Fenton Darien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Fenton Darien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9064] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I was privileged to be on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and listen to the submitters. The submitters came forward during the summer holidays because the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill was pushed through at such a pace. I start by thanking the submitters. The majority of submitters opposed this bill. They came to represent the people who work in the industries that they are covered by or they were the professionals who end up having to deal with a claimant after an injury. I thank them. 
This bill got off to a very bad start. I remember the Minister for ACC Nick Smith running around at the last minute because he did not have the numbers and I think the whole thing has continued that way. The Maori Party agreed to support it through to select committee which gave National the numbers. Then of course ACT came to the party agreeing to support the bill through all stages but it has a deal to open up the work account to competition—or in other words to privatisation. Maori Party members said that they wanted to hear what submitters said and I am pleased that they have examined the submissions. I was a bit unhappy and a bit sad that they could not make it to hear the submitters. I know they are a small party so I am not being critical but I think that listening to what the people said was very very powerful. I congratulate those members on listening unlike the Government. 
Coming back to this bill it was introduced not only in a very haphazard way but also in a climate of fear about the future of the accident compensation scheme. We have heard from members opposite who continue to perpetuate the myth that the scheme is broke it is in trouble and they are somehow saving it. That situation is being deliberately manufactured by the Minister for ACC and the Government and they are doing that to lay the basis for slashing entitlements and privatising the profitable parts of the scheme. It worries me that this is coming at a time when the number of workplace accidents and deaths are increasing when injury prevention is not even mentioned in this bill and seems to be off the agenda when we have cuts to health and safety training for workplace representatives and when we have a general close-down on any independent advice or involvement from anyone outside the Government’s club. The preparation of the bill was rushed as was the select committee process. The submitters gave up their time during summer to come along and have their say. 
The consultation has been very clearly exposed as being inadequate. Te Puni Kokiri warned that the impact of the proposed changes would have a disproportionate effect on Maori. The gender implications and disability perspective in the Cabinet paper is just laughable—absolutely laughable. There is one sentence for each one. Even Treasury warned that the regulatory impact statement was inadequate and incomplete in a number of areas such as cost shifting to other Government departments. That has not been quantified. We repeatedly raised questions about cost shifting. There is a lack of information on the nature and extent of the changes to enable experience rating and risk sharing in the work account and Department of Labour officials admitted to the select committee that the work had not begun on this. Treasury also said that although risks are identified there is little explanation of the likelihood or severity of the risks and no risk mitigation strategies. Of course they also criticised the consultation requirements. They said that they had not been met and where there had been consultation the concerns raised had not been addressed. 
Other organisations such as businesses and unions were not consulted and there was no consultation with professional organisations such as audiologists on key questions like removing cover for hearing loss of less than 6 percent. The concerns of the Ministry of Health about cost shifting from the Accident Compensation Corporation to the Ministry of Health were ignored as well. There was no assessment and no answers were forthcoming about those matters even though the Ministry of Health said that decisions on the bill should be deferred until some answers could be given. As I said there was inadequate consultation an inadequate regulatory impact statement and a lot of criticism in the Cabinet papers from key ministries and Treasury. However having sat through the submissions—and I thought that they were excellent submissions—I am disappointed that the bill has only minor changes. The Government has not listened to what the submitters said when submitter after submitter came along and expressed concerns. 
I will speak to a couple of issues in particular. The first is the proposal to reduce the weekly compensation for seasonal and part-time workers. The Minister claims that this is to stop abuse of the current rules. He thinks that somehow these poor seasonal workers are on a bonanza and that they are deliberately getting injured so that they can receive this wonderful— 
Carol Beaumont 
: Break a leg! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes that is right. We were provided with no evidence that that was occurring. It would have been good to see research done on which categories of workers this change affected and on where they work what they jobs they do and the injury risk profile of those jobs. As the Maori Party has said many seasonal workers are in primary industries and Maori workers are overrepresented among seasonal workers. We know there are about 400000 workers in this category. That is a lot. They have low-paid jobs and they have a pattern of work that is different from other people. I think one thing that has not been understood by the Minister is that just because these people are seasonal workers it does not mean they work for 3 months and then do not work for the rest of the year. Many of these workers go and look for another job. They seek another job in between the seasons of their seasonal job. The provision in the bill assumes that seasonal workers will not be working once their seasonal employment ends and it unjustifiably reduces their compensation. John Key likes to say that he is concerned about low-paid workers yet most of those workers are paid at close to the minimum wage. Just last week at the Big Gay Out John Key admitted that he would not be able to live on the minimum wage. Yet in many cases this miserable provision will reduce compensation for seasonal workers to something well below the minimum wage. The other whack that seasonal and casual workers will face under this bill is a requirement to use their pre-injury holiday pay earnings before they are entitled to earnings-related compensation. 
Under this bill seasonal workers lose in three ways. They are injured at work—and that is bad enough—then they lose their job and then they are expected to survive on almost nothing. The Minister and the Government are continuing to imply that somehow seasonal and casual workers have deliberately set out to get injured so that they will receive the largesse of the changes made in the 2008 legislation. One submitter said and I thought this was very poignant: “I have never known a worker who deliberately comes to work to get injured.” That is so right. I have never known a worker who deliberately comes to work to get injured. 
The other provision in the bill that I will speak to today is the provision amending the abatement of holiday pay. This is another miserly provision where injured workers who lose their jobs have to use their holiday pay before they get earnings-related compensation. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why should they double-dip? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The Minister says that that it is double-dipping. They have earned this money before they were injured. It is their holiday pay. In addition to losing their job usually because of injury or redundancy they lose the holiday pay that they earned before they were injured. That is so unfair. That is so mean. 
Even the Cabinet paper that recommends these and other changes stated that the estimated savings are $1 million. That is almost nothing in the context of the size of the scheme and most of it is in the earners account. They are savings but they are paid for by workers’ hard-earned money which they earned before they were injured. The stunningly dumb risk assessment says that: “Claimants may think it is unfair to have weekly compensation abated because of annual leave accrued while they were earning or accrued in a previous financial year but that was not paid until termination of employment.” Even Treasury warned that the relatively small savings did not seem to justify the unfairness of the provision. If workers take their holidays they get accident compensation. If they do not because they are too busy or hard-working to take the time off or they are saving the holiday time to be with their family then they can forget it. The truth is that this is just one example of the Government’s accident compensation changes that will shift the cost of the injury to the worker—and the health and welfare system. Thank you.