Mitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call and—just to start things off—to really give assurances to those people back home that New Zealand First has got some good news today which is that we will not be supporting this bill the way it sits in the Committee. Some more good news: we do actually support the Supplementary Order Paper by Sue Moroney and I would like to talk to that in a few minutes. And we have some bad news for the Government which I think has missed quite a big opportunity here in this bill particularly—the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill.The first thing that jumps to mind when I read that out is the absurdity of having a bill that actually tries to encapsulate financial responsibility and transparency as if they were some kinds of new things that the Government should be doing. In actual fact it should have been doing this all along—having an open and transparent Government and making sure it is doing the right thing with New Zealand money and putting it in the right places as opposed to trying to balance the books and to get things straight which of course it has miserably failed to do over the last 7 years. I am sure it is going to continue to fail in that vein as well. There is $350 million - odd a year that has been over collected by ACC payers and I myself as a business owner and operator have been one of those business owners who have been charged. Nowhere in this bill—not in the first second or any of the parts in this bill—is there an apology by the Government to acknowledge that this has actually taken place or redress to actually compensate those businesses and those people who have paid excessive amounts of money and to give that money back to those businesses. I am sure that there would be a lot of business out there right now that would be a lot better off if this bill actually addressed those particular points that we raise—and we do have some serious concerns.I move on to Part 1 and clause 5 which inserts new section 166A “Principles of financial responsibility in relation to Accounts”. I have to say that the word “must”—albeit a very simple word; it is one syllable and four letters long—is a very powerful word. It does jump out at me from the page quite strongly and I will read out a couple of points from new section 166A(2). It says here: “When making recommendations in respect of regulations made under section 329 setting levies the Minister must have regard to the following principles:”. It goes down to new section 166B “Funding policy statement” where subsection (1) says: “Within 12 months after the commencement of this section the Minister must issue a funding policy statement.”—so far so good. It goes down to new section 166B(3) which says: “The funding policy statement must be consistent with and explain how it is consistent with the financial responsibility principles in section 166A.”—another “must”. Then it goes down to new section 166C “Consultation publication and amendment of funding policy statement” where subsection (2) says: “The Minister must consult such persons or organisations as the Minister considers appropriate before issuing the funding policy statement.” So those are all positive things in this part of the bill.However the bill has had some amendments and changes made in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that have created some grave concerns for the public and for New Zealand First and we would like to bring those to your attention now. In new section 166A(2)(b) it has got here that “if an Account has a deficit of funds to meet the costs described in subsection (1) or has accumulated surplus funds that deficit or surplus should”—it has changed the word from “must”—“be corrected by the setting of levies at an appropriate rate for a subsequent year …”. The word “should” is a fairly watered down statement after all the “musts” that the Ministers have been doing because that is where the rubber meets the road where the real changes can be made. Having a “should” as opposed to a “must” changes this piece of legislation considerably. We go down to new section 166A(2)(c) which says: “large changes in levies should”—changed from “must” to “should”—“be avoided.” This “should” is another watering-down of some legislation where we expect as New Zealand taxpayers and ACC levy payers to have openness and transparency and for the funding principles to be far more clearly outlined than they have been in the past which this current bill does not adequately do.We go through the whole proposed levy-setting framework and it goes down through some fairly strong steps as we are going through the procedure to determine what those funding costs are going to be. It gets to that final step in the levy-setting framework and it goes to Cabinet which may follow ACC’s recommendations. Again this is another watering-down piece of legislation that does not really give the people back home the support that they need to know that we are not going to go down the alley that they have once gone down with the overcharging of ACC levies in the past. The second part to that is that Cabinet may choose to set alternative rates having regard to broader public interest—Cabinet may choose. There are some serious issues in those very minor changes in this piece of legislation. New Zealand First understands those minor—but major—differences and the implications that they have and we cannot support this bill.We do however support the attempt by Labour to try to straighten up the ship if you like with Supplementary Order Paper 123 particularly around clauses 4 and 5 in this part and this is around the meaning of “public good”. It is simply rectifying that by stating: “Public good means the public interest with regard to reducing injury and accidents.” I think that is a very simple but a clear directional change to make sure that that is actually what the bill intends. We support the amendment to insert subsection (d) after new section 166A(2)(c) set out in clause 5 which says: “the state of the Government’s fiscal position is not to be a consideration when setting ACC levies:”. We do not want to see what has been happening in the past—this Government being able to use ACC levies to balance its books—so we do support with pride Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper with those amendments.