Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I too rise in support of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its second reading tonight. Although I haven't sat on the Education and Workforce Committee I have listened with great interest over the first and second readings to the content of this bill and it's been clear from the contributions made from the members of the committee that they are obviously very pleased with the outcome of the select committee process. I think one of the things that impressed me about the contribution that the community has made is to attract 794 submissions which is no small feat indeed and so that obviously shows the level of interest in the community for this bill.As we've heard there have been some inclusions made in the bill additional to what was first in the draft. Six new injuries were added to the bill at the select committee process and I'll just go through those six: anterior wall and posterior wall prolapses post-partum uterine inversion coccyx fracture or dislocation—and actually a friend of mine did suffer from that and I can tell you it's very uncomfortable and takes quite a bit of diagnosis—pubic ramus fracture symphysis pubis capsule or ligament tear and obstetric anal sphincter injury tears and urethral tears. Speaking of tears they all make your eyes water.One of the things that I did have particular interest in was a comment made by my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse when he talked about the ACC cost for hearing aids and that level of hearing loss from 6 percent down to 5 percent and the concern around having had no cost-benefit analysis for that. So that led me to look at the costs potentially associated with the rest of this bill. I note in a ministerial statement that the Hon Carmel Sepuloni made she talked about tens of thousands of New Zealanders standing to benefit from the changes to this legislation and some of the Labour Party members have mentioned numbers around 28000 potential claims.But the regulatory impact statement only did what was described as a rudimentary costing of around $25 million annually. I say rudimentary" because there was really no way that you could gauge what the level of claim may end up being in any particular year. So the Government I think needs to be really cautious about how then they are going to fund these approximately 28000 extra claims a year because unlike the Labour Government—they just think you can keep spending money and keep dipping into the public purse but this all comes at a cost and somewhere that cost is going to lay. That is going to obviously mean increased fees for someone somewhere because unlike what happens in Disneyland you cannot keep printing money.There are some definitions in the bill that—or one in particular that is an obviously simple one and that has been to make the alignment with other Acts so that the language is consistent. That was the Land Transport Act—just aligning mopeds and motor scooters I think it was.But the other one that I'd like to turn to is section 30 and an amendment that's being made to section 30 regarding personal injury caused by work-related gradual process disease or infection. And I did speak to this in the first reading speech because it's one that is of particular interest to me and indeed to the National Party because it was included in our policy proposals that we put out pre-election. And that is to do with injuries that are work-related and that gradual process for hearing loss or illness disease or infection which is described in section 30. One of the cohorts that will be affected by that will be our firefighters and I know that the firefighters have been battling this for quite some time to have recognition of this gradual process that happens especially in the field that they work in where they are often exposed to toxic fumes. Over time there is clear statistics that show that they are more likely to incur other illnesses far in excess of the normal range that would be expected with people outside of their workforce. So it's good to see that that is going to be addressed. But it is quite confusing when you read the wording in the bill in section 30(2)(c) is being replaced with this: "that if the particular property or characteristic is present in both the person's employment tasks or environment and non-employment activities or environment it is more likely that the person's personal injury was caused as a result of the employment tasks or environment rather than the non-employment activities or environment." And I guess that's spoken in legalese and maybe my legal colleagues will be able to interpret it a bit better. But the other one that is relevant to that is (2A): "even if it is established that a claimant's personal injury was caused in the circumstances described in subsection (2) the Corporation may decline the claim if the Corporation establishes that the risk of suffering the personal injury is not significantly greater for persons who—(a) perform the employment task than it is for persons who do not perform it; or (b) are employed in that type of environment than it is for persons who are not." So if they can work their way around the meaning of those clauses I hope that there is some advantage to our firefighters because they are a very important part of our volunteer service and our paid firefighting force and I pay tribute to them tonight. The other thing that this bill will do is to make clear that this bill does not apply if the death was a result of suicide or of assisted dying in accordance with the End of Life Choice Act 2019. So I think it's important that as we update legislation we also incorporate other legislation that has gone before it. And clearly the select committee in its wisdom has done exactly that. I did in my first reading speech query the title of this bill and perhaps I will be creative and put in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) around the title because it does beg the question about why we call it "Maternal Birth Injury" because my understanding is that unless you are a seahorse it's only women that can have a birth injury because they're the only ones that give birth. So why do we have "Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters"? So maybe in the interests of saving ink we could reduce the title name and I'll give consideration to that at the committee of the whole House and maybe put in an SOP to that effect.Andrew Bayly: What a great idea.MAUREEN PUGH: I think it's a great idea too. Thank you Andrew Bayly. So we've heard tonight that there's a great deal of interest in this bill and especially from our midwives doctors etc. who are literally at the coalface of these injuries and they do see the impact that it has on their patients their clients and have given it their support and so too does the National Party. Thank you."