Tolley Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Tolley Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:642;Page:12000] 
9.  
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: Does she stand by her statement yesterday that she agrees with “the principle that accredited employers should continue to have the right to determine themselves whether an injury is work-related or non - work-related and to revoke that decision if after reconsidering the facts they change their view.”; if so why? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 Yes. The agreement that accredited employers have with the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) gives accredited employers the same powers as ACC to make the decision to provide cover for a work-related injury and to alter their decision when the original decision was incorrect. 
Anne Tolley 
: How can the Minister reconcile that with her statements yesterday when the correspondence I tabled in the House from ACC to AFFCO dated 15 October 2004 9 June 2006 and 4 April 2007 shows that AFFCO has consistently argued for 4 years that this gang shooting was clearly not a work-related accident and that it did not accept that a couple of guys who sneaked out of the workplace during a break to smoke a joint should be said to be having a break for a meal a rest or refreshment? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: On 22 April 2003 the case manager employed by the third-party provider contracted to AFFCO wrote to Mr Storey saying: “Your employer AFFCO is an accredited employer … We have considered your application for cover under the Act. We are pleased to advise you that the injury you sustained on 8 April 03 has been accepted for cover under section 20 of the Act which addresses personal injury and your employer acknowledges your injury to be work-related.” The fact that later when the costs became very obvious to the employer the employer decided to relitigate the situation does not meet the threshold of new information of facts and of the basis of an incorrect decision. But even if it had done so AFFCO should have revoked its decision. It has never done so. 
Anne Tolley 
: Can we take it then that the Minister is basing all her responses on the letter from AFFCO to the worker just 2 weeks after the shooting before the full details were known and when two separate and different claim forms had been lodged; but is it not true that when AFFCO discovered that the Occupational Safety and Health Service had not investigated—because it was seen as a police matter not a work accident—and the full facts of the gang shooting became clear AFFCO notified ACC that the accident was not work-related and therefore it was ACC’s responsibility and not AFFCO’s? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No that is not the case actually. Under section 65 of the legislation as I explained to the member and the House yesterday AFFCO should have revoked its decision to provide cover which it had granted on 22 April 2003; otherwise the decision stands. The revocation is the trigger for the claim to then be lodged with ACC for its consideration. But the Accredited Employers Programme does not give AFFCO or any other accredited employer the right to say: “This is looking very expensive. We think the taxpayer of New Zealand should carry the liability despite the fact that under the law we accepted cover and haven’t revoked it.” That is not how the scheme should work. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Since when are gang shootings in public workplace-related? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I know that that is the way it would work under a private insurance regime which that member proposes but it should not work that way under New Zealand law. 
Darien Fenton 
: What does an accredited employer agreement involve? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: An accredited employer arrangement involves employers who meet certain good health and safety criteria being able to manage their own work-related injuries. In exchange for employers taking on that responsibility they receive significant discounts on their levies. Accredited employers that have an employee who sustains a significant and costly injury should not be able to go back on their agreement simply because they feel that it would cost them too much. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s not an accident; it’s a gang shoot-out. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Frankly it is irrelevant whether he injured his toe or whether it was a gang-related shooting. The legislation for years has been consistent in the definition of a workplace injury. It relates to the time and the place rather than to how the injury was incurred. 
Anne Tolley 
: How can the Minister stand by her statement yesterday that AFFCO “made the decision. It was handed over to ACC a year later because it was a complex case.” when the facts are that AFFCO consistently argued that ACC had taken over the management of the file itself in order to prevent AFFCO from issuing Mr Storey with a notice that the accident was not a workplace accident? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Because that is not a fact. There was nothing at all prohibiting AFFCO or stopping AFFCO between 2003 and its reconsideration—there was nothing at all standing in its way—from invoking section 65 of the Act which is very clear. AFFCO just revokes its decision. 
Anne Tolley 
: How can the Minister stand by her statement yesterday that “the worker concerned was inside a security fence” when the fact—as seen on TV last night—is that the car-park was outside the secured plant area and open to general use by staff and the public? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: There is a process for resolving disputes with an accredited employer who wants the taxpayer to pick up what is lawfully its obligation. Given that that accredited employer has already breached its confidentiality agreement I am surprised that the member persists along these lines. There is a process to revoke a cover decision; AFFCO has not taken it up. There is a process for resolving disputes— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: It is very difficult to hear the answer! 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: —and AFFCO should comply with it. The puzzling question is why when the law—which was unchanged throughout the entire 1990s and prior to that—determines the boundaries between a workplace injury and a non-workplace injury the member is proposing that the taxpayers of New Zealand pick up AFFCO’s liability? 
Anne Tolley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That was a very long answer but at no stage during that answer did the Minister address the question I had asked which was about the security fence—why the Minister had said the worker was inside the security fence when in fact as shown clearly on television the worker was outside the security fence. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Could the Minister please address that part of the question. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: With respect I did so at the very beginning of my answer and then I elaborated on that process. I explained to the member that when facts are in dispute when people have different views and different perspectives there is a process for resolution of those facts. 
Anne Tolley 
: How can the Minister stand by her statement to the House yesterday that she did not intervene because it was 2 days before “ACC thought a settlement might be reached” when the correspondence tabled yesterday from ACC to AFFCO makes it very clear that ACC was not budging one iota from deeming this vicious gang-shooting a work-related accident; does the Minister now accept that she got the whole story wrong? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Absolutely not. I know from the correspondence— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I ignored the previous outburst of the member interjecting because he has started this House down various tracks in the past but I am not going to ignore the repetition of that kind of comment from that member. He is the last person in this House to start those kinds of accusations in this House. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Members on this side of the House regularly have to enjoy the replay on TV of Mr Goff saying: “Tell the truth Mr Key.” “Tell the truth Mr Key.” “Tell the truth Mr Key.” Far from changes to what is acceptable parliamentary comment in this House having come from the National Party they have come from the Labour Party. Despite the repeated playing of that particular comment from Mr Goff on television stations there has been no consequence for him. Therefore the assumption is that such a comment is perfectly acceptable. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Of course if the member had wished to raise an objection to those comments at the time he should have done. He did not do so. It is perhaps a matter of some significance that he and his colleagues remained silent at that point. I have raised a point of order immediately upon Dr Smith saying “Tell the truth for a change!”. Madam Speaker I suggest to you that even if the first occurrence was not sufficient the second added to it. That member of all people in this House should not start getting into those kinds of exchanges. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have listened carefully to the arguments and I think there is merit in both points of view that have been put on the phrase “Tell the truth!”. Obviously it is a phrase that creates disorder in this House so from now on it will be considered an unparliamentary term whoever uses that comment. I am warning members that it is an unparliamentary term—questioning who tells the truth—to be thrown across the Chamber by anyone. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: When I received representation via a third party to intervene in the situation that the member raised yesterday I sought information from ACC— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Order! It is very hard to hear the answer. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: —about the process of decision making and as part of the information I received back I was told that 2 days later was the deadline for the final response from AFFCO to a proposed settlement. I did not think it was appropriate first of all that I intervene in a process that was clearly set out in legislation and was being complied with. Secondly I did not think it was appropriate that a Minister in Government be used as a lever to up the amount of money that AFFCO might get off the taxpayer. That member clearly disagrees with that.