Little Andrew: 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 
Little Andrew: 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:2905. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. The Accident Compensation Corporation is in the deepest crisis it has been in during its 38 years of existence. It is an absolute disgrace and it is entirely the responsibility of that Government. Two Ministers for ACC have driven the proudest greatest most important institution in this country into the ground. Nick Smith started it when he declared that there was a financial crisis which never existed. He has caused every wage and salary earner and every business in this country to be levied more than $5 billion more than was necessary over the last 3 years to pay for his folly. The Government is so embarrassed about it. It put the levies up in 2009 and had to quickly take them down again just before the election last year.  
But nothing compares to the disaster that has unfolded under the current Minister. What do we have? Breach of privacy after breach of privacy. The Government’s problem was that it got one of its own wrong. It misjudged her. It misjudged Bronwyn Pullar a person whom Nick Smith gave a great reference which caused him to lose his head and it misjudged Michelle Boag—the mighty Michelle Boag. The Government has caused distress and concern to thousands of New Zealanders injured in the course of going about their daily activities whether in work at home on the roads or on the sports fields. They are the people with complex difficult serious injuries who are trying to get support and assistance from ACC. Because of Nick Smith and the directive he has given the board of ACC and because John Judge—whom he specially recruited into the job—gave ACC a directive to cut back cut costs slash and not worry about the difficult cases but get them off ACC’s books as quickly as possible we now have the disaster that is unfolding that is ACC.  
As it has hit the headlines through innocent people like Bronwyn Pullar this Minister has been called on to act and what has she done? What has she done? Very little—very little. She has become the subject of a privacy complaint herself—she and her office—because she cannot be trusted with information that goes to her office and because of that complaint she will not comment on privacy breaches involving the communication between her and Michelle Boag. Then when the heat gets really tough she starts suing her political opponents because that is the best way she knows to shut them down. This is not a Minister for ACC worth speaking of. This is not ministerial conduct that we understand in a Western democracy. This is shocking stuff. If you asked anybody else in the world whether there is a country where a Minister of Justice who is in charge of the courts is using those courts to sue her political opponents you would think we would be talking about somewhere in Africa or maybe a Pacific Island. But we are talking about New Zealand because that is how this Minister deals with a difficult situation.  
The challenge for this Government and its Prime Minister is this: ACC and every claimant under it deserves better. They deserve better. They deserve a Minister who is prepared to give their full-time energy and attention to the job not to suing their political opponents and not to trying to dis the innocent claimants who are just trying to get their just entitlements. We need a Minister who is prepared to do the job of looking after ACC of making ACC the sort of institution that New Zealanders can go back to looking to for support and assistance in their time of need. That is what it was set up for under the Woodhouse principles—the principle of community responsibility. National has turned it into a corporate behemoth. Nick Smith started it Judith Collins has continued it and it is time to have a new Minister who can start afresh give new directions to a new board and start to restore public faith and confidence in ACC.  
National started an ideological change to ACC. ACC was conceived in a spirit of bipartisanship. All parties supported it in 1973 and 1974 when it came about and its board has always reflected a diverse mix. What we have had under this Government is a very narrow range of people who have all come out of the corporate sector and who do not understand the lives of many claimants—those who have brain injuries and complex and serious injuries. We need a new ACC board but most important we need a new ACC Minister who is prepared to give fresh direction and fresh support to a corporation that will start to support and assist New Zealanders when they need it most. What we do not need is a corporation directed by a Government that wants to hike up the levies fleece the wage and salary earners fleece all the businesses extract $5 billion unnecessarily out of their pockets over the last 3 years and cause absolute mayhem. That is what we have now.  
It is sad that someone like Ralph Stewart barely 6 months into the job who brings all his expertise that he brought into the job cannot last cannot stand this Minister and cannot stand what is going on. It is sad that other members of the board who were just starting to make their contributions cannot stand what this Government is doing. It is a disgraceful Government. It has given disgraceful direction to an important institution in this country and it is time it came to an end. Well it is coming to an end because it is unravelling very quickly. They are all leaving like rats leaving the proverbial sinking ship.  
But it all starts at the top and the real top—the real top—is the Minister. The Minister sets the direction. This Government says what happens with ACC. It sets the policy it approves the levies and it decides what happens. We need a Minister now who is focused on the needs of ACC and the people who depend upon it the people who come to it when they are injured at work the people who come to it when they are injured in their cars on the roads and on the sports field. These people should not have to go through hoops and should not have to be treated as something to be managed off a difficult list or a long-term list. People are entitled to be treated with dignity and all around the country I doubt whether there is one MP who is not getting emails and correspondence from the people who have been hurt by ACC under this Government and who have been hurt by its tawdry nasty filthy little strategy of trying to fleece people and get people to lose their entitlements. People deserve better they are asking for better and now is the time to get better.  
The challenge to the Government is this: a new Minister a new direction a new policy and a new culture that says we are here to support people in their time of difficulty and need. Yes let us examine the claims as they come in but let us support people at the time when they need it most. Let us make sure that ACC’s money is not being spent on public relations companies and polling because that is all this Government knows how to do. When it gets in a scrape it goes to the pollsters to find out what is going on. Let us have a corporation an Accident Compensation Corporation that spends its money on the people. That is what the Act says it is required to do: levy people and spend money on their compensation and their medical care and treatment. That is what it is there for. It is not there as a plaything for National Government Ministers to play their ideological games and suffer their ideological bent. [ 
Interruption 
] There is “Mr $5 Billion”—that is his contribution to New Zealand’s economic development in the last 3 years. He fleeced New Zealand of $5 billion over-levied them and in a pique of embarrassment just before the election he realised he had overshot and had to reduce the levies. He has fleeced New Zealanders.  
