Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Look it's really great to be able to take a call on this bill because it's important that we note that over 100000 New Zealanders every year lose their jobs. We need to make sure that they're in a position to be looked after and that we maintain the continuity in those people and in their development and making sure things like mortgages can keep being paid that school fees or those regular costs in a family can continue to happen. When you take someone out of the workforce suddenly that can have a whole lot of knock-on effects that affect the wellbeing of their family their wider family and their community.So we've been asked by those members opposite This is the worst possible time to introduce this measure." Well I argue different. I think it's exactly the right time to be preparing ourselves. In the current volatile situation we find ourselves in the global economic climate we have inflation up to 8 and 9 percent in places like the UK and the US and Canada and Australia. New Zealand is behind all of those countries in our inflation rates but we are not immune to those pressures and we see those happening every day putting pressure on the cost of living for families. So having a framework in place that protects our families and enables our communities to have a degree of reassurance is a good place for New Zealand to be in.It's often difficult for people to find work that matches their skills after redundancy and they end up taking on lower-paid jobs. This wage scarring has a big impact on our economy has the potential of more than $15 billion per year and it makes it far more difficult to employers because they need to get those skilled workers in place. But it also causes hardship for those individuals families and whānau and it also disproportionately affects those people from Pasifika and Māori backgrounds and communities as well. Loss of work is more likely to affect low-income workers and we know this for a fact. Those workers are more likely to lose more than one job in their lifetime. Low-income households are far less likely to have significant savings to back them up when times get tough and they're much worse positioned to manage difficult economic times compared to higher-income households.So having this in place is important. What this legislation does is it enables ACC to undertake the work that they need to do to engage with those key partners and to work through the framework that will take place in order to establish an income insurance scheme. The work is ancillary and consistent with its role in delivering accident compensation to New Zealand. This means that at the moment it is difficult for ACC to take the kind of role and preparation in this process that it needs to do to be a delivery agency. It's only right and proper that this framework is put in place first.This bill provides ACC with the statutory authority to do work to prepare to operationalise an income insurance scheme which we decide to establish at some stage in the future. It also recognises the Crown's responsibility and commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles by requiring ACC to engage with Māori and to be purposeful in developing a scheme that will contribute to developing Māori outcomes and labour market outcomes in New Zealand. In addition to this it also recognises the need to listen to workers and employers when designing the scheme by requiring ACC to engage with representatives of workers and employers. It also puts in place protections relating to ACC's collection and use of personal information to ensure the scheme ACC designs properly balances privacy and providing timely and accurate service to clients.It is important to note that because a decision to proceed with the proposed income insurance scheme or ACC as a delivery agency is yet to be made the bill contains provisions to repeal itself on 31 March 2025 and this means that the legislation will not continue in force if it is taken not to go ahead with it.To point out one last thing—why we support the bill. It is important to say that what it does is it sets ourselves up to be in a strong position in the future to make sure those wage shocks that we heard—whether it be a global financial crisis whether it be inflation or whether it be a natural disaster—those shocks to our workforce employers and employees have some devastating effects. On this side of the House we care about what that does to our communities.It's only right and proper that we put in place a framework to mitigate those challenges we find. I commend it to the House."