Mitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to join in the chorus of sound in opposition to this current legislation. Mr Scott being on the select committee with me would have read our minority view.To be clear I would like to take just a moment to read that out for the people back home who do not have that there. [Interruption] I know—it is very good. Here we go: “New Zealand First does not support this bill. Clearly there are benefits to businesses and individuals with the reduction of ACC levies. However this Government should acknowledge that the reason that levies are so high in the first place is due to this Government’s unwillingness to rectify a higher than required levy problem which they knew existed but instead increased those levies higher and further to offset the books. Moreover nowhere in the bill is there a clear reference to levy reductions. New Zealand First supports open and transparent government at all times and not just when the Government thinks that it is necessary. We support the setting of a funding policy that improves the transparency of the levy-setting process which would ensure the public is better informed.”Mr Scott you talked about Labour looking back all the time but the only thing that I was looking forward to was the end of your speech. But to be brutally honest sometimes in order to move forward you have to look back and what you have to do when you look back at those mistakes that this Government has made is apologise to the people of New Zealand for the muddying of the waters and the deceit that has been created under the current organisation of the running of the ACC.There is not a New Zealander there is not a person who enters this country who does not think that our ACC organisation is absolutely stellar. It is a sterling organisation because of course it looks after those people who have accidents in workplaces on the sports field and in their homes. It gets them rehabilitated mended up and back out there into the real world. But how we are funding it is absolutely a disgrace. Many businesses around the country have been gouged have been sent absolutely unacceptable charges—and using ACC as the way to fund it—it is just unacceptable. When I have got my ACC levies put in front of me there is no breakdown of where this money is going. There is no breakdown letting businesses know what they are actually paying for and where it is actually going to. In actual fact if you get anybody to do work in your business you would expect a full breakdown of the mileage that they have travelled the equipment that they have used and the hourly rate that they are charging out. ACC does not give you that breakdown because of course where this money has been going to is to try and balance out the books to try and get this Government into some sort of surplus.When we look at this the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill—goodness me that does sound good. I mean those words in themselves sound good: “financial responsibility” and “transparency”. Yet this Government has to put a bill together to actually be financially responsible and transparent. It is beyond me why we have even got this bill sitting here in front of us. It is an absolute nonsense. This Government should have always been open and transparent with the public with New Zealanders. This Government should have always been responsible with the money that it has collected and made sure that it has gone for the purposes of New Zealand.New Zealand First is very concerned that given a legislative stop date of 2019 for these residual levies being paid by current rates of collection the Government will have over-collected $852 million from the work account $155 million from the earners account and $468 million from the motor vehicle account. What a disgrace. By 2019 that is $1.475 billion that New Zealanders are going to be forking out under this current legislation. It is $350 million a year that has been overcharged to New Zealanders and with no apology no looking behind themselves and saying: “Look we might have done a little bit of a disservice to the businesses of New Zealand. We apologise to all those people who have overpaid. We would like to give you some of that money back.” But no it has gone out into your whimsical direction trying to somehow wastefully spend money on foreign Saudi Arabian farm deals flag referendums and everything else that they can waste New Zealanders’ money on.It is not good enough Mr Bayly and Mr Scott. You should be ashamed of yourselves and if I was your mother I would be looking for a disownment. At the end of the day the Minister for ACC Nikki Kaye has come out and said in a statement here that this will actually reduce levies by around about $500 million. That is commendable—if I could just find my piece of paper with her comments on it; here it is—do not panic I have found it. Here it is. I knew it was here. She said: “Budget 2015 will signal ACC is on track to provide further levy cuts to around $375 million in 2016/17 and a further $120 million in 2017/18”. It is not coming fast enough. You have been over-collecting for such a long time that this should be an immediate saving. Nowhere in this bill—nowhere—does it say that those savings are going to be coming forward immediately.New Zealand First does have some serious concerns about the use of the term “Order in Council”. There are some serious issues with Order in Council. Just for the House’s information in current legislation in New Zealand there are 798 references—in current legislation—referring to an Order in Council. For those people back home and those people who do not fully understand what an Order in Council means it basically means that Cabinet gets to decide what happens and when and how. Look it happens all the time. Orders in Council are absolutely rife in this current Government. It is interesting to note that the United Nations Convention Against Corruption came out and said that a place that corruption thrives is—hear this—in lack of transparency of decision making; for example large numbers of decisions being made by Order in Council.So the United Nations is concerned about it and yet you just fob it off. You throw it into your legislation by Order in Council so that the rank and file New Zealanders are not part of the decision-making process and that is a shame on this Government. You are talking about being open and transparent you are talking about being fiscally responsible but you are not doing it by putting in an Order in Council. I will settle myself.We are also concerned in relation to the proposed levy-setting framework which was put out in the explanatory notes or just came through with one of the briefing notes. It goes through a series of steps of how the ACC levies are going to be set. I would just like to step the people through this if I could. So it starts off with: “Government sets a funding policy target – horizon and transitions.” It goes on to say: “ACC calculates the levies based on Government funding policy.” It moves to the next step: “Public and stakeholders consultation.” It is where the public can get involved and have its say about what is going on. To date it is ticking all my boxes; it is giving me the two thumbs up. It moves on to: “ACC board recommends levy rates.” The next box says: “Minister for ACC also receives levy advice from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Treasury incorporating concentration of public interest.” The final step we go into is: “Cabinet sets new ACC levies considering recommendations from ACC the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and Treasury.” But when we get to the very last part it says “Cabinet may”—let me quote that—“may follow ACC’s recommendations.” but more than likely probably it will not. Moving down it says: “Cabinet may choose to set alternative rates having regard to broader public interests.”This Order in Council when we have got the Cabinet making final decisions on things is exactly what has got us into this situation where we are discussing this bill in the first place. It is unnecessary. We have to go back and look at the past of this country to know where we are heading in the future. An apology and some repayments back to those people who have been overcharged those levies would go a long way in our book to resolve this.To finish off I just want to bring your attention to the situation that we find ourselves in under the “ACC transparency”—and whatever the nonsense that they talk about is. With regard to what is happening around high-risk cars we know that it is a real issue. We have heard it time and time again and I can give you an example of a very very dear friend of mine who has two cars. He has a very high-powered 4.2 litre super-charged V8 and he has got a nice around-the-town car for a little bit of the shopping which is a 1.3 litre Hyundai Getz. And yet the around-the-town car is being charged the exorbitant rate of $138 for its registration fees for ACC whereas the big 4.2 super-charged V8 is at $68. I dare say that this big piece of legislation here in itself—and with no recourse for changing that—is actually a taxation on those people who are buying affordable small cars and it is a tax on the poor which this Government constantly does. Thank you.