Little Andrew: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 20 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3148. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 It is another week and it is another resignation at ACC—another resignation of another board member. You Mr Speaker are entitled to sit there and say: “Another week and another request from Labour for an urgent debate on ACC.” That is what happened for the third week in a row. But it is chaos in ACC. It is chaos and now the latest departure—hushed up for 5 days I might add—is Murray Hilder one of the most respected actuaries in New Zealand who is pushed aside because he has had enough of the politicking the political manipulation the shenanigans and the chicanery that has been going on in ACC for far too long. 
On 28 March I said about ACC: “It is a convoluted web of deceit promises counter-promises and under-the-table utterances.” How prescient that was with all due respect to my own modesty. I asked for answers from the Minister for ACC then. You know here is the interesting thing. I gave the present Minister the benefit of the doubt. I said that she should front up answer the questions and get on with the job of cleaning it up. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why? 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I am a generous chap. I am a generous chap. Some would say naive and others might say innocent. Well I have learnt my lesson because what has become patently obvious is not only that this Minister has no interest in cleaning it up—she wants to see the board gone—but also that this is part of a nasty ugly dirty filthy game being played out inside the National Party with ACC and its board as collateral damage. That is what is going on. 
I regarded the Minister originally as responsible but not to blame. I have changed my mind. She is responsible and she is to blame. She is not fixing the problem. She is not fixing the problem; she is making it worse. It is time for her to do the right thing. 
It was bad enough that there was a privacy breach to begin with. It was bad enough that ACC did not seem to respond effectively and it is bad enough that since the privacy breach there have been even more privacy breaches. But none of this compares to the prevarication the evasion and the dissembling that has gone on in this House with the Minister failing and refusing to front up and no wonder. It is quite clear that her conduct is not the conduct of a reasonable and responsible Minister. Her conduct is the conduct of a sociopath Ms Tolley. Maurice Williamson understands that because he has worked with too many of them for too long. He knows sociopathic conduct when he sees it. 
Here is what is going on. All we wanted was straight answers but Judith Collins needs to understand that it is not just what is said in this House that counts; it is what is said around the well-heeled well-fashioned dining tables of the middle class around New Zealand. They are not called the chattering classes for nothing I can tell you. They are chattering—they are chattering. What they are saying is that Judith Collins when she got the news of the mass privacy breach called the chief executive and the chairman of the board to her office in Auckland and asked them what was going on. She gave them a dressing down. She balled them out gave them a dressing down and said: “It’s not just a question of sorting out the privacy. I want you to go after Michelle Boag—go after Michelle Boag.” That is her plan—that is her plan. 
She told them what happened at the meeting on 1 December. Let us remember too about the meeting of 1 December where this was arranged to benefit Bronwyn Pullar. Michelle Boag was there. There were no threats no extortion. There was a polite letter from ACC the day after and nothing for 3 months—nothing for 3 months. And then suddenly on 14 March the day after news of it broke the Minister thought this was criminal conduct and she urged and pressured and pressed the chief executive and the chairman of the board to lay a complaint with the police and that is what they did. She told them to do it and then when the police came back and said: “Nothing here. Nothing going on here. Move on please.” she hung them out to dry. She knows what the story is here. If she is found out as being responsible for sending it to the police she is exposed on the leak of Michelle Boag’s email to her. That is the game that is being played and ACC is the collateral damage. ACC claimants do not get a look in and it is a disgrace.