Mitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in solid opposition to this piece of legislation. To be brutally honest I think that this Government has got more cheek than an overweight politician’s backside. Putting lipstick on this pig and calling it somehow fiscally responsible looking after the best interests of all New Zealanders I think is irresponsible.To be brutally honest I have been sitting here for the last 35 minutes and have been struggling. My ears have been deceiving me in hearing all of this objection towards this bill from this side of the House and yet we are hearing a lot of support for it with regard to the Greens and Labour. I shake my head in disbelief that we are the only party in opposition to this bill because it does not do what the Government is saying it is going to do. I am just going to step you through that today. Government members do say one thing and they put down something completely different.We are talking about the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill. I go back to a number of speeches that have already been made in this House over the last couple of weeks particularly in the last 24 hours about those two sets of words: “financial responsibility” and “transparency”. They have been heroed in the title of this bill which to be fair I actually think is the best part of the bill the title to make it sound like this is some sort of new idea—that the Government should be fiscally responsible and transparent. In actual fact I expect that from a Government at all times and what we are seeing and what we are going to continue to see is less transparency and more muddying of the waters.To move forward you must look behind you and find out where you have made mistakes where you have gone wrong. You need to apologise for those mistakes moving forward and you need to make good on some of the issues that have caused so many problems around the country in relation to the accident compensation levies that have been overcharged. Many businesses many people have been overpaying these levies for such a long time and nothing in this bill nothing at all suggests or says definitively that this is actually going to take place—that those levies are actually going to come down.A transparent Government is a Government that does not hide behind the Order in Council provision. The Order in Council provision is probably one of the most insidious clauses that this Government has got the gall to put in—not just in this bill but there are but 798 other times in current legislation that the Order in Council exists. I find that absolutely abhorrent. I think the rank and file New Zealanders find it absolutely abhorrent and I think we need to take a good hard look at the way this Government is not being transparent by using the Order in Council provision.The Order in Council provision is a very important part. The Government is saying that those levies the residual levies are going to come down by 2019. It may decide by Order in Council to bring them forward. But under an Order in Council it might decide to actually extend those out. Under current charges and levies that are being charged at the moment you can expect in New Zealand—those people back home in small businesses—between now and 2019 in 4 years $1.475 billion to be over-collected over the next 4 years.What about that over-collection? Where is that money going to go to? Where is the transparency to let people know that that money is going to come back to them? This is a Government that is trying to cloud the issue by trying to create a surplus moving forward to the 2017 election and taking the credit for it using New Zealanders’ hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars to go into ACC which should not be required.Last night in the Committee of the whole House we raised a number of points relating to the word changes around Part 1 in the bill. This is about new section 166A(2) in clause 5: “When making recommendations in respect of regulations made under section 329 setting levies the Minister must have regard to the following principles:”. Those are “that the levies derived for each account”—we have got “if an Account has a deficit of funds to meet the costs described” and “large changes in levies”.You would expect with such a solid opening statement in new section 166A(2) that they would follow that through and actually consider that word “must” remaining. However it is not remaining. The Government has changed the levies derived from each account from “must” to “should meet the lifetime cost”. New Section 166A(2)(b) also says: “if an Account has a deficit of funds to meet the costs described … or has accumulated surplus funds that deficit or surplus should be corrected by the setting of levies”. Those are some serious changes.We heard Mr Young stand up and justify that. I do not think that justification is anywhere near good enough. So we do have some serious concerns around the wording of this bill and even further around the final decisions being made about what those levies are going to look like. We have got a flow diagram that again I have discussed and because this bill has been sort of rammed through just like a whiz boing bang bounce game—it is very very quick. We have rushed it through the select committee. We have had not a lot of time to consider the evidence that we have heard and a lot of people have said themselves they have not had the time to actually bring their concerns forward and have a serious consideration of them.But the Government’s proposed levy-setting framework starts with the Government setting funding policy targets horizons and transitions. ACC then calculates the levies. Public and stakeholders’ consultation—well that sounds fantastic. Now we are talking about some engagement. So there are some positive things in this bill. Then the ACC board recommends the levies and the rates. The Minister for ACC also receives levies advice from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and from Treasury. Cabinet sets new ACC levies. But then it goes to the final stages of the levy-setting framework and it is all undone by simply “The Cabinet may follow ACC’s recommendations and the Cabinet may choose to get alternative rates.”The term “Order in Council” is very worrying. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption has come out and said that a Government that uses this particular ideology in its legislation is one that is stepping down the pathway of corruption.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member has I think used a big proportion of his speech to talk about the Order in Council provisions of the bill. I have been searching the bill for them and before the member starts on that again I would like him to point out where they are in the bill.CLAYTON MITCHELL: With regard to the residual levies I think you will find it is in Part 2 of the bill in new section 336A (1)(a) and (b) in clause 7—it is right there on page 5.So just to continue with what I have got to say here the language is very important. I think it is very important to raise that concern because that provision is in there and the reality is there are a number of concerns within that Order in Council section and it is not to be taken lightly. It is very much a serious concern.We are moving forward in the bill and we hear the nonsense that is coming out now with the Health and Safety Reform Bill—and if you will bear with me for a second Mr Assistant Speaker; I do not want you to sit me down before I get to my point. When we talked about the Health and Safety Reform Bill we heard the comments about what constitutes a high-risk industry if you will. We have had the same sort of cock-up if you like with the announcement of what cars are going to be high risk and low risk and which ones are going to be levied against. [Interruption] It does relate to ACC levies. If the Government is talking about trying to reduce those ACC levies then the reality is that we are seeing a higher rate for cars that are far more common and therefore more affordable and cheap. To us this is a tax on the people who can afford it the least.We have got cars out there that are less popular and therefore cause fewer accidents on the roads and yet you have got a little car like a Hyundai Getz. Even with the latest information that has been put forward the Government has not come out in support of the Hyundai Getz as being a car that should have lower rates. That is an affordable around-the-town car. It is low on emissions. It is good for the environment it takes up less car space and it is affordable. Yet that does not show up there—in the list of new cars that are actually designed to have those lower emissions rates.To conclude my presentation today in opposition—in true opposition—to this bill there is a lot that is wrong with it. The Opposition has come out and said that it is not fit for purpose; it is window dressing. So I cannot fathom how Labour and the Greens cannot actually stand up here with New Zealand First and oppose it because that is the only sensible option. However we do support Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Papers 123 and 124. I think that is the most sensible thing that I have heard discussed today in this House and with regard to this bill. We will not and cannot support this bill moving forward. Thank you for your time Mr Assistant Speaker. I hope you have a lovely afternoon.