Stanford Erica; Rurawhe AdrianERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill in its first reading. Can I acknowledge Iain Lees-Galloway for bringing this to the House. As we all know legislation can over time become out of step with what society expects. Situations can arise that we never expected or accounted for in legislation and as we evolve as a society quite often parts of our legislation can become obsolete or not fit for purpose. So it's a political reality and it means that we need to bring legislation to the House quite often for a tune up. As you would take your car in for a service so too do we with legislation from time to time to make sure that it is relevant it is up to date it's fit for purpose and it fits with the expectations of modern-day thinking of the public and with their political expectations. In this case we're making some very sensible changes to the accident compensation legislation to bring it into step with what we expect and how we expect it to deliver for New Zealanders. So this amendment bill is a result of the regulatory work programme of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment who are tasked with reviewing regulatory instruments under their portfolios to ensure that they're fit for purpose and that they work as they should. This work was carried out under the previous National Government and today we're just formalising that work by amending the Act. The bill makes a number of amendments to the ACC legislation and previous speakers have gone through many of the parts of the legislation. In fact Jan Logie just gave a really good summary in her speech and I commend her for that. I'd just like to focus on one thing that I think is of particular significance to New Zealanders and to people in my electorate and firstly that is the anomaly under existing legislation whereby a person near at or above the age of superannuation who is eligible for both superannuation and ACC payments must choose between those two payments in the second year of their injury. In most cases they forgo their superannuation and collect just the ACC and they are forgoing that superannuation payment that they should be entitled to. Currently if you're working and receiving super and you get injured you get both ACC and super entitlements for a year and then in the second year you must choose which of those entitlements to take. Most people choose ACC and therefore forgo their super payments and in the third year they go back to super. So there's firstly no rationale for having to make this choice between the payments in year two and it's not in line with the premise that superannuation is a universal benefit and it's not means-tested. If a person is working past 65 they're entitled to both superannuation and their working income. There's no logical reason why in year two of an injury a person aged over 65 must choose between those two payments and in most cases actually forgo their super payment. It's not in line with the public's expectations of how ACC and super should fit together. The current legislation also has an anomaly whereby if a person is injured prior to their 64th birthday they are worse off than if they were injured just prior to their 65th birthday because they're not able to collect that dual payment. These anomalies have been highlighted because more and more Kiwis are beginning to work past the age of 65—something that was perhaps not considered during the original drafting of ACC legislation. This amendment to the Act makes the change so the person who's in paid employment prior to their injury can receive both super and ACC up to a maximum of 24 months. These people would have continued to receive their earnings and super had it not been for their accident. So the cost of this change is relatively minor costing ACC and the Ministry of Social Development just a few million by 2024. So it's a sensible change and it brings the Act into line with public expectations. This bill makes a number of small regulatory reforms to the ACC legislation to address duplication gaps errors and inconsistencies. It's a good solid little bill and I commend it to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes.