Wong Pansy: Accident Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Wong Pansy: Accident Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9276] 
Hon PANSY WONG (Associate Minister for ACC) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in the debate on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. How wonderful it is to have legislation that people can remember the name of and say what it is. The previous Opposition speaker was the Hon David Parker and nothing distinguished more between National and Labour than what that speaker said and where National stands on accident compensation. The Hon David Parker apparently took the side of Graeme Burton. He is standing on the side of Graeme Burton. But members on this side of the House are so proud of our Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who introduced legislation to remove lump-sum income compensation and non-essential rehabilitation for criminals. Members on this side of the House are very proud of our Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who is standing on the side of law-abiding citizens having access to accident compensation unlike the Hon David Parker who is standing on the side of Graeme Burton. 
The reason why we are here today passing this legislation is the 9 long years of incompetent governance and financial monitoring of accident compensation by the previous Labour Government. Let me illustrate this with facts. In the year 2000 the Hon Michael Cullen came to the House and said that the Labour Cabinet had decided to set a levy for accident compensation in the years 2001 and 2002 at 31c to make the scheme fully funded by 2014. The Hon Michael Cullen said that setting the levy for the residual liabilities at 31c would make the scheme fully funded by 2014 so he set the levy at 35c and surely that would have made the scheme fully funded 2 or 3 years earlier. I as an accountant and most of the members in this House probably get it now that according to the Hon Michael Cullen the accident compensation scheme should have been fully funded by next year 2011. But here we are in this House today trying to pass legislation to extend the period before full funding which Labour says it supports and so it should. We are pushing back the year for full funding from 2014 to 2019. After 9 long years of Labour’s carefree attitude when it simply extended the scheme and the lack of due diligence monitoring of the accident compensation financial performance a fully funded scheme has to be pushed back by another 5 years. The original date was 2014 and the Hon Michael Cullen said the scheme should have been fully funded by 2011. We do not need to hear any more lecturing in the speeches made by members on the Opposition benches. 
I am looking forward to hearing from the former Ministers for ACC the Hon Ruth Dyson and the Hon Maryan Street whether they will take a call to explain to people why it is that once we used to have a world-class accident compensation scheme but after 9 long years of the incompetent governance and incompetent financial monitoring of those two Ministers we have been reduced to having to come to this House to push back full funding from 2014 to 2019 and the levy is going up; it is going through the sky. We are looking forward to see how those two former Ministers can explain why over 9 long years we have had to suffer and see the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) incur firstly a loss of $2.4 billion and then a loss of $4.8 billion. It is the largest loss ever incurred by any Government corporation. Those former Ministers have done something that I am not sure they should be proud of. We do not need to hear any lecturing from them because after the 9 long years of their governance of accident compensation we have to sit under urgency today in this House to pass legislation firstly to extend the timetable for full funding from 2014 to 2019 and secondly to reverse what was done in the dying days of the previous Labour Government when it pushed forward all these extensions without fully considering how those extensions were to be funded. 
We are fortunate that we have a Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who took up the issue and took a responsible position. He has taken the hard decision to make sure that accident compensation can continue to be sustainable for a long time. I believe that the debate in this House and the rationale for this legislation are plain for everybody to see. I just remind the Labour Opposition that a National Government introduced the accident compensation scheme into the country. We are the ones who take every pride and have every interest in keeping it sustainable. We did not need the 9 long years of an incompetent Labour Government to put the scheme at risk. I have pleasure in taking a call in this debate to support this legislation to once again restore accident compensation back to a sustainable scheme.