It is no wonder that ACC is in the state it is. Why would you if you were on the board of ACC and why would you if you were a senior staff member of ACC look to this Government for a sense of confidence direction integrity and reliability? It cannot offer it. It has not offered it for the last 3½ years. It cannot offer it now. This is an opportunity for one of the bright young stars on the backbench of the National Government. Maybe even Simon Bridges himself could step up and say that he takes ACC seriously—that he takes ACC seriously and he wants ACC to return to the time when it was an institution that every New Zealander looked to an institution to rely on to trust and to go to when they were in their time of need as a result of an injury caused by an accident.  
This Government is failing ACC. Every plan that it has had that it called an improvement it has failed to prosecute. It invited the insurance companies to take over but the insurance companies were not interested. It wanted to expand its accredited employer scheme but it cannot do it. It has not done it. This is a do-nothing Minister with a department a corporation that is in urgent need of attention. She has wrapped herself up in legal knots with privacy complaints and with her own litigation against her political opponents and she has compromised herself. She is unable to do anything effectively as a Minister. She should do the honourable thing. She should go to John Key this afternoon and say: “You know what Prime Minister? Andrew Little is right. I can’t do the job any more”— 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: You were quite happy to quote how right I was before! She should say that Andrew Little is right and say: “Prime Minister find somebody else who’s up for the job.” It will not be Nick Smith and it will not be Judith Collins. It will not be Steven Joyce because he has got another big ministry to run. But it might be one of the talented ones at the back there. It might be one of the talented ones at the back there who actually believes in accident compensation who believes that when New Zealanders are injured at work on the roads or on the sports fields they are entitled to get the no-fault support that ACC guaranteed them year after year. That is what we are looking for in a Minister: not the last two—not this one and the last one—but a Minister who cares about ACC cares about the people who depend upon it and wants to make a culture difference in it which so far they have not been able to do.  
While they are at it making the culture difference they can start looking to some of the worst victims of the changes in ACC—those who are victims of sexual abuse who have had their counselling support taken off them snatched off them in many cases when they need it most and the ones who have had their privacy breached and their details disclosed. All that the Government can do is stand aside and let the Privacy Commissioner sort it out. The Government knows that that is wrong. It knows that those people are owed an apology but it knows above all that they are owed the support that they were entitled to get as victims of sexual abuse. That is another culture change that the Government can make when it gets a new Minister a real Minister for ACC who cares about ACC and the people who depend upon it and who will do something about it.  
The Government can also make sure that when people need their hernia operations and when older workers turn up with their back injuries and their other orthopaedic concerns they are not going to be told that it is the ageing process but that they are genuine injuries and they are entitled to the support of ACC. It can make sure that they are not going to be kicked around like a football and kicked off a list to suit a Minister’s fantasyland targets but that they are actually going to get the treatment that they deserve. This is the ACC that has been the backbone of a good safe healthy New Zealand for the last 38 years and we want it back. We want it back—we want it back.  
I am saying to that Government and to those Ministers in whatever portfolio on behalf of the thousands of New Zealanders who are writing to me contacting me and saying they have been done over by ACC and they cannot get treated with dignity and respect by ACC—I am saying this to you on behalf of them—that now is your chance to make a change. Now is your chance to do something decent for good hard-working New Zealanders who look to nothing else but the support and the assistance of ACC when they need it. Now is the time to make a change.  
Even Paula Bennett could do something. She could ditch her other portfolio because she is making a hash of that. Young unemployment—there are tens of thousands of young workers who are out of work because she cannot get off her chuff and do anything about it. Maybe she could do something decent with ACC—maybe she could do something decent with ACC. But do not give it to Nick Smith “Mr $5 Billion” and do not give it to Judith Collins who has wrapped herself up and cannot do anything any more. Give it to someone—even Jonathan Young. He has got a smile on his face because he thinks he is in line for a promotion. Even Jonathan Young would do a better job. At least that man of the cloth has got a sense of compassion. Put him in charge because he will do a better job than the current Minister and the last Minister. That is what New Zealanders are looking for that is what they need and that is what they are entitled to have.  
ACC is too important. ACC is too important to let this lot muck around with it and stuff it up. They have gone far enough—they have gone far enough. Their board has told them that their senior management has told them that and now is the time for a change. Start afresh. Start afresh with a new Minister a new culture and a new instruction and give us back the good old ACC that cared about people that looked after people and that gave them the care they needed when they needed it. That is what we are looking for.  
We have come to the end of the road now Minister. The Minister knows we are at the end of the road. She has prevaricated obstructed and avoided as long as she can. She cannot avoid it any more. Her board has deserted her. The senior management is deserting her. It is time she went and it is time the Prime Minister took action put somebody else in charge gave us a decent ACC and gave those thousands of people who have been writing to us in their droves in the last 3 months a chance. It is time to give them hope and to give them a chance to get the care and support they need which ACC was set up for. We do not need surpluses of $3.5 billion; we need a robust sensible organisation that can do the job focus on people and look after people above all—above all. If we are to give those people hope and the treatment and the care they need it will happen only when we have a decent Minister: a Minister who understands accident compensation understands the original social contract understands no-fault and understands that people need help when they are most in distress.