Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure—we've finally made it to the third reading. I thank the Minister for ACC for his forbearance—that we have made it to the third reading of the Accident Compensation (Interest on Instalment Plans) Amendment Bill. Labour supports this bill but throughout the process that we've undertaken in discussing this bill at various readings and through the committee stage we have made some observations and comments around some concerns we do have around how this will roll-out in future and I will touch on those shortly.Can I begin though by acknowledging the taonga that ACC is. ACC has been in place for 50 years now. We are very proud as the Labour Party to be the party that introduced the world-leading ACC scheme into New Zealand and we are very very lucky to have it. It does require our ongoing protection; I note that this week we are likely to see the results of consultation over job losses at ACC which on this side of the House does give us some deep concern. On this side of the House we want to see ACC continue to be strengthened to continue to be made fairer and more equitable so that more people are able to access ACC and receive the compensation support and rehabilitation that they deserve.So I will now come to the bill. What the bill does as the Minister has explained is it introduces a regulation-making power that allows ACC to charge debit interest on levies that are paid under instalment plans. Now this particular practice has been in operation for a couple of decades. What has led us to this legislation was that between ACC and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment there were different points of view around the legality of that practice. We've gone into that in quite a bit of detail looking at the Accident Compensation Act to specifically note that the way the law is currently drafted might not quite be tight enough and might expose the Crown to some legal risk.I want to acknowledge previous Ministers for ACC from the Labour Party Carmel Sepuloni and particularly Peeni Henare who had begun some of this policy work and it is good to see this now come through the House. Anything that can expose the Crown to some legal risk obviously does need to be addressed and we accept that.I would say though that as part of that legal risk being addressed the legislation has had to be made retrospective. This is why in the committee of the whole House stage we didn't support part of our friend from the Green Party's suggested amendment because one of the purposes of this legislation is to reduce that risk to the Crown. Unfortunately—and I do say unfortunately—that's meant we've had to apply retrospective legislation. I think the House should always be very very careful when they do choose to do that. I note that the advice from officials was that this piece of legislation had to come through urgency to again avoid legal risk. I guess there could have been an opportunity for a truncated select committee process and that would have given an opportunity to have had some more debate around some of these elements. I think that when members of the public look at what the Parliament is doing and making changes to law that apply for such a broad piece of time I think they're right to query that to put on record that there's a concern. So we in the Labour Party have certainly made our concerns known around that.The other thing that has caused us some concerns and has led to a lot of the follow-on in the committee stage is about the use of secondary legislation. We are seeing under every Government—this isn't a criticism of the Government; this is just an observation—more of a move towards secondary legislation. In the Parliament obviously we make good use of the Regulations Review Committee but I think actually we all need to be mindful of the use of secondary legislation and the limitations that then places on the ability of the Parliament to actually make decisions that we have been elected to do on behalf of people. And that's again not a criticism just an observation and I think something that actually most of us in the House are mindful of. So on that note I do have some concerns around the regulation-making power that might then lead to a higher interest penalty paid by those people who need to access this particular tool.So I will just cover off again quickly why the tool is so useful. When people pay their ACC levies into the worker account you get a bill and you need to pay it all in one go. We have a very large number of small to medium sized enterprises and sole traders in New Zealand. There's a number of people running small businesses a number of people operating on a day-to-day basis as a sole trader. Paying all of your levies in an upfront lump sum - type payment can have a negative impact on cash flow. And we know for those businesses cash is king; having strong cash flow is one of the most critical things to those businesses being able to continue operating.So it is a very pragmatic approach for ACC to say Yes you can pay your levies in an instalment." And that's a good thing to be able to do. It's also not unreasonable for ACC to say "There is a cost to us for doing that because we have the opportunity cost of not receiving that income right at the beginning and there's an administrative cost as well." So I would hope most people in the House would say "That's fair; that's a reasonable approach to take."The question becomes: what is the percentage set at? That is ultimately the question about what is fair. One of the observations I make is that as we see interest rates go up and down that's actually a very important consideration because what you want to do with this particular tool that ACC uses is you want to ensure that the interest rate paid is less than what you would overwise access through another source of finance such as through a bank. You also want to consider the opportunity cost again of potentially having to take the time make an appointment with your bank manager go and have the conversation make a loan application or whatever it might be—all of those things that take time for a small business owner. So all of those things need to be considered. ACC to be fair also has to consider the impact on everybody else who contributes into that worker account and pays the full amount on time—the taxpayer everybody else who contributes into the ACC scheme. It's absolutely fair and reasonable to consider that.So looking back ACC has applied a pragmatic approach in terms of the penalty rates that have been put in place. But my concern—and I've raised it in the final stage of the committee stage—is that there's now going to be the flexibility for the Minister to increase what is currently being paid and that happens through a regulation rather than coming through to the House. I note his comments that there'll be consultation; I think that consultation is absolutely critical. I did ask questions about how that consultation would occur and I didn't get enough detail. Again these are the kinds of things that would actually be explored in great detail if the bill had had the time to come to select committee if select committee members had had the opportunity to actually ask these questions specifically of officials if we'd had the opportunity to have a departmental report explaining how these things would work. All of these things are part of how the Parliament operates that are useful and we haven't been able to do here. So we have explored a lot through the committee stage because of that decision by the Government not to send this to select committee.So I do want to put on record that what I want to see and what Labour wants to see is very robust and strong consultation with those who are affected with those who undertake the use of these instalment plans. We also want to ensure that the rates that are set are fair—that they actually do incentivise people to use the ACC payment plan rather than using a different source of finance to access the cash that is needed to pay the lump sum right when it is due. I don't think those concerns that we've raised are unreasonable. I want to make sure it's there on the Hansard that that's Labour's position. We understand that we do need to implement this legislation; one of the reasons we are supporting it is because we do have to limit any liability to the Crown and Labour is very supportive of that. So thank you Mr Speaker. On that note Labour supports this bill and I commend the bill to the House."