Bennett David: Urgent Debates Declined — Skycity Convention Centre—Inquiry into Expressions of Interest Process; Urgent Debates — Accident Compensation Corporation—Resignations 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bennett David: Urgent Debates Declined — Skycity Convention Centre—Inquiry into Expressions of Interest Process; Urgent Debates — Accident Compensation Corporation—Resignations 
[Sitting date: 13 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2920. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 Just following on from that speech from Nick Smith I think we need to look at what ACC is there for. It is actually there for people in need. It can happen to anybody at any time of their life that something can go wrong and there can be an accident and you need that support from the Government to be there in that time. Nobody would wish on any person that they have to go into a situation where they need ACC’s support. ACC has been a flagship for the New Zealand economy and for our Government over many years in terms of how we deal with these issues. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Who wrote this? 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Who wrote this speech? That is a typical line from New Zealand First. We always get that. That is Winston Peters’ interruption line is it not? We are looking forward to some better lines as we go through the speech. ACC is there for a genuine purpose. It is to deal with a genuine issue that can happen to anybody.  
When we came into Government there was a world recession. What was there in the world recession? There was a loss on a lot of sharemarkets around the world. And what does ACC invest a lot of its funds in? Sharemarkets around the world. The previous Minister for ACC Nick Smith was quite right in detailing those figures of the losses because they reflected two major things. First the world sharemarket had declined. The US market for example was nearly half its value from its peak a year before that. That value loss was directly going through into the ACC books and there was a major loss that we encountered in ACC when we took over that institution. Nobody could have predicted how that would have returned or what would have happened but we need to get it back on track.  
The second thing was that under previous administrations ACC had changed from its fundamental purpose. The Woodhouse principles were still enshrined but they had been developed to take into account political payments for vestiges that the previous Government had found in its political mandate. It went out there and offered a lot of services that were beyond the original ACC scheme. So we had two things that we encountered when we took over ACC. It had losses from its share investments and it was spending things that were outside the original principles of what ACC was set up for. We had to change those and get them right. That was important. It was very important—when you sat in this House when you sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and you looked at ACC. The National Party and the Labour Party had agreement. The only party that was here that was not in agreement necessarily was the Green Party. Everybody else saw the need to get ACC fully funded so that it could survive by itself in the future. That deadline of 2017 was approaching very quickly and if we had not made those changes then that possibility of a self-funding approach to ACC could have been missed.  
The Greens did not want to do that. The Greens did not want to have a self-funding ACC; they wanted an ACC where you just tax people and pay for it over time. They did not care about the losses that were growing; they just saw it as something in the future. The New Zealand First Party bless its soul was not even here at that time. I do not know why. [ 
Interruption 
] Tell us why? I think it had something to do with an election did it not? Its members did not even have a voice at the table let alone being able to say what they thought. But the Labour Party and the National Party both agreed that we could see the future for ACC but it was a future where we had to see it funded in a way that was good. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member but I think there has been a Speaker’s ruling in the past—it might have been before the last election—about the inappropriateness of members moving around the Chamber to follow the camera. I think it was in relation to Hekia Parata. I note that Maggie Barry is doing that today. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no that is a frivolous interjection. It can lead to disorder and the member knows it. He is a most experienced member of Parliament and a stickler for the Standing Orders. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: I say to that member over there that the only day the cameras are going to go on him is if he makes a point of order. We have got lovely members over here and the cameras follow our members because they are much more lovely than what we have over there. They have to fall off a bike or do something like that to get the cameras on them. Trevor Mallard did not want to hear the words: “Labour agreed with National on the future of ACC.” That is why he brought up that point of order. He knew that Labour agreed with us. They are very quiet now. They are very quiet because they know in their hearts that they wanted the same things. They saw the future of ACC because when we go back to it ACC is there for the benefit of New Zealanders and that is what we are delivering with a strong ACC.