Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise today out of my traditional black and into the pink in a way that's shocking my eyeballs all for the effort to counter bullying and I promise to do my best to be kind to everybody in the House today which may be a challenge with some of the speeches. But I will do my absolute best to be consistent with the message of today.So we come to the bill which is the Income Insurance Scheme (Enabling Development) Bill and of course I'm speaking on behalf of the Green Party. The Green Party hasn't made a decision yet similar to the Government interestingly in terms of whether we're going to support the income insurance scheme. We're waiting until we see the details of that scheme before we make a decision. In light of that we are abstaining on this bill today unlike the Government because if the scheme is going to turn into something good we don't want to oppose the work to be able to get that done. But on the other hand actually our concerns as to what was consulted on are really significant and I do want to go into a bit of that today. So we don't actually want to vote in support of something that may be seen to be just kind of saying that we're rolling out the red carpet for it. So I want to start by acknowledging our absolute agreement with the Minister in terms of what we want to see in society and the problems that we see in society at the moment of the disproportional impact of sudden job loss and the profound impact that that is having on individuals and whānau and communities and recognising that we need much better support for people to get into good jobs as opposed to being forced into taking any job. I've had my own personal experience of that of coming back from overseas and not having any money. The last time I'd worked in New Zealand I'd been an executive director of a national organisation; I had no money and I took a job of watching a phone because I just needed some money to be able to pay the bills and I had a job watching a phone. Now I don't think I got paid for it like it was an honest day's work watching that phone. It rang once in the six weeks that I had the job and I told the person that it rang and they answered it. I don't think that was the best use of my skills. Some people in this House may disagree however—Hon Carmel Sepuloni: A lot of people would struggle to do that job.JAN LOGIE: No—some people in this House possibly. However this is the reality when people are facing poverty and struggling to pay the bills—is that they're being forced into taking anything as opposed to going into our income support system and particularly when there is a stand down for people coming overseas or from leaving jobs. And that is not serving anyone I would argue. We also recognise that in a time where we will have to significantly shift our economy from one that is just addicted to fossil fuels to one that is carbon neutral there is going to be a change in our job patterns as there will be with more automation coming into a range of industries. We need to have that structural level of support for the costs of that to be shared across the economy as opposed to being put on to primarily the working people of our country. So we've got agreement on there being some real problems. However in the income insurance scheme as it's been proposed at the moment the things that worry us are around the setting up of a two-tier system and a multiply complex system in fact. Noting that New Zealand is out of step with other countries in not having an income insurance scheme I will note that we have had one historically in the 1930s. I think it was the United Government at the time that set up an income insurance scheme a punitive scheme and we do have a concern that in the system in the proposal as it was there was the provision for sanctions within it. So we do not want to see that replicated. I do note that that scheme was not successful. It was a dismal failure and was replaced by a Labour Government with a comprehensive social security system. I raise my hands for the vision of that which we are yet to achieve in this country. That is the Green Party's goal: recognising we have a responsibility as a country to be able to protect people from this massive churn in our economy that working people are bearing the cost of. But we believe that that is probably best dealt with by a really simple system of a strong social security system with free education and absolute support for people being able to retrain and support to achieve their dreams. We're not convinced that adding another separate system and particularly one that's being potentially run by ACC is the best one. I note the Minister is doing some good work in ACC in terms of shifting some of the culture that has raised concerns right across the country that we've been experiencing for a long time where people talk about the kind of—it feels as if it's just turned into a corporate insurance company that people are having to battle to be able to get their entitlements and that the organisational agency's emphasis is on limiting their liabilities as opposed to supporting people to have the best outcomes and opportunity for rehabilitation and support as the scheme was intended. So part of my concern with this bill today is that we are giving ACC another large job a really significant large job at a time when I feel like they are just starting on a really difficult and challenging programme to turn around that corporate culture to get back to an agency that serves our communities and delivers on the Woodhouse principles. I think that is a massive risk for us as a country to be honest. And there is the chance that when we're seeing in this—and we have to note too that in the regulatory impact statements there's the work around noticing that many of ACC's systems will be the same for this work as they are at the moment and that ACC in terms of technology has introduced this next-generation case management programme that to be honest was supposed to be this amazing thing delivering for clients and providers and improving outcomes but has actually just resulted—in the latest findings or annual report from ACC where provider and businesses were exhibiting low trust in ACC and net trust scores for businesses and providers both declined as did client net trust scores and Māori client net trust scores.So we've seen ACC developing this new technology. They've been trusted to do that and confidence in delivery and staff has gone down and staff turnover has gone up and they are telling us that we're not going to get the potential benefits of that realised for another 10 years. At the same time we are going to be giving them this whole new job of exploring and potentially implementing an income insurance scheme. That for the Greens is quite worrying. I also note that we are expecting the updated report on that process. It was I understand due last week—I was contacted for media comment—and then was delayed until next week.I also understand that next week we'll be getting the report on the privacy breaches and practice within ACC. It feels a bit uncomfortable to be debating this today when that's coming out next week and when we know that this is a lot about information sharing and there have been some very serious concerns around ACC's ability and culture in terms of protecting client information. So again it's a bit worrying but if I'll talk more in the next speech about the specifics of the bill. Thank you.