Dyson Ruth: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dyson Ruth: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9135] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I want to talk to just three points in relation to Part 1. The first is the repeal of section 31 under clause 8 the second is the disentitlement for people who wilfully injure themselves or commit suicide and the third is the great leap backwards that the Minister has decided to take in terms of work capacity. Let me start from that issue. 
I will make three points in relation to the changes of work capacity. I am reminded of the good old days under Bill Birch whom I must say Nick Smith is making look quite good in comparison—he is certainly making Murray McCully look good in comparison. In the old days of work capacity people used to say “work cap; kneecap”. Workers who were quite seriously injured got minimal rehabilitation then went through a shonky assessment process were told that they were fit to work for 30 hours a week and were moved to independence which is what accident compensation was in the olden days of the previous National Government. 
That meant that they either went on the dole or they received no income at all if they were married to an income earner and did not meet the criteria for any income from our social security system. This scheme is a great leap backwards to those old days. We have seen a change to the consideration of a person’s pre-injury earning capacity. If somebody who is in a high-income job—it might be a Minister of the Crown—suffers a serious injury he or she is not able to take on that responsibility any more; he or she is not able to do his or her job. That person is assessed for work and it is determined that he or she is able to work for 30 hours a week as a cleaner in a Minister’s office. There is a big income gap between the earnings of a Minister and the earnings of a cleaner in a ministerial office but that will now meet the criteria for being assessed as fit to work because that person’s pre-injury earning capacity has been biffed out. Instead of the assessors having a “requirement” to consider someone’s pre-injury earning capacity the word has been changed to “may”. The officials confirmed to the select committee that the word “may” means the assessors may or they may not consider someone’s pre-injury earning capacity. That is an absolute outrage. It is outrageous to forget what a person has lost as a result of an injury in terms of how much income he or she is able to attract because of his or her skill and hard work. That is the first great leap backwards in the work capacity. 
The second is the move from working 35 hours a week which provides a liveable wage for most people to working 30 hours a week. How can the primary income earner afford to keep his or her family on 30 hours of work a week? I guess the Minister can because actually a Minister does not have to work any hours a week and I would not be surprised if some of them do not work any hours a week. But for a wage earner working 30 hours a week does not provide a living wage if one is the primary income earner for a family. 
The third great leap backwards just in this single clause in Part 1 is the requirement that the job for which the person is being assessed is a real job that exists in New Zealand. Let me give an example of what used to happen and what this legislation says can happen again. In the olden days I used to get people coming into my constituency office saying that they had been assessed as being fit to be a car-park attendant but there is not one single job as a car-park attendant in New Zealand. Another one had been assessed as being competent to be a lift operator. I remember the days when department stores like James Smith’s Kirkcaldie and Stains and Ballantynes in Christchurch had lift operators. I do not know that I went into the lifts in Smith and Caughey’s to be honest. The lift operators would ask people which floor they would like to go to sir or madam and they would push the button. When people arrived at the floor the lift operator would tell them what was on that floor just to make sure people got it right. We do not have those sorts of jobs any more. Having an assessment that says one is fit to be a lift operator means nothing.