Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I'm happy too to stand on behalf of the National Party in support of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading here today. I think some of the debates that we've heard here some of the speeches from members across the House remind me of a conversation we had this afternoon at the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians event where we talked to the National Student Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. In that conversation we talked about the work of select committees where a lot of the grunt that happens in this place happens—at the select committees. I think what we're seeing today is that collegial experience where everybody is aligned and so the very best comes out of the parliamentary system.I too congratulate the members on the Education and Workforce Committee. I was not privileged to be part of the interrogation of this bill but I do acknowledge the contribution that the team members have made and also the submitters on what is a very sensitive topic for many of them.I'd just like to go back to part of the process that we've been through in the debate on this bill. Sadly in the committee of the whole House there was a truncated debate and there were some parts of the debate that weren't able to be expressed and aired for the public's feedback. But I note that—I think there was something like four of the Green Party's Supplementary Order Papers that were unable to be debated; there was certainly one from the Hon Michael Woodhouse. Minister Sepuloni's—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Can I just reminded the member this is a third reading speech. So passing reference to processes around select committee—yep. But the main substance should be the third reading and the bill.MAUREEN PUGH: Absolutely. Thank you for your guidance Madam Speaker.Earlier this afternoon the Green member Jan Logie mentioned that she would have liked to have seen more general cover from this ACC bill. But I also note that the bill itself does have a three-year formal review process. So where we have a list of conditions that are mentioned in this bill—and I won't repeat them; I think Jan Logie did a great job of mentioning them. Some of them actually are very difficult to get your tongue around. But they all certainly are very difficult for women to deal with at the time and you know in my own personal experience they do take some recovery. So even though we have these six new conditions listed in the bill I have confidence that the formal review process three years after the bill is enacted will allow for further conditions perhaps to be identified and added.As Sarah Pallett who spoke very recently and is certainly the member of the committee with the most experience in this field mentioned before about the 28000 claims we know in the report that the 28000 claims was an estimate. There is not any sort of real data that could back up what that might be. So on that basis we know that there could be around 28000 extra claims made to ACC for this and that we hope will be financially manageable by ACC.But I'd also like to use the opportunity to work through one of the other clauses in the bill clause 8 which was about work-related gradual process disease or infection including occupational noise-induced hearing loss and accidents such as explosions. I realised in reading the report that it is quite a technical assessment that is made about hearing loss. It was mentioned earlier on that if you have a 17 percent loss of hearing in one ear—excuse me it's a total loss of hearing in one ear that is a 17 percent bilateral hearing loss; whereas if you have a 17.4 percent hearing loss in one ear that is a 5.2 percent bilateral hearing loss which would have fallen under the current 6 percent threshold. And that is why the bill reduces the hearing loss from 6 percent to 5 percent so that if it is a gradual process it will be covered by this bill.But the other issue that has not been clarified—and we ran out of time in previous debates to get some kind of feedback or assurance—was around that gradual process and whether ACC in this bill would indeed cover it and that was in relation to the exposure over time which would be the gradual process that our firefighters have when they are undertaking their job in fighting the fires because as we know the firefighters who attend these fires have often no idea what it is they are walking into because they don't know what equipment is inside that house what materials what the furniture is made of etc. etc. The constant exposure to these toxic fumes has now been noted by the World Health Organization as carcinogenic to humans and as—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The bill.MAUREEN PUGH: —Michael Woodhouse mentioned earlier this is something that could be looked at in the future in terms of getting some further cover for our firefighters.The bill itself has clarified where ACC cover is going to be implemented but it also clarifies where it is not and so we have made clear in this that it does not apply if death was as a consequence of suicide or the assisted dying in accordance with the End of Life Choice Act. Maybe that's just a clarification that may not have needed to be made but we do have it in this bill.I commend the process that we've been through with this debate. It's always good to see the cooperation across the House. It's always good to see that this House is not always divided on the bills that come in front of it. We are very happy as the National Party to support common-sense legislation and as a consequence I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.