Soper Lesley: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Soper Lesley: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13960] 
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
: 
 Our world-leading accident compensation scheme was a social contract to provide a universal no-fault accident compensation scheme in this country for which New Zealanders gave up the litigious path of the right to sue and it has very much stood the test of time. I compliment the new Minister for ACC Maryan Street on bringing this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House. It is a far-sighted and significant bill that will further deliver for New Zealanders and I am proud of this bill. 
In contrast to the negative speeches given by the National members who want of course to return to a privatised accident compensation scheme—a National experience that did not work for employers employees or for anyone except the insurers—the Labour Government is committed to having a fair and sustainable accident compensation scheme and to making this scheme more responsive to claimants’ needs because at the end of the day a technical bill which this one is is still delivering to the human stories of the people affected by the legislation we create. I am very sad that National members can come to this House and witter on about their opposition to this bill pretending that this bill is making accident compensation more complicated when in fact they know that this bill is about having an even fairer and more sustainable accident compensation scheme. It is about improving outcomes for injured workers; providing fairer and more straightforward weekly compensation for seasonal and casual employees whether they might be meatworkers farm workers tourism workers care workers or retail workers; making important changes to the cover provisions for work-related gradual process disease or infection; providing cover for clinically significant mental injuries like the train driver whose train hits someone on the tracks or the bank clerk who witnesses a colleague being killed in a bank robbery; and providing the Accident Compensation Corporation with the discretion to extend the current 3-year limit on vocational rehabilitation when claimants need longer periods of rehabilitation. These are all exceptionally important provisions in this bill. None of these provisions or the people who will have their lives improved by them deserve the nonsense of petty opposition that we have heard from the National speakers today. 
I will concentrate particularly on some of the positive aspects of this bill for the benefit of workers whom I have had through my office door and whom I dealt with in my previous life as a union organiser. The first aspect is changes in the area of weekly compensation. The bill provides fairer and more straightforward weekly compensation for seasonal and casual employees and that is a very good thing. There is no doubt that the world of work has changed dramatically and that more people are working part time are moving in and out of employment are self-employed or are in casual or seasonal work. Updating the weekly compensation framework to improve access to weekly compensation changing the way that weekly compensation is calculated for casual and seasonal workers making the assessment for claimants more reasonable and easier to understand allowing easier access to minimum weekly compensation and extending the period of eligibility so that claimants can access weekly compensation if they are injured within 28 days of stopping work and also allowing self-employed people and shareholder employees who are injured during a transition to employee status to be eligible are all positive parts of the bill. So is improving abatement conditions for partially incapacitated workers when they return to work part time. I would ask why the National Party is opposing those very good proposals that increase fairness. Well who knows? I wonder whether the National members themselves know. 
The other positive aspect I want to talk about is the changes the bill introduces to the cover provisions for work-related gradual process disease and infection to ensure that people harmed by their work receive greater access to cover and can have more clarity as to whether cover is available. If people have been clearly harmed in the course of their employment then they should be covered by the accident compensation scheme regardless of whether the injury is the result of accident or occupational illness. The bill makes that philosophy clear. The three-part test set out in section 30(2) of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act is revised in the bill in order to clarify the threshold of allowable non-work exposure and that is a good thing as is some provision for extending eligibility for lump-sum compensation. 
No cover is currently available under the accident compensation scheme for mental injury caused by exposure to a sudden traumatic event in the course of employment. The bill introduces such cover where the traumatic event is significant and is seen heard or experienced by a person directly. Providing that cover will help to ensure appropriate treatment and rehabilitation and an early and sustainable return to work. Again those are all good provisions of this very good bill that I am surprised to hear the National Party opposing. 
Lastly I want to point out how pleased I am to see that the bill introduces a requirement for occupational assessors to consider a person’s pre-injury earnings when identifying suitable future work for claimants. Having worked with those faced with the identification of unsuitable jobs in the past I think this provision is a very important one for a lot of reasons including the full utilisation of retained skills and professional abilities by a great number of those claimants and also because of the injured person’s own self-esteem and the attention we need to pay to that as part of any rehabilitation and return to work process. 
In summing up I say that this is a very good and well-thought-out bill. It is a technical bill and it is also as I said at the start a bill that addresses real human stories that come through the doors of our electorate offices. These are real human stories that my former colleagues as union organisers still experience very often. The bill talks about delivering real improvements for the people involved the people whom we must never forget in a technical bill. I am looking forward to the submissions on this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee of which I am a member and I commend this bill.