Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:637;Page:7782] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 That was an appalling contribution from the Minister for ACC Ruth Dyson who is no more than an apologist for the State-owned monopoly agency the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). This bill does nothing more than legalise stealing from both the employers’ account and the self-employed work account and I will seek to explain that point further. 
First of all today Treasury released the 6-month account to December of the Government account. Once again that account recorded an operating surplus that was $1 billion up on the forecasts. But Treasury went on to say that most of the extra money could not be spent because the surplus was mainly due to increases in investment return from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund the Government Superannuation Fund and ACC. Actually that additional contribution from ACC amounted to $254 million. How appropriate it is for Treasury to go on to say in its press statement that those entities will hold on to any gains that are made. 
Let us now come back to ACC. Apart from holding on to that $254 million it is holding on to a $688 million surplus in the employers’ account which represents a 63 percent margin. It is also holding on to the $60 million surplus that is in the self-employed work account before it is merged which is a 20 percent margin. Even the Minister herself said that ACC wanted eventually to operate to an 11 percent margin on the account. But before the merger it insists that the surplus margin needs to stay at 53 percent so that in future it can make rebates to those people. But why in future? Which other entity in New Zealand has the luxury of taxing people holding on to the surplus and not paying interest? Even the Inland Revenue Department would pay interest on the use of taxpayers’ overpayment of tax—it would rebate that. 
This illogical ridiculous stance of ACC and the Minister seeks to penalise those hard-working self-employed people because for the next 2 years they will be asked to front up with the additional $100 million so that their account which sits at a 20 percent margin will go up to a 53 percent margin. How logical is that? Well let me give the public and those poor self-employed people in the meat industry a taste of what is to come for them in the next 2 years. Self-employed people in the meat industry if there were to be no merger would have to pay a levy of only $6.57 per $100. I ask members to guess how much they pay—[ 
Interruption 
] Well I am glad that Mr Peter Brown is at last speaking up on behalf of those self-employed people! He supported that—he thought that the rate of $6.57 was too expensive. But I ask members to guess what he did. He supported this bill so that that rate could go up to $8.83 per $100. I am looking forward to those poor self-employed people in the meat industry knocking on the doors of New Zealand First members’ electorate offices and asking them who put them into Parliament so that they could penalise those hard-working self-employed people. 
How illogical this bill is which the Minister insists is helping the self-employed! The Meat Industry Association wants an answer from the Minister which is still to come. It pointed out that under this bill members of the Meat Industry Association would have to pay an additional $360000 for the next 2 years though past history has shown that claims are only $25000. So I am really looking forward to Mr Peter Brown of New Zealand First who has no sympathy and no empathy for hard-working self-employed people taking a call to justify his party’s position. 
It is outrageous for this Government and the parties that support the passage of this bill to impose on the one hand a surcharge of $100 million on the self-employed and on the other hand to hold back the $688 million surplus from the employers’ account contributors. I proposed a sensible amendment during the Committee stage. ACC says it wants to achieve a margin of only 11 percent. I was being conservative; as a National member I feel apologetic towards my colleagues for saying that ACC might get it wrong so we should give it a 9 percent additional margin. 
 So my amendment is to bring down the employers’ account to a 20 percent margin and still allow ACC a 9 percent leeway which means that employers should be entitled to a $500 million rebate—which is their money. At the same time that sensible amendment would have meant that self-employed people would not be penalised for the additional $100 million. 
I want to acknowledge Mr Gordon Copeland and the whole United Future party. They at least came to this Parliament to stand up for their supporters hard-working self-employed people. They support that sensible amendment. 
The other sensible amendment that I have moved is to defer the passage of this bill until April 2009 for a very good reason. New Zealand would then have a National Government which would have a Minister like myself who would not make apologies for ACC and who would make that State monopoly agency work for the people—not like the Minister says hold on to confiscate and steal those surpluses so that ACC can feel comfortable in case it gets the calculation wrong. That is why my diligent and intelligent colleague Dr Paul Hutchison also asked why ACC cannot subject itself to an independent team to look at the way it arrives at those levies. After all the corporation has a history of building up those reserves. The difference between National and Labour is that we are on the side of hard-working New Zealanders and we oppose the passage of this bill.