Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14430] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Certainly over the last few years under Labour we have seen some very disturbing trends in the Accident Compensation Corporation portfolio. I look to the non-earners account which has gone up from $500 million in 1999 to $728 million in the current year. Over the same time period we have seen the Labour Government bring in its so-called Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. There is no doubt that everybody is in agreement with the ethos of concentrating on injury prevention and this Government has just said it now spends $48 million per year on injury prevention. But what is the real record of injuries under this Labour Government? The real record is an increase in moderate to severe injuries over the last 4 years despite the increased expenditure and despite the so-called increase in focus on injury prevention. 
We have heard a lot of talk by this Labour Government but have seen absolutely no results in this very important area apart from barmy practices out there on our roads where the Government concentrates very rare police resources to give out fines in low-risk areas and totally neglect high-risk areas. One of the reasons the chief executive officer gave for the increased number of injuries was that more people were surviving traffic accidents. Well that is absolutely pathetic. We see on the one hand this utterly crazy policy of the Labour Government that has police officers concentrated in the low-risk areas of our highways and neglecting the high-risk areas a far higher mortality rate on our roads than we should have—about twice that of Britain—and higher expenditure on injury prevention but we see the number of moderate to severe injuries going up. 
What is more the Labour Government has in its new monopolistic policies brought in industry risk rating. It has totally neglected the hugely important signal of individual risk rating which sends a signal to individuals individual workplaces and employers that absolutely directly brings attention to greater workplace safety early case management and early rehabilitation—the very things that have slowed down under the monopoly that this Labour Government has brought to us with its so-called rehabilitation and compensation Act. 
Let us have a look at long-term claimants. In 1997 there were 30000 of them—hugely important and hugely costly to the Government. Under the National Government that figure had come down to the order of 15000 by the year 2000 and since then it has hardly budged. This year the aim was to bring the figure down by another 500 but the Government achieved something like only 225. Once again if we look at the very basis of the State-run monopolistic system we see there is very little incentive for early case management early rehabilitation and workplace safety. With the introduction of the competition model back in 1999 we saw rapid improvement in all those areas. Despite the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson laughing in her seat she has failed miserably in the basic statistics that are so important to this country and to any accident prevention scheme. She has absolutely failed. There is no doubt that the key to reducing the tail lies in making sure that the signals are realistic ones so that individuals will indeed respond to them.