Moroney Sue: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): I rise now to debate Part 2 of the bill. You have just heard the Labour Party vote against Part 1. It is against our instincts to do so but we just cannot back up that part without that amendment being put in place. It is sad to see that there are a few parties that think it is all OK to use ACC levies for whatever purpose they see fit but that is not the view of the Labour Party. We will be supporting Part 2 wholeheartedly and that is because it actually exposes the way that the New Zealand public was misled by the National Government when it came into office and claimed that there was a funding crisis in ACC. That is what it claimed just 7 years ago and yet in Part 2 of this bill we are allowing flexibility for the residual levy to be taken off prematurely because things have gone so well Dr Smith.It was Nick Smith who tried to convince the country otherwise. He tried to claim that there was a funding crisis when this Government took over but here is the truth and this Part 2 exposes it. In 1999 what happened was that the Government of the day decided to move to a pay-as-you-go model—that is it was actually paying for the levies—[Interruption] Mr Chair this is about the residual levy and the history of how it was put in place—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes and—SUE MORONEY: The residual levy.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Right. The member did see me indicating that she should come to Part 2 of the bill. There is nothing historical in this. We have had our second reading debate. This is a narrow technical area to do with residual levies. There are matters that can be debated but this is about 2019 or some other date in the future and we cannot rehearse the history of ACC over the past decade.SUE MORONEY: Thank you Mr Chair. It is therefore going to be a bit difficult for the public to follow what the residual levy was put in place for but it was designed for a full-funding model and that is why when the National Government came in it tried to claim that there was a funding crisis. In fact it was going to take us—and we knew this—until 2019 to get to full funding and that is the purpose of the residual levy.So the fact that this part says that actually things have gone so well within ACC that it looks likely—and the Minister announced today that it looks very likely—that the residual levy will come off early just goes to show how misleading that whole debacle was. Nick Smith is agreeing now. He is agreeing now that about 7 years ago he misled the New Zealand public. We agree that if there is no need to keep the residual levy in place there should be flexibility to cease the operation of that levy prior to 2019. The Minister has indicated that that is going to be next year and we look forward to seeing that.However one of the consequences of this which it is important for the public listening to this debate to understand is that overall this is not actually going to mean a reduction in the ACC levies that are being paid in order to keep all of our accounts in good health—the work account the earners account the motor vehicle account. What it does is it simply readjusts what was a temporary situation that was created in 1999 based on the injuries and accidents that needed to be fully funded at that time and brings it forward into the modern day. So the impact of that will be that some companies and businesses will pay higher ACC levies than they are paying now particularly if they are in an industry or a sector that has had a lot more injuries and accidents in recent years than it did prior to 1999. Those companies and those businesses will in fact get an increase in their ACC levies. The ones that will get a reduction are the ones that have improved their safety record since 1999. They are the ones that are set to reap the benefits of this legislation because the residual levy will be removed.So my very strong hope for this is that if Part 2 is voted through and I anticipate that it will be when we make that adjustment and we decide which companies—