Smith Lockwood: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:5059] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 I take no pleasure in speaking on the introduction of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I would have thought that a Government should be damned well ashamed of itself to come into this House and increase the Accident Compensation Corporation levy on petrol from 2.3c per litre to 5.08c per litre. That is a huge increase in that levy—or tax—on the public of New Zealand. What was so pathetically absurd in the contribution of the co-leader of the Green Party Jeanette Fitzsimons was that she thinks the way to provide more service is to increase the spending. It is the way the Green Party thinks. It has no idea of how one actually runs a business or an organisation. 
The first thing that should happen is that the Accident Compensation Corporation should have to deliver some efficiency instead of automatically coming to the Government when there are a few more costs and saying that it wants more money. Of course the reason that the Accident Compensation Corporation can come to the Government and simply say that it wants more money is that that Labour Government has renationalised the Accident Compensation Corporation. It is under no threat from this Government. No matter how inefficient it is and no matter how big a monopoly the Accident Compensation Corporation becomes this Government will say: “Yes we’ll enable you to levy more charges on the poor people of New Zealand with this legislation.” 
The increase is more than the total of the old levy: it is 2.78c per litre. The old levy was only 2.3c per litre. Motorists will have to pay almost 3c per litre more on their petrol when this bill goes through and Labour thinks that is great. 
What has become of that once great Labour Party which used to care about the working-class people in this country who have to use petrol to get around? It is going to slug those people another 2.78c per litre. It all goes back to the problem that Ruth Dyson as the Minister for ACC and her cronies in this Labour-led Government said they cannot have competition in the Accident Compensation Corporation or efficiencies or better services delivered through competition. They said they would re-establish a monopoly. We all know what happens when there are big monopolies. They become very inefficient and costs go up. 
Look what has happened. All we have seen since competition was wiped out of the Accident Compensation Corporation is that the self-employed workers levy has gone up 40 percent the wage-earners levy has gone up 10c to $1.20 per $100 of income—an almost 10 percent increase—and the motorbike registration levy has increased significantly. There was a 57 percent increase in the motorbike registration levy. Previously the car ownership levy increased by 14 percent and now there is a further increase in the petrol levy—all because we have a monopoly. It is a monopoly where competitive efficiency is impossible. The only answer the Government which refuses to allow competition in the system has is more taxes and more levies on the public. 
I draw the attention of the Minister who introduced this bill to the requirement of a regulatory impact and business compliance costs statement to accompany all legislation introduced into this House. The Hon Ruth Dyson is not without some intelligence. Some of the Ministers on the Government side of the House are short a few quid upstairs but the Hon Ruth Dyson has— 
Hon David Carter 
: A sandwich short of a picnic. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: She does have a couple of neurons upstairs. I know that. I want her to look seriously at this regulatory impact and business compliance costs statement and to tell this House through the course of the debate on the passage of this legislation whether she genuinely considers that that is a thorough cost-benefit analysis. I draw her attention to the statement of the net benefit of the proposal on page 7 of the explanatory note. That statement acknowledges that there is a 25 percent increase in the costs. It states that that has been assessed through assessment of the various components of the account. 
What we do not see here is anything about the costs on the economy that the increase in the petrol levy will impose. It should have been possible to estimate the increase in transport costs. It ought to have been possible to estimate for example the increase in costs for the export sector in getting products to the wharves. It ought to have been possible to get the increase in costs to our education sector. It ought to have been possible to get the increase in costs to our elderly retired folk. It ought to have been possible to itemise in that statement of net benefit the actual cost to the economy of this very significant increase in the cost of petrol through that levy. 
That is what a cost-benefit analysis is all about and we see nothing of it. We talk about what we see in the business compliance cost statement which states that the various options that were explored have costs and benefits. The following impacts can be anticipated to varying degrees. There has been no attempt to quantify the effects on the wider economy. There has been no attempt to quantify the drop in petrol consumption. It might be a positive thing for the environment if less petrol were consumed. It is a totally inadequate cost-benefit analysis in relation to this legislation. It allocates no costs to any of the impacts. I believe that when the Government through this legislation is imposing a more than doubling of the petrol levy on the New Zealand public there should be an assessment of the wider costs to the economy. 
That is simply not good enough for a Minister like the Hon Ruth Dyson. A Minister with her tertiary qualifications—and we are not talking about some hopeless Minister here—ought to be able to make sure that a bill she introduces has an adequate cost-benefit analysis. By any assessment it is a woefully inadequate cost-benefit analysis. 
I come back to the point where I started in this debate. Before levies are imposed on the public when there is a monopoly administration system like the accident compensation scheme in New Zealand the Government has a responsibility to the public to make sure that every possible mechanism is used to introduce efficiency into that system. This Labour Government has done exactly the opposite. It has rebuilt the Accident Compensation Corporation into a huge monopoly the efficiency of which it is now impossible to measure because there is no competitive mechanism to measure it. 
Darren Hughes 
: How come premiums have come down? 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: The junior member Darren Hughes says that levies have come down. He should tell the truth in this Parliament. Under his Government accident compensation levies continue to go up. As I said before levies for self-employed workers have gone up wage earners levies have increased the motorbike registration levy has gone up and it is serious for businesses around the country as well as for motorists. Under this Government accident compensation levies continue to go up because we have a monopoly. We have an inefficient empire running the Accident Compensation Corporation and this legislation is just feeding an inefficient bureaucratic empire. We are totally opposed to it.