is it going to cut $650 million from those ACC levies because it still needs that money so that it can pretend that it has got the books back into surplus.New Zealanders love ACC. They love the fact that it is there when they need it. They love the fact that it is more cost-effective than any other insurance scheme anywhere else in the world. They hated the fact that the National Government was going to try to privatise it. Thankfully it has given up on that idea. The National Government needs to give up on overcharging Kiwis on their ACC levies and start giving New Zealanders a fair deal.