Parker David: General Debate 
Parker David: General Debate 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 All that I would say to Mr Williamson is that he has forgotten the ABC of politics; he should be addressing cost of living issues—[ 
Interruption 
]—cost of living issues and then cost of living issues. 
I will talk about a subset of those cost of living issues being one of the imposts upon New Zealanders coming up on 1 July which is the increase in accident compensation levies that we are all facing in this country. These increases were over-egged by the Government last year as a consequence of its members’ claims of a crisis in the accident compensation scheme. They were telling everyone in New Zealand that the scheme was fundamentally broken that some significant changes were needed in order to justify their plans to both cut cover and privatise parts of the scheme. But under the cover of that they could not really go through with it without hyping the financial problems that they said the accident compensation scheme had. They talked about billions of dollars of extra liability much of which was caused by the financial crisis decreasing the rates of return on investments. As a consequence of the claimed problems in accident compensation they had to go through with it and they had to put up everyone’s accident compensation levies. 
Tomorrow accident compensation levies go up for New Zealanders. Everyone who owns a car will see their registration fee go up by $30 per annum. That is $30 more for the accident compensation levy on one’s car. The levy that one pays as an earner will go up for every $100 of earnings. That has been $1.70 up until now but that is going up to $2 per every $100 of earnings—an increase of closer to 20 percent than 10 percent. These are very significant increases ahead of the rate of inflation. I ask whether they were needed. No they were not needed. We heard from Dr Smith last week at a select committee that the Accident Compensation Corporation miraculously is projected to have a surplus of $2 billion this year—not next year; $2 billion surplus this year. That is a $2 billion surplus this year. That is much better than the Minister had everyone believing at the end of last year when he set these levies. As a consequence they have pushed the levies higher than they needed to push them. 
So for everyone in New Zealand who owns a car whether a business or a private person his or her registration fee for each and every car will go up by $30. If he or she owns a motorbike it is even worse. If it is a motorbike the increase for the owner is between $70 and $170 a year. Those increases would not have needed to be so high if the Minister had not so exaggerated his claims as to problems in accident compensation. In order to justify those outrageous claims of insolvency and the other claims he made let us not forget that he said that the scheme was insolvent. On his measure of insolvency it has never been solvent since the day it started. He asserted that until it had a fully funded book until it had enough assets on its book to pay the whole-of-life cost of all claims on the books it was insolvent. He is now claiming that they have made enormous progress in the last year that it is now financially stable—those are both statements he made—and that it is on track to make a $2 billion surplus this year. Not next year; this year. 
So I ask why these exaggerated increases in the accident compensation scheme levies are being foisted upon the public. It is to make the accident compensation scheme unpopular. That is really what the Government wants. It wants people to think that the scheme is so fundamentally expensive and broken that it can justify its plans to change it. It wants people to not be concerned about accident compensation being privatised. It wants people to put up with the decreases in the scope of cover that are coming through. Some of these things are patently unjust like how virtually no people are getting counselling approved for sexual abuse. The rate of approval is down by more than 80 percent. That is patently unfair. There are increased rates of people being turned down for operations on their shoulder and other things. There are more costs being put on people for hearing aids. Everywhere in the accident compensation scheme the Government is getting meaner. In addition to that it is putting up everyone’s levies. So one is paying more but getting less. That has been because the Minister exaggerated the woes of the scheme.