Parker David: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Parker David: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9166] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I do indeed stand by my comments. I agree there is a question as to whether it should be a $10000 titanium leg or some other leg but I certainly stand by my comment that we ought not to throw away criminals and not give them appropriate medical treatment. For me to live in a society where someone has to walk around with just one limb because you are too miserable to see that we should live in a society— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I have just spent some time speaking to the previous speaker for mentioning the word “you”. The member knows quite clearly that he cannot bring the Chair into the debate. I will be on my feet each time it happens. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: And so you should be. I apologise for that reference. The courts already have the ability to say that someone should not get accident compensation entitlement. It is wrong to say that just because someone has been in prison he or she should get no entitlement. Labour members are on record as saying that Graeme Burton should not get any compensation relating to income or disability but I still stand by the comment that he should be entitled to a prosthetic leg as anyone else should be in this society. It goes too far if we treat criminals so harshly that they do not get that form of medical treatment. 
I will respond to one of the other issues that Dr Nick Smith raised in response to an earlier point. He said that I had pointed out that on a cost comparison basis the cost of New Zealand’s accident compensation scheme was a lot lower than Australia’s. He then said that I did not talk about the non-earners account or the earners account. That is quite true; I did not talk about those matters because the select committee was not presented with any cost comparisons. For the Minister to criticise the Opposition for not providing information that the Government should be providing before it cuts entitlements to non-earners and earners seems to me to have it the wrong way round. It is the duty of the Government to show that those current entitlements are unaffordable. The only information we were able to ascertain was that in respect of the employers’ account the cost is already substantially cheaper than the equivalent cost in Australia. In respect of administrative costs we also have good evidence that they are lower than comparable costs in Australia. Given that that was the only information we had on costs it seems to me somewhat ironic that the Minister was criticising the Opposition for not providing the information that he refused or was unable to provide to the select committee. 
I would like to make a reference to some of the statements that have been made about risk assessment and risk-weighted premiums for employers—or experience-rating as it is called. We already have some self insurers in New Zealand who are major employers. Officials were unable to provide us with any evidence that the groups that are self-insured and are fully exposed to their own risk had better rehabilitation or accident prevention rates than those provided by the accident compensation scheme elsewhere. So I cannot see how there can be such confidence that risk rating will reduce accident rates or improve rehabilitation rates. We were told that the research overseas goes both ways; the outcomes of it are unclear and research has yet to be done in New Zealand. The cart seems to have been put before the horse. I would have thought that that research should be done before such a change is made rather than after it. 
Lastly I will refer to the effect of the proposal that the Accident Compensation Corporation ignore pre-accident earnings when deciding whether somebody is properly rehabilitated. The proposal concerns not only earnings-related compensation which stops after a period of time but also ongoing medical treatment that could improve a person’s rehabilitation and therefore that person’s chances of getting closer to his or her pre-accident earnings. If anyone on the other side of the Chamber thinks that private insurers re-entering this market will not take advantage of that particular provision I suggest that is rather naive. When employers contract out their insurance to a private insurer they have no control of the claim after the claim is made. They have devolved that responsibility to the insurer under their contract of insurance. The insurer takes it over. The insurer will do what insurers do all round the world which is to try to cut costs in order to offer competitive premiums and make a profit for themselves. I think those provisions will be very dangerous particularly when the scheme is privatised.