Bradford Sue: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16645] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) being read a second time as we recognise the steps it takes towards having a fairer accident compensation scheme for this country. However the bill does not go anywhere near as far as the Green Party would like in terms of making accident compensation once again the fair equitable no-faults scheme that Sir Owen Woodhouse once upon a time envisioned. It is actually a rather timid little bill in its own way. 
I am pleased that the new provisions relating to workplace mental injury cover have been clarified by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to ensure that cover will be extended to claimants who suffer mental injury as a result of witnessing a succession of closely related events in the workplace or who encounter a traumatic workplace scene even though they did not witness the event or events that gave rise to that scene. However I am disappointed that the select committee did not take on board the concerns of those submitters who put forward the view that cover should also extend to those who suffer mental injury as a result of a series of workplace events or in the parlance of the Act as a result of “gradual process”. That creates a major inequity. 
An employee who suffers a mental injury as a result of witnessing one death in his or her workplace will receive cover. An employee who suffers mental injury as a result of a cumulative effect of witnessing a series of deaths in the workplace over a period of time—as may happen with emergency workers or health professionals for example—will not. That is simply unfair. 
The Green Party does not accept the view expressed in the select committee report that difficulties in determining causation and particularly in establishing that the mental injury was caused by factors in the work environment is a reason to exclude from cover mental injury caused by gradual process. These difficulties are not significantly greater than those encountered in working out whether a physical injury is caused by work-related gradual process. In making a decision on the balance of probabilities as to causation it is a matter of seeking expert opinion from appropriately qualified health professionals. Although this may involve a psychiatrist as well as an occupational medicine specialist providing expert medical opinion in the case of mental injury these so-called difficulties are far from insurmountable. 
More telling is the comment of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee report that “The effect of extending cover to gradual process work-related mental injuries would be significant increases in employer levies.” Once again we see equity and fairness to people who suffer injuries sacrificed in the interests of minimising employer levies. The flip side of that argument is that employers will continue to have no financial incentive to minimise hazards likely to cause gradual process mental injuries in their workplaces—most notably workplace stress—because the incidence of such injuries will still have no impact on the levies that they pay. 
The Green Party shares the concerns regarding the position of older people in the workforce who are injured that were raised particularly by the New Zealand First minority view in the select committee report. The amendment that the Minister is proposing in a Supplementary Order Paper will address that concern at least in part by ensuring that claimants approaching the age limits for weekly compensation will not be discriminated against in the provision of vocational rehabilitation on the basis that because of their age vocational rehabilitation will not be cost-effective. However the amendment does nothing to address the blatant discrimination in the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2001 that disentitles injured people to weekly compensation on account of their qualification for New Zealand superannuation. The Green Party believes that the accident compensation scheme should provide equitable compensation for all injured people and the age discrimination that remains in the Act is a matter that needs urgent attention. 
Furthermore the bill continues to fail to address the inability of injured people who were non-earners at the time of the injury to access vocational rehabilitation. These are the forgotten people under the accident compensation scheme—injured people who are left to languish for years on a social security benefit because neither accident compensation nor Work and Income has the capability to provide them with the rehabilitation they require to return to the workforce or get into it in the first place. 
I am pleased that the select committee majority has recommended that clause 17 of the bill be passed. The vocational independence assessment process completely disentitles a person to weekly compensation if he or she is found to be capable of working 35 hours a week in some occupation for which he or she is qualified or experienced. This is another unfair aspect of the way the accident compensation scheme operates. I am aware of many claimants with well-paid pre-incapacity employment who have been shunted off weekly compensation because they were assessed as capable of doing some menial job that paid little above the minimum wage. Clause 17 of this bill will at least ensure that claimants’ pre-incapacity earnings are taken into account when assessing whether an occupation is suitable under the vocational independence assessment process. 
The Green Party would go further. We would abolish the vocational independence assessment completely. It is unnecessary. The requirement to look for suitable employment can be included as a part of claimants’ individual rehabilitation plans and a claimant who fails to seek suitable employment can be disentitled to weekly compensation on that basis. We do not think it is fair or reasonable that claimants lose their compensation when work may be suitable for them but is not available to them. 
The Green Party supports this bill because it makes some progress towards improving the accident compensation scheme. It is one step further forward from National’s disastrous gutting of the accident compensation scheme in the 1990s. However there remains a long way to go before we have an accident compensation scheme that returns to the principles of community responsibility comprehensive entitlement complete rehabilitation real compensation and administrative efficiency that was Sir Owen Woodhouse’s vision all those years ago.