McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution tonight on the Accident Compensation (Interest on Instalment Plans) Amendment Bill. As my colleague Camilla Belich has just noted I suppose I don't think that the Minister Matt Doocey necessarily thought that during this urgency period that this was going to be his major piece of work. I'm sure he's got more up his sleeve as we as we go through as we go through. But nevertheless as previous speakers have said and stated. Labour will be supporting this bill because it is needed. It's a technical bill that fixes up some stuff and that's important to do. That is what we are here for after all.As Rachel Boyack noted who's our spokesperson for ACC and I know is quite passionate about the ACC portfolio and has lots of interesting stories to tell about all of the intricacies of ACC legislation. But it is a taonga and we do have to do our best to make sure that it's fit for purpose; that it's in good shape; it's raring to go; and it's able to do and provide the services and the assurances and the safety nets and all of the wonderful things that it does for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.So it's important for us here tonight to ensure that it is compliant that it's doing its job and as people have also alluded to it's also important given that we're now doing it—in urgency—that we get it right. So there will be some questions through the committee stage. If we're going to have a look at something it's important whilst it's in front of us that we take the opportunity to make sure that we go through several of the issues that have been highlighted in the regulatory impact statement and raise them with the Minister tonight and give us some peace of mind that we've done our job properly to make sure that that's all good.Now as Camilla Belich also mentioned when you look at a regulatory impact statement—and we haven't had a lot of time to do so—one of the first things you notice of is if there is some difference of opinions between bodies. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and ACC obviously have some differing views but as the Minister has pointed out that's not uncommon when an organisation has been used to doing something a certain way and then it's pointed out to them that they may have a somewhat different interpretation of the way that they've applied the legislation that they act under.But essentially it is our job to ensure that the ACC levy collection power is fit for purpose. It's an important power that they have because it's an important programme that's in place. Businesses—be they small large sole traders individuals all sorts of people—I think in a modern world need to be able to take advantage of an instalment payment plan because that makes sense. We just need to make sure that it doesn't come at a cost to ACC.Looking at the regulatory impact statement as I said MBIE's recommendation was the option that obviously has been taken because it provides the clarity that we're looking for and it kind of promotes the fairness between the levy payers because if you're able to—well it validates and makes it compliant. But part of paying something by instalment means that you haven't had to make those up-front costs so it's important that the people who choose to not make the payments and not use instalments aren't—that there's fairness and equity amongst those two options. So I think that that's fair enough as well.MBIE also recommends that the past practice of charging the instalment plan fees as part of that debit interest charge is retrospective. I can see where people are coming from—it's almost an automatic sensitivity we have to anything that has the word retrospective" in it because it's something that we should be in tune to. We know that nine times out of 10 it's not necessarily something that is good and it can lead to outcomes that are not as good as we might hope for but sometimes actually it's really sensible. I think that when we get into committee stage there will be people that want to talk about that a little bit more—not necessarily to disagree with it but to make sure that we're all on the same page and we understand why that is important if it is so to include that as part of the measures here tonight. So I'm happy to support this bill."