Turner Judy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Turner Judy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:637;Page:7789] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the third reading of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I express at the beginning United Future’s concern that the Committee of the whole House failed to support the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Pansy Wong that would have allowed a rebate to New Zealand employers. Her colleague Simon Power suggested that my colleague Gordon Copeland was self-righteous in his efforts to back Pansy Wong’s amendment which I find a little difficult to understand. Maybe he jumped in before he had all the facts. 
The Supplementary Order Paper that Pansy Wong was keen to get through last night talked about the risk ratio that the Accident Compensation Corporation itself has set. It believes that its assets should be 111 percent of its liabilities yet the current figure of the employers account is 163 percent. Its assets are 163 percent against its liabilities. My colleague Gordon Copeland figured out that that represents $468 million of overpayment to the employers’ account and he suggested that before the two accounts are joined and reconciled that money should be divvied back out to the people who had overpaid in the first place. We are disappointed that people did not see the vision of that last night so that that move could go ahead. 
I want also to correct something that the New Zealand First speaker has just mentioned. He talked with some apprehension about the new account called the treatment injury account and he was concerned that this was some sort of new provision. I say to Mr Brown that all that it does is reflect that we changed the terminology in an earlier amendment bill. We changed—as he rightly said—the fact that when people receive an injury due to a medical misadventure of some kind historically they had to prove that the medical misadventure had taken place before they could receive compensation. An earlier amendment bill changed that and in changing it we changed the terminology. So we no longer refer to “medical misadventure” under the accident compensation legislation. 
We now call it “treatment injury” because people no longer have to prove that there was negligence on the part of the practitioner from whom they received the treatment. If they have an injury and it is the result of the treatment then they receive compensation. So calling the account the treatment injury account is purely to reflect the new language and provisions of an earlier amendment bill. So it is nothing sinister; it has been in the legislation for some time now. In relation to medical misadventure if some fault is found on the part of a medical practitioner it is still the domain of the practitioner’s regulatory complaints authority. The medical practitioner can be put under disciplinary measures if that is deemed to be helpful to the situation. 
United Future supports the overall intention of this amendment bill. It does seem ludicrous that if people are doing the same job with the same level of risk they should be paying separate amounts depending on their employment arrangements—whether they are self-employed or employees. We think that is a nonsense and we are happy to see that issue resolved with this bill. We are very happy with the work that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee did to bring the bill back to the House. 
I will reiterate that we are very disappointed that the Committee of the whole House failed to see the picture suggested by the Supplementary Order Paper that Pansy Wong was putting forward. I think it would have made a huge improvement to the outcome. I notice that the Green member Sue Bradford felt that the bill did cover that because regulation-making powers were mentioned in one of the clauses. I took it from what she suggested that she meant if we wanted to pay it back there is the potential to do it. I think it is an important issue. It is a lot of money and I think when those two accounts are blended we will lose sight of who is owed what and the matter will just be ignored. In fact what will happen is that surplus will end up propping up the new joint account and I think that is an unfair provision. However aside from that Supplementary Order Paper not being agreed to we are happy to support the third reading.