Dyson Ruth: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dyson Ruth: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I know that the competition is pretty fierce at the moment Mr Chairman so I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to take a call in supporting David Parker’s amendment to insert a new Part 3 in this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. My colleague Kevin Hague from the Green Party who has just resumed his seat put it extraordinarily well when he said that it was good practice to review a major change in legislation like this one that could potentially have such a huge and negative impact on the citizens of New Zealand. That is what this debate is about. For me this amendment is about National and ACT putting their money where their mouths are because every one of the National speakers—sorry both of the National speakers—in this debate have said that our concerns are unjustified and that this will be a robust scheme under which injured workers will be treated fairly. 
Well that is not true. Under the amendments that we have been debating for the last little while in the Committee injured workers injured children and injured elderly people will be treated unfairly because this legislation takes away the framework of their entitlement which had been restored to fairness. So David Parker’s amendment proposes that we put that debate to the test when we have some facts to weigh up as to whether Labour and the Green Party are right. Our two parties share concerns about cost shifting about people being moved off accident compensation and on to a benefit and if people are married to income earners about their having no income at all. We are concerned about people being denied support for hearing aids because they have only 5.9 percent hearing loss. We are concerned about the families of people who have committed suicide. Their families are left not only devastated by the loss of that family member but also without any financial support from the Accident Compensation Corporation because suddenly this House has made a value judgment about somebody who is supposed to be “bad” having committing suicide—rather than recognising that the person was overwhelmed by their life—as opposed to someone who is I guess a “worthy” person and who has died by some other means. That is what this debate is about. 
Who is right about this matter? I ask whether the costs will be shifted not into some magical savings bucket but from the corporation to individuals who have been injured and to their families. I ask whether people who have a hearing loss will have to do without the essential support they need in order to be able to hear—that is do without the basics of a hearing aid—unless they can afford to buy it for themselves. Will people who are not able to work who are not fit to go back to their old job let alone take any other job just be pushed off accident compensation and have no financial support at all? Those are the questions. 
If the Government had any confidence at all in its words then it would say yes to this amendment because the amendment states that we should get the facts of the situation in 12 months’ time so that we can see how injured people are being treated. Let us see where the costs of injury are falling and let us look at the effects on society of the amendments that we have just put through under Part 1 and Part 2. Then we will be able to say who was right and who was wrong. If National members had any confidence in the words of their Minister Nick Smith then they would say yes to this amendment but if I were them I would not back Nick Smith. I am a little on their side; I would be inclined to say that Nick Smith is probably leading them down the garden path and is not saying anything of substance let alone the truth in this debate. So it is a high risk for members opposite to back Nick Smith. 
It is a high risk for National to say that it will put this legislation to the test when it has some actual facts. That is why I predict that National and ACT will vote against this amendment. I cannot say that those members are chicken or scared; that is not appropriate language to use. But I can say that they do not have the confidence to back this amendment which would put their debate to a test based on facts. That is exactly what this amendment does. It is important when we have Parliament divided on such an important issue that we are able to review the facts. I remember Kevin Hague’s predecessor Sue Bradford coming to me when I was the Minister for ACC and saying that she thought that a lot of people were being turfed off accident compensation and being put on to a benefit. Without the facts of the situation nobody will be able to say who is correct in this debate let alone say what to do about it so I urge support for this amendment.