Cunliffe David: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9241] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I wonder in speaking to this part which seeks a name change to the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill whether I could divert the Committee with a little homily on pre-parliamentary experience. It is relevant. Before becoming a member of Parliament I was a management consultant and worked for an insurance company over the ditch that specialised in accident insurance. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Not HIH? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I could not possibly comment but no it was not that one. The key point to make is there were three functions that needed to be undertaken that fit nicely with the name that is proposed by our side: the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. In looking at injury prevention rehabilitation and compensation we see that the first of those functions speaks to getting upstream and making sure that the environment is safer that people’s costs are minimised and that personal harm is minimised. A stitch in time saves nine and the investment in public information and public education pays huge dividends. So it proved to be. 
The second of those functions rehabilitation is absolutely critical especially on claims that are required for moderately serious injuries. A very small injury can often be fixed on the day within 24 hours and out of the door at a walk-in clinic. A moderately serious claim may require many weeks months or sometimes years of rehabilitation to get people back to work so that they can pay their way. 
The third category was the very serious claims that required intensive often lifetime management and compensation. That company was able to minimise the cost to its shareholders and the Crown by undertaking all three of those functions diligently as does I believe our accident compensation scheme. 
The issue with this name change is that it underplays two of those absolutely vital functions. It collects the burden on the organisation under the third function. Compensation should be the last cab off the rank not the first. If it does that it will not be good for New Zealanders who either are not educated to avoid accidents before they occur or are not rehabilitated to the same extent after they occur and we are left with what will be both increased human suffering and increased fiscal risk because the organisation will not be fitted as well to do its job. 
We can imagine that the motivation for National in suggesting the name change that Dr Smith has suggested in his amendment is not drawn from the library of Mark Twain. I suspect that it is not a stylistic amendment. By all reports this is a busy Government that has much on its plate. Would that Minister really spend his time on a purely semantic amendment? Quite obviously there is a broader game afoot. Things are not always as they seem and I think New Zealanders are finding that the penny is already dropping for them. Here is a Government that is bent on cutting and trimming the services that our accident compensation scheme makes available that it has interpreted in the most negative way. From the chair on down in regard to the financial circumstances of the corporation it has put the most pessimistic assumptions before the public and has used that as a pretext to undertake a rash of cuts. New Zealanders are deeply disturbed that the social contract is being broken. As well as that it makes absolutely no sense to do it in economic or management terms as this name change suggests. Each of the functions of preventing accidents rehabilitating those who are injured and only then fairly and fully compensating those who cannot be rehabilitated are equally important. 
If there is no human interest reason for the proposed change and if there can be no managerial or economic reason for it I ask what it is. One of my colleagues has suggested that perhaps it is a pretext for privatisation. We know and there is nothing outside the Standing Orders in recalling for the Parliament that Merrill Lynch a firm not unknown to the current Prime Minister advised its clients in the insurance industry that there were hundreds of millions of dollars of profit to be made should this Government proceed with privatising the New Zealand accident compensation scheme. That would be a tragedy for New Zealanders. The only beneficiary would be those Australian insurance companies or their like and that cannot be allowed to happen for the sake of New Zealanders.