Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7707. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the “Title” “Commencement” and “Principal Act amended” clauses of this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: This man should be the Opposition spokesperson on health—wonderful man. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Despite the excellent remark from my colleague over there from Hamilton I believe that the title of the bill is clearly quite inept. I have a few suggested alternative titles that would be appropriate—for instance “The Labour Government Defies Common Sense by Rewarding Those at High Risk and Penalising Those at Low Risk Bill”. Then we might go to the Minister herself for “The Hon Ruth Dyson and”—we will add in—“the Hon Mark Gosche Denial of Basic Insurance Principles Bill”. We have heard those members tonight absolutely denying the concept of risk rating. But they love the idea of merging things and pooling them together of socialising and of taking all the common-sense incentives—the time-honoured principles—that belong to insurance away from that industry. Or perhaps we could call this bill “The Labour Government’s Let’s Break Faith with Employers and Take a Few Hundred Million Dollars for Redistribution Bill” because that is exactly what the Government has done. 
I think it was very salutary to hear Gordon Copeland from United Future the party that is partly responsible for keeping this Government in power say that what the Government was doing was daft and to hear the Minister first praise Gordon Copeland for his insight and intelligence but then say she was not going to follow his common sense. Mr Copeland said that the risk margin at present is 163 percent but that the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) itself suggested a risk margin of only 111 percent. Even if that margin were increased to 120 percent as Gordon Copeland suggested $468 million would still be stolen from employers—$468 million that should be given back. 
What else could the title most aptly be? Well let us call the bill “The Hon Ruth Dyson Let’s Erode the Accredited Employers’ Scheme Because it is Working Too Well Bill” because that is the fact of the matter. I outlined earlier in the debate just how well the partnership programme is working—how there is a situation whereby 25 percent of employers are not under direct control of the Government monopoly and how they do very well. In fact they do so well that their costs are about one-third of those of the ACC and on average they get employees back to work in about one-quarter of the time taken by the ACC. I believe that it is because of that that the Government is systematically trying to erode the programme by changing money over to the residual account so that the levies of that account will go up. It is manipulating the employers’ and self-employed workers’ levies and is artificially keeping them down so that most people out there—who do not really understand this—will think: “Aha! They have kept them down.” But the Government is only fooling itself; it will be found out sooner or later. 
Perhaps the other suggestion for this title could be “The Labour Government’s Let Fiddle the Levies Bill” because indeed that is what the Government is doing. It is a great shame that the Minister was firstly prepared to say that the amendments I suggested to clause 11 were useful and it was helpful to have transparency but then said—having gone through all the amendments I wanted to make to Part 1 and suggested that it would be helpful for people to understand how the levy process worked and to make it transparent—she was sorry but she was not prepared to vote for it. She did however say she was prepared to ensure that this information would be available—and I very much hope she does keep to her word in that respect. I was delighted that she did see some intelligence and insightfulness in the speaker’s amendment and I too recognise her for her insightfulness in that respect. 
I guess that the other title for this bill could be “The Labour Government’s Let’s Fiddle the Residual Account Bill”. I just want to finish off the six alternative titles that would aptly replace the title we have now. Indeed the title “The Labour Government’s Let’s Fiddle The Residual Account Bill” is quite appropriate. We know that by legislation the ACC should be fully funded by I think 2014 yet under this Labour Government there has been no improvement in the position over the last 4 to 5 years. That is hugely hugely concerning. 
Finally I reiterate my colleague Pansy Wong’s plea that it would be very helpful if her amendment to delete the commencement date of 1 April 2007 and replace it with 1 April 2009 was supported. By that time there will be a National Government in place and we will bring sense to New Zealand’s accident compensation scheme.