Collins Judith: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20282] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I am not sure whether Mr Brown is ecstatic over that but I am sure Ms Dyson knows better. In relation to Part 2 I would like to take up the point of my excellent colleague Katherine Rich who reminded us that unfortunately Labour felt the need to throw common sense out the window when it got into Government at the end of 1999 and got rid of any competition in terms of accident compensation. 
During the many debates in relation to accident compensation there is a lot of trouble effort and discourse around the Woodhouse report—a copy of which I just happen to have with me this evening. As I look again through the report I note that it was presented in December 1967 which is almost 40 years ago. As a report it has actually held up very well. But of course the world and New Zealand were very different places in 1967. In 1967 the Woodhouse report talked about housewives and women generally were not upset or insulted at being so referred to and nor should they have been and nor should they be now if they are in fact housewives. But that was a completely different world. The report talks about New Zealand as it was and even under a National Government it was a very socialistic place. Farmers were very protected by the fact that Britain was not with the Europeans. It took all our products. The world was very different in terms of oil prices. The people who had oil in their countries did not go around putting up the prices. There were no problems like that at all. So we could have a rosy view of things. That is why this particular report talks very extensively about a no-fault situation and about how we should not in fact look into how accidents have occurred. 
It is of course that rosy view of the world that has allowed all sorts of silly payments over the years to be made to prisoners who escaped from jail and got injured—thank goodness—and now under this Government we are talking about paying them money because their feelings have been hurt. Who cares frankly if their feelings are hurt because they did not care about the feelings of the people they hurt. But this Government does care. 
This particular report goes on to say that there is no place for private insurance companies in the scheme. Of course that was because in those days—almost 40 years ago—the thought of the private providers providing anything in partnership with a Government was utterly unheard of. The Government was of course doing such things in those days as giving farmers all sorts of subsidies that they did not need to produce stock and all sorts of silly things like that—in fact middle-class welfare which is very much what this Government currently does but of course not to farmers just to others. The farmers are very pleased not to have it because they are proud independent people and do not need middle-class welfare. But this is the sort of provision that we have here where we are in fact harking back to a time of almost 40 years ago and saying that everything is rosy and we do not need to change. 
Yet in our electorate offices we are consistently and constantly hearing complaints in relation to accident compensation either from people who feel they are being badly treated by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) or from employers who are feeling very badly treated by their levies. 
I was in private practice at the stage that the Labour Government changed the rules in accident compensation. I was one of those small-business employers who found that their premiums doubled overnight when I had to go with the Accident Compensation Corporation and could not have a private provider. Many other people found the same. Of course with private providers one does actually have the ability to say that one is a good employer and does not have any injuries and therefore that can be taken into account. 
By using that ideological reason for changing the whole scheme back to the past again instead of looking forward to the future in a positive way in partnership with business—by harking back to “good old 1967”—this Government demonstrates that it simply cannot see its way forward. It still ties itself to the view that all employers are evil that they are trying to rip off their staff and that they would rather have people working in slave conditions. In fact the vast majority of employers—any who want to stay in business in this country—understand that their employees are the most valuable people in their business and they cannot survive without them. They do not need this monopoly.