Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:16944] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 As I said before Part 1 is a serious part of the legislation and it is worthy of full debate. I will refer to clause 20 which has not as yet been debated. Clause 20 deals with self-inflicted personal injuries and suicide. I think it is important once again to quote from New Zealand Steel which is regarded as one of the very good employers around New Zealand and particularly in Port Waikato—the area that I am so proud to represent. New Zealand Steel says: “We oppose this clause which will repeal the existing clause and provide entitlements for individuals who wilfully self-inflict injuries including suicide attempts.” It continues: “The proposed change will provide entitlements and incentives for individuals who wilfully self-inflict injuries—actions that New Zealand society considers abhorrent. It actually provides an incentive for individuals to self-harm.” 
That quote comes from a large New Zealand employer that has an extremely good record of caring for its employees. It pays an average wage of $90000 and I do not believe there have been any industrial problems on that site for decades—pretty well since it came into existence—because of its concern about its workers. So I think New Zealand Steel has the authority to speak out. 
The very fact that this Labour Government seriously considers adding this clause is an indictment on this Labour Government on its sense on fairness and on the fact that it lacks a practical common-sense approach to problems facing New Zealand society. When we hear the Minister saying that the Government will experiment a little in terms of what it is doing that this is another step in change and that New Zealand will be a leader we can see that it does not seem to matter very much that there is a range of costs going from $7.2 million to $72.2 million—an increase of 1000 percent. No business in New Zealand let alone the rest of the world could survive on that sort of loose accounting yet that is what the Labour Government wants to do. It also wants to do this in relation to a situation that is particularly serious: that of self-inflicted personal injuries and suicide. 
It is important to quote further from New Zealand Steel: “Providing ongoing entitlements over and above medical treatment is also inconsistent with the purpose of the ACC scheme as outlined in section 3 of the Act. This requires the ACC scheme to be fair be sustainable minimise the incidence of injury and minimise the impact of injury.” New Zealand Steel considers that the repeal of section 119 will encourage disgruntled employees to wilfully self-inflict injuries which will result in more injuries an unfair burden on levy payers who do not wilfully self-inflict injuries and an unsustainable cost on the scheme. These are all very very serious concerns put forward by New Zealand Steel. 
The Minister Maryan Street claimed that the National Party has never understood accident compensation but I say Labour has never understood the practicalities of a modern economy. That is the reason it is in so much trouble today. Labour members are keen to lead the country to goodness knows where. I was quite fascinated to hear Pansy Wong point out quite appropriately that they are like a pack of lemmings leading New Zealand over the cliff. This sort of clause would indeed lead New Zealand over the cliff.