Gosche Mark: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Gosche Mark: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:6006] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is interesting to follow that member over there who obviously had to read from either his research unit notes or the notes of whoever writes the National Party speeches on accident compensation. It is probably the exact same people who supported National’s election campaign with the expectation that they would be sitting back up there in that gallery as they were when National privatised accident compensation in 1998. 
Darren Hughes 
: They were morticians. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: They were like a couple of morticians from HIH and they were morticians all right—they oversaw the death of a major amount of money in Australia that the poor old taxpayers workers and businesses of Australia had to fork out because of the failed privatisation model that the previous National Government tried to impose upon New Zealand and that this Government quite rightfully chucked out. This type of small legislation that we have signalled clearly to people just makes sense. That is something one could never accuse the National Party spokesperson on accident compensation of. As the third-party people who have designed National’s policy say it is a pity Dr Hutchison despite the best work of designing the National Party’s policy for them prior to the election is not bright enough to know what accident compensation is about. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That is what they are saying about him. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That is what they say about him—the people who are funding the National Party’s election campaigns in the expectation that they will get privatised accident compensation back— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Have we got it in writing? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Oh yes we have it in writing that he is a major disappointment to the industry that backs the National Party. But the industry will keep on forking the money over to the National Party because it knows there are huge profits if it gets National back in again to privatise accident compensation as it did last time. It was a disaster. One has only to look across the Tasman and check the levy rates. Of course the research unit of the National Party did not bother to do that. It tried to find some figures in the annual report but poor old Dr Hutchison did not bother to check their work to find out that the figures he was quoting were wrong because he was not talking about the accident rates in terms of the percentage against the size of the workforce—which by the way under this Government continues to grow and grow every year. As we get unemployment down to the lowest in the world obviously we get a growth in the workforce and if there is a growth in accident rates the correct figure to look at is the percentage against that workforce growth. 
Poor old Dr Hutchison did not get his research unit to point that out to him in the annual report. However when he comes to the select committee that will deal with this bill—a very good hard-working and sensible select committee—we will give him a bit of education. There are actually some good National Party members on that committee who actually do some work from time to time and they will help to educate him. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Who? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Like Bob Clarkson one of the great intellects of the National Party. He is on that committee with us. He will teach Dr Hutchison about this because Bob knows all about hard work. He does not like the work he does here; he much prefers to go home and get on the digger every weekend—he said that that is real work instead of coming down here and having to mix with the people over there. They have no intellectual grunt when it comes to understanding things like this. 
Anne Tolley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I have waited now for some 5 minutes for the speaker to actually address the bill. I ask you to bring him back to the bill before the House. 
Darren Hughes 
: First of all it is impossible for Mark Gosche to have been doing that for 5 minutes because he did not start his speech until 3 minutes ago but secondly a fair amount of time is allowed for rebuttal on a first reading speech and I do not think he has done anything outside some of the outrageous claims made by the previous speaker; he is within his rights to spend part of his 10-minute call answering that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member was addressing the bill generally and as he said the previous speaker raised a lot of general issues within the bill that the speaker was addressing. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I was just about to ask National members whether their next speaker could explain why a plumber who is operating as a self-employed plumber should pay a different rate of accident compensation from somebody operating as say a sole trader who has set up a company doing exactly the same work with the same risk. National members say they are opposed to the measure. Why do they not go out there and tell small businesses why they are opposed to it? They should tell them why one plumber doing exactly the same job as another plumber but whose business structure is X should pay a different rate from a plumber whose business structure is Y. That is why that National Party is no longer seen as the party for business. It is because it has lost it. National members oppose simple sensible measures such as this just for the sake of it. 
It is just not good enough. One does not oppose things just for the sake of it. They should explain to two plumbers one of whom is operating under a company structure and one of whom is self-employed both with the same risk why their levies should be so different. We are waiting for National’s intellectual grunt to answer that one. We will be waiting for a long time because National members come to the House only to oppose and to dish up policy that somebody else has made up for them—like the privatisation of accident compensation that Dr Wayne Mapp will talk about next. He will talk about the fact that he wants to put up the levies for all New Zealand workers in businesses by privatising by getting the vultures from HIH who were in the gallery like a couple of morticians overseeing the death of accident compensation but I am pleased to say that accident compensation is back as a State-provided wonderful system with low levies and HIH is dead.