Scott Alastair: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeScott Alastair: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6807. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I rise in support of this bill. The words “Financial Responsibility and Transparency” in the bill’s title are absolutely appropriate. The last speaker Iain Lees-Galloway spent most of his time looking backwards describing his point of view of the history of the Accident Compensation Act. I am a person who likes to look forward. I am not interested in what has been; I am more interested in what is to be.The last speaker talked about unnecessarily high levies—artificially increasing them and elevating rip-offs was what he talked about. Well that is why this bill is here: so that there is no debate and there is no argument. This bill is about financial responsibility and transparency so it will eliminate the question marks about whether levies should be here or there—here there or everywhere. So that is what it is about and I guess that is why the members on the other side are supporting this bill which is a good thing.I would like to point out the principles. There are principles involved in this bill. There are funding policy statements that must be made by the Minister for ACC. There are reports that must be prepared and published by the corporation. Those policy statements and reports must turn their mind to a number of things. The word “must”—Mr Lees-Galloway is looking for the word “must” in new section 166A in clause 5 in that ACC should have no flexibility around the setting of the levies. But as we know the assets on the balance sheet of the ACC levy accounts move around hugely. The volatility was described by Jonathan Young earlier. Because of that volatility because interest rates move around because equity markets move around and because foreign exchange markets move around so does the liability and the asset involved and to varying degrees. So for that reason alone the reports must include things like long-term projections.The bill talks about projections. It talks about notifying key assumptions. Three times in new section 331(5B)(a)(ii) in clause 6 there is the word “assumptions”. That is because there is no crystal ball in this thing. That is why flexibility must be ingrained in this bill because there is no certainty around the assets that are held by the corporation. That is why again the principles in new section 166A in clause 5 are referred to as “the levies derived for each Account should meet the lifetime cost of claims … if an Account … has accumulated surplus funds that deficit or surplus should be corrected … [and] large changes in levies should be avoided.” thus giving the flexibility that is required and necessary in this bill.That is the thrust of this bill. It is a good bill. It is similar in my view to the target band that the Reserve Bank should be targeting. That is the analogy that I would like to bring to the House. If we made it compulsory that the Reserve Bank be within its band and you know have consequences via the Reserve Bank if it was not we would have been through many Reserve Bank Governors by now. Again it is a target and then when the inflation target is outside the band there is explanation there is reporting and there is transparency.The Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill does the same thing. It gives information to the public so that they themselves can see how the levy is being collected and understand why the levies may be rising and falling and gives the public the confidence that the ACC levies are being collected and administered fairly. I am very pleased to support this bill.