Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7695. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson for the opportunity to speak again on this very unfortunate Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill brought up by the Labour Government. 
I want to point out a few things I was concerned about when I heard the list member Sue Moroney trying to put the record straight. Unfortunately she distorted the record. After all the situation is that in 1998 the employer and self-employed accounts were separated and the separate accounts came into being. What happened at that time was that injury rates went down. Workplace safety management increased dramatically early rehabilitation was cemented in as an absolutely vital part of the accident prevention system in New Zealand and premiums went down. 
I see the Minister in the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson is looking quite astounded. She should take note because these changes were the catalyst to make accident compensation much more efficient and it has worked. It has worked only because of the experience of 1998. It is now starting to deteriorate as under the Labour Government the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) monopoly gets fatter and lazier as one would utterly predict. It is very very important that Sue Moroney’s somewhat distorted history is exposed. It was the changes in 1998 that reversed some of the problems under the Accident Compensation Corporation into a virtuous cycle of change that has improved accident compensation over the last 5 to 6 years. 
It is now indeed time to resist a bill such as this. My colleague Dr Jonathan Coleman was absolutely correct in pointing out the dangers of the erosion to the affiliated providers or partnership programme. This is one of the most successful aspects of the accident compensation scheme in New Zealand and it is one aspect that does not happen to be about the monopoly. In this partnership programme businesses manage themselves and as I say it has been highly successful. 
However a deplorable aspect of this bill is that it manipulates the account so that the attractiveness of the partnership programme has been diluted. Substantial funds are being transferred across and the residual levies will go up punishing and penalising those who have gone into the most efficient aspect of accident compensation in New Zealand as we know it today. 
As well as that the Government has decided to increase the stop-loss margins from about 150 percent to 200 and 300 percent—another reason why the partnership programme is being eroded. Why is it being eroded? I believe it is because the Minister does not like the concept that individual businesses can manage their accidents better than the ACC monopoly. 
I would like the Minister to get up and explain to me why it is that third party administrators tell us that they are able to achieve much greater efficiencies than ACC. For instance one of them said it managed 1350 entitlement claims for a range of accredited employers with an average life cost of $5200. This compares with ACC’s average cost of $13700. Under this third party administrator the average time off work is about 4 to 5 days; under ACC the average time off work is over 30 days. 
Another third party administrator claims an even better record than that in the order of about $3500 compared with $30000 for the corporation and similarly much much less time off work than under the current ACC regime. 
It is regrettable that under this merger legislation the partnership programme is being eroded. This is happening because the Labour Government cannot bear the success of the private sector.