Brown Peter: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20337] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The young member did not take a long call and as usual he got most of it wrong. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh grandad! 
PETER BROWN 
: I am a grandad and I am proud of it. If that member carries on the way he is going he will not live long enough to become one. I want to correct the member who has just resumed his seat: HIH in Australia did run into big trouble but my understanding is that the business it operated here was purchased and that there has not been a single problem. So for the member to imply that HIH’s problems in Australia affected New Zealanders— 
Darren Hughes 
: It was only going for 6 months. 
PETER BROWN 
: I know it was going for only 6 months. The member stood up and said that HIH had big problems but it did not run into problems in New Zealand. That is my understanding and I will willingly apologise if the member proves me wrong. Will that member apologise if I prove him wrong? No he will not. 
Darren Hughes 
: Wait until I make a mistake and then say “Tut tut!”. 
PETER BROWN 
: The arrogance of the Government member is beyond belief. This legislation should have come in in 2000 when the Government turned accident compensation back into a monopoly. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: We were busy. 
PETER BROWN 
: That member was not busy. I met with that member and Lianne Dalziel in that member’s office and she turned me down absolutely flat. 
Darren Hughes 
: What about the ACC bill? 
PETER BROWN 
: She turned me down on that as well. I should stop—I am ruining my reputation! This is a serious bill—never mind the hilarity on the Government side. This legislation should have come in years ago. How does one justify a person who is in many respects fit and well going into hospital to have an operation and coming out— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Ha ha! 
PETER BROWN 
: The member laughs but in some cases such people are stuffed for life. Some of these people have come to talk to me. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Name them. 
PETER BROWN 
: I would name them. I am prepared to name one in particular privately to the member if he so desires but I am not prepared to name them in public. They do not deserve that treatment on top of the way the Government has treated them. 
This sort of legislation should have been addressed a few years ago—6 years ago. The Government honoured the promise I suppose—if that is the way to see it—of turning accident compensation workplace insurance back into a monopoly. It should have embraced medical misadventure—people who suffer from a doctor’s muck-up or for some other reason when they go for treatment. One should note that people who work in hospitals—nurses doctors cleaners and catering people—are covered by workplace insurance. Why are the patients not covered? Well they will be when this bill is passed. It has taken the Minister and the Government 5 years to address that issue. 
I have to say that although New Zealand First is supporting this bill we are disappointed on a number of counts. I want to raise one in particular. My colleague Barbara Stewart raised it I think at the select committee and raised it further in the House here and to her credit the Greens picked it up— 
Sue Kedgley 
: We picked it up from the beginning. 
PETER BROWN 
: Oh is that right? Well Barbara Stewart was the first to mention it to me and I have to give her credit but I do not want to take anything away from the member if she picked it up. She did show the initiative to produce a clause that would have addressed the issue. 
Do members believe it is fair that if a person who needs hospital treatment or medical treatment is told: “Sorry you’re not going to get it because we haven’t got enough money.” and as a result gets a lot worse there is no compensation under this legislation? I know that United Future will say that that is not an injury. Well excuse me I think it is pretty much an injury if one goes from being moderately sick moderately injured or moderately whatever to being a darn sight worse because one does not get treatment owing to there being no money. I would say that that is very much an injury. I regret that nobody apart from New Zealand First supported the Greens’ amendment which would have addressed that issue. ACT and National were honest enough to say they did not support it because it would cost too much. United Future—well I cannot work out those members. 
I cannot work them out on another issue. United Future MP Judy Turner raised the concern about acupuncturists. Pansy Wong presented a solution and United Future voted against it. 
Judy Turner 
: It was not a solution. 
PETER BROWN 
: I cannot work that out. The Minister said that the Government voted it down because it agreed with Judy Turner of United Future. But United Future voted it down because the Government said: “We want you to vote it down.” 
Judy Turner 
: No. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is all part of the supply and confidence carry-on that goes on in the smokeless rooms behind the scenes. 
Judy Turner 
: Get on with your reasoning. 
PETER BROWN 
: My reasoning? I am glad the member has brought that up. I am trying to work out where United Future stands on these sorts of issues because its members make plenty of noise outside the House but nothing in here. It is “Roll over Rover!” when it comes to doing something in this House. That is a disappointment because we thought the Pansy Wong solution addressed the problem very very well. It was only United Future’s vote that stopped it from going through; it would have been a positive move in the right direction. 
Since the Government has been in power it has mucked around with accident compensation legislation. I think this bill is the third attempt; it is called the No. 3 bill so logically it is the third attempt. But still the Government has not got it right. [ 
Interruption 
] I can see that the member over there is very interested. The Government still has not addressed the problem of a person who is injured while working as a casual employee. He or she gets peanuts. The person might well be a student who had a great career ahead of him or her but that person gets peanuts for the rest of his or her life. But if the employer says: “Look I’m employing students young people who have a future in this country”— 
Judy Turner 
: Read the bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: I have read the bill. Why does the member not listen for a little while? She might learn something. If the employer says: “I want fixed-income insurance; in other words I want to insure these people …”—because that is what we are talking about; nobody uses the term “insurance” now as it is not politically correct. 
Heather Roy 
: We do. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes that member does but that member is not very politically correct is she? So nobody uses that term if they are politically correct. This bill is an insurance bill. If an employer says: “Look I want to insure my people—fixed-income insurance. Should there be an accident I want them to know exactly what they are going to get in the future.” what does the Accident Compensation Corporation tell them? “Go and talk to the private insurers.” That is what the corporation tells those employers. It does not take on that sort of risk. It deals with casual workers by using some convoluted sort of formula in this bill which Judy Turner was talking about but the corporation will not take on fixed-income insurance no matter what. The corporation will not even consider it. It demands a monopoly and the Government gives it a monopoly but it will not take the risk of doing what the employers or the organisations want. That is unfair. 
What is the answer? Well the answer is to read New Zealand First’s accident compensation policy. Accident compensation needs a dose of competition in its ranks. That does not mean we want to carve it up as possibly our National Party colleagues want to do and as they did before and have six or seven private insurers in the field. It does not mean that at all. 
Hon Taito Phillip Field 
: You were part of that. 
PETER BROWN 
: No we were not part of that. I cannot give members a history lesson. We were not part of that. It did not go ahead with us. We voted against it because we thought it was too rushed and done too quickly. [ 
Interruption 
] I agreed with having a degree of competition. I have only 2 minutes left but let me tell the members over there that the people who came to the select committee who had been insured by private insurers said almost without exception how well that system had worked. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: You agreed with that. 
PETER BROWN 
: We agree that there has to be a degree of competition in workplace insurance and if the member cares to read our accident compensation policy he will learn a lot. Mind you when one starts with an empty barrow it does not take much to fill it. 
Darren Hughes 
: The premiums are lower now under this scheme. Does the member oppose that? 
PETER BROWN 
: If it was opened up a little bit for competition and an employer was allowed to say: “Look I want to use a certain insurance company and I want to offer my people workplace insurance and health insurance as well.” the private insurers would take it on. If they do not there will not be a market for it.