van de Molen Tim; Henare PeeniTIM van de MOLEN (National—Waikato): I'm quite happy to remind the Minister of my questions and indeed I thought it was quite interesting through his contribution that he talks about wanting to improve access for New Zealanders and indeed we absolutely support that. This legislation talks about improving access for Māori but improving access for all New Zealanders is a fantastic and admirable goal that we indeed support.Now the Minister also misconstrued my comments in relation to being able to ask for this information of ACC currently. I didn't suggest that the information is readily available; I suggested indeed that the Minister should be able to pick up the phone and ask the CEO of ACC to compile a report exactly in the nature of what this legislation proposes. There is nothing currently that stops him from doing that. The information may not be available right now but he can instruct the CEO of ACC to conduct a report to find out whether or not people are fairly accessing the scheme and all the aspects mentioned under this legislation. That can be done right now. It does not need legislation to tell an agency to do a report. Goodness me what are we coming to when we have to legislate for that sort of basic information? If the Minister disagrees with that I'd be interested if he could point us to where in the legislation he is prevented from asking the CEO to deliver that sort of information to him right now.Now one of the questions I had was about the focus here on improving delivery of service and whether or not that restricted his ability to change access for any group that may ultimately be discovered to be receiving access over and above other groups; they may be getting an unfair advantage in terms of accessing the ACC scheme for whatever reason. But this legislation outlines that the Minister now is only able to identify how to improve delivery of service and not to change or hold or maintain a level of service for any particular population groups. I am interested in whether he has any concerns around whether or not that will be fit for purpose. And again this highlights the clunky nature of putting a basic request like this into legislation. We just do not have the flexibility to alter or adapt your requirements over time. Indeed the Minister would have to come back to the House with a new piece of legislation to change that if it was found that one particular population group was getting access over and above others and therefore needed a different focus. So I'm interested in that particular piece.And also then to the other point around the access—the causes factors distributions contributing to the disparities and barriers—whether indeed there are some that he has seen right now in relation to Māori or to another population group that he may have on his mind. And also then under new Part 4 section 14 around not requiring the reporting to be done in the second year. And this just seems like an interesting carve-out—is it then indeed happening in the first year or the third year or all subsequent years; simply not the second year? And that refers to the factors contributing to those disparities and barriers as identified by the corporation. So that's 278B(2)(d) which in that section 4 then is specifically required not to be reported on. Surely that defeats the purpose of conducting the report. And if they don't have the capacity to conduct the report then why are we asking for it in the first place?So I think it's quite clear that we are talking here about a piece of legislation that is simply not fit for purpose and takes away the ability of the Minister to be flexible takes away the ability of ACC to adapt to changing circumstances. Indeed if we look back in history actually under the Clark Government there was this sort of information being provided. They got rid of it back in 2006 I believe it was—and Mr Woodhouse might have a better handle or memory on some of that information—but at the time the Minister of the day was able to get exactly this sort of information and make decisions off the back of it. We do not need legislation for this and I would encourage the Minister to be practical to get rid of that to keep the last part about accessing the time frame bringing it down from six to two but I certainly appreciate his comments on those questions I've raised. Again thank you.Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for ACC): The Crown Entities Act is quite clear in the way that Crown entities engage with Ministers. Simply a Minister picking up a phone and calling the chief executive to give an imperative towards this particular work that we're discussing in this bill actually isn't correct. Legislation does that however. It gives an impetus to ACC and to counter one of the points that the member makes actually it gives it more tools. It also gives the Minister more tools in order to make sure that the ACC scheme is more equitable into the future.I also would like to point out that with respect to those who might—I can't quite remember recall the words of the member in his question—over-receive or those who might receive more than what they are entitled to there are already provisions within the Act to make sure that there is no fraudulent activity for those who do look towards and I can't remember the words of the member over-receiving or certainly ripping the system off" I think is the word that better describes it. There are already provisions in the Act that make it clear that that is an offence. You cannot do that. So with respect to those who might over-receive we make sure that in a professional manner ACC continues to deliver a scheme that meets the needs of New Zealanders. For those who might over-receive—one might call that "ripping the system off"—there are already provisions here to make sure we can look after that.What isn't clear though is the size of the disparity for those who don't access the scheme and the member asked me to point towards areas where we might notice this and I myself have already mentioned with my other hat on as associate health Minister: one need only look towards Wai 2575 the Waitangi Tribunal claim where a number of factors were raised in that particular tribunal hearing about the under-access or the inability for particular groups—in particular Māori and rural—to access the ACC scheme. What we're saying in this particular bill is "Let's make it an impetus for the ACC scheme to make sure that they can serve New Zealanders better."And with respect to the member's question around time and the time frames that we've put around the reporting on this particular matter it's important that we undertake this work in order for us to find where those disparities are. Those disparities don't necessarily show themselves overnight and if they did that tells me that that member makes the assumption that that information already exists. I'm telling the committee right now that it does not.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Then how does he know there's a problem?Hon PEENI HENARE: It's in a very transactional manner. And if Mr Woodhouse wants me to send him the link to Wai 2575 it shows clearly that Māori in particular don't access the ACC scheme; they don't access healthcare the way that other New Zealanders do. And there's a myriad of matters complex matters which mean that they don't. There's matters of trust there's matters of lack of funding there's a whole heap of matters here and that information isn't found in the transactional nature of the reporting that ACC can do right now."