Gosche Mark: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Gosche Mark: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16638] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 The bankruptcy of the National Party in terms of policy on anything other than “it will cost money” was just portrayed in that speech. When New Zealanders gave up the right to sue they expected to have an accident compensation system that would compensate them for it. But thanks to the National Party and people like Bill Birch and Pansy Wong they destroyed that system privatised it and took away the entitlements that New Zealanders expected. They would do it again if they had the chance and Pansy Wong has just showed that. 
We would expect Pansy Wong now to be walking to the Table with an amendment. Her speech or much of it was about how unfair it was to deal with the workers out there who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and told us about the traumatic mental injuries they had suffered as a result of their work. Pansy Wong’s logic and the National Party’s logic is that it is not fair to do that because we are not going to be compensating a person who is not at work. If the National Party is to be believed and logic were followed by the National Party its members would not be voting against this. They would be amending it to cover all those people whom Pansy Wong says she is really feeling very sorry for such as the person who is in the bank doing his or her domestic banking and witnesses a bank robbery. Pansy Wong says that person should be covered. It is unfair that the person behind the counter who has a gun pointed at him or her will receive accident compensation for mental trauma if he or she has a mental trauma but the person watching from outside who walked in to do his or her banking is not covered. The National Party is so appalled by this that it wants to see it changed. Well when is Pansy Wong going to put up that amendment? Never. Pansy Wong and the National Party members in the select committee voted against it they voted against it in the House and they will vote against it right the way through because they have no interest in fairness. 
Let us listen to what we were told. A train driver who came to the select committee a very brave man suffered the terrible tragedy of a young person throwing himself in front of the train that he was driving. He was unable to stop and that person was killed. He had to stop working. He took a long time to recover. He received no accident compensation as a result. He went back to work and—members will not believe this—it happened to him again. He is now no longer able to work and he is unable to get accident compensation. Because he has no earnings like he used to have he cannot afford to get out of his house. He lives next to the railway lines and he has to listen to those trains going back and forth every day of his life. The National Party will vote against him getting compensation under this scheme because Pansy Wong says it is not fair. Well members should try and figure that one out. If there is any logic in that I will go “he”. 
National’s position has nothing to do with fairness. Its position is purely based on the fact that the insurance industry that National represents is dying to get its hands on the scheme again like it did last time—to wreck the scheme like it did last time. Well I have told National that it should not go there because that will put our costs up too much. I say to Dr Mapp that we can prove it. We know who wrote National’s accident compensation policy last time and they will do it again this time. National will dutifully follow it because that is the way National members always operate. Whoever pays National writes its policy—that is how it works. Labour members have read all about it and we know what happens; we have seen it before. 
I sat through the urgency debates in this House and watched the people from HIH sitting up there giving National members the hand signals of what to do. What happened to the people from HIH? They were the worst crooks ever; they wrecked the system in Australia. That is who owns the National Party—it is those sorts of people. 
One of the other examples that I think should be read out here relates to coalminer and Engineering Printing and Manufacturers Union member John Stone. In 1991 John Stone was buried alive for 20 hours in the cab of his mining vehicle after the mine that he was working in collapsed. Despite suffering ongoing trauma and not being able to continue to work underground after the experience he has not been able to access accident compensation for loss of earnings or to pay for counselling. National is going to vote against people like him getting that in the future. What John Stone and the Engineering Printing and Manufacturers Union are saying is that the payment will not be able to be backdated but that we should make sure it does not happen again. 
Pansy Wong sat there and pretended that she was really concerned about that train driver as did the other National Party members—oh yes they were sympathetic they were empathetic and they said that it was terrible—but they are voting against the bill. That is the truth of the matter. National members should hang their heads in shame because they are saying to that guy and to Mr Stone that they do not like the bill that it is unfair and that they are going to vote against it because not everybody in the world can get it. What utter nonsense! 
They will also be voting against older people getting access to rehabilitation and I know that Peter Brown will talk about this in his speech. Mr Brown is very hot on this issue of over-65s who continue to work in this country and make a contribution. Labour wants them to be able to make that contribution by having access to rehabilitation and the National Party will be voting against them as well. National members will say that that is unfair and that somebody will have to pay for it. Well that is what accident compensation is about: spreading the cost across the whole of society so that it does not cost individuals their livelihoods their houses and their families. And it does not cost the average New Zealander a lot whether he or she is an employee or an employer because we spread the cost fairly and our system is much more cost-efficient than anything one will find elsewhere in the world. 
Members should look across to Australia. Australian politicians were here this week asking us how we did it—how we got this wonderful accident compensation scheme and how we made sure we got it through the political system. Well we used to have a National Party with members who had some principles but they are gone. National members pretend they are people of principle but if they were people of principle they would put aside that nonsense about the bill being unfair and they would vote for it. 
Then Pansy Wong stands up and says how shocking it is that people who currently have an injury due to mental illness and are eligible for accident compensation should not continue to get that. So National will be voting against that as well. National members think a whole lot of people out there deliberately self-inflict injuries at work so that they can get compensation. They do not understand the system they do not understand people and they have no concept of humanity. Anybody can understand that when one does serious injury to oneself one has mental health problems. National wants to deny that and to have a system that puts those people up against the system to prove it when we on this side of the Chamber all know as do people out there who are practitioners in accident compensation that that is an unnecessary process. It will not cost any more than it costs now so why are National members voting against it? National members are saying it is a signal for people to go out and hurt themselves. For goodness’ sake! What century do those members live in? Do those members understand mental health issues or do they just pretend that they have some concern? 
I look at Dr Paul Hutchison who has medical training. He knows what I say is the truth and he will have to put his conscience aside and vote with his National colleagues against that part. He knows that he is wrong in doing so. As somebody who has worked as a health professional for many years he knows that people do not self-inflict to get compensation and that there is something of a mental health problem there that leads to that sort of behaviour. For National to pretend otherwise I find despicable. For those arguments to be put up in the way that Pansy Wong did I find despicable. It is absolutely wrong to say that people will go out and self-inflict so that they can get compensation. It is time that National got out of that mind-set came into the modern world and understood those issues. If National members ever wanted to convince people that they are worthy of Government they have just proved why they should not be in Government. 
National is opposing the train drivers coalminers and truckdrivers who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and said: “Please don’t let this happen to others in the future. Please undo the wrong.” But National members will sit there and vote against it. They will say to elderly people that they do not care about their rehabilitation they will say to the mental health community that National will put their cause back 100 years and they will say to workers who have a gradual process injury that no they should not get looked after either. Well we know what National did to accident compensation last time it was in Government. It attempted to wreck it. It privatised it. It downgraded the system as much as it could get away with. Let us not have this country make that mistake again and let us not allow National ever to get near this again. Members should look at what National is doing now. It is voting against progressive policies that 99.9 percent of New Zealanders know are fair.