Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9150] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill—and what a mouthful that is. I must congratulate the excellent Minister the Hon Nick Smith on coming to the conclusion that it is appropriate we call this bill the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. I absolutely guarantee that if any Labour member went out on to Lambton Quay and asked anyone what the “IPCR Act” is they would not know it to fall over it. [ 
Interruption 
] They would not know it to fall over it. 
We have just heard a very shrill lot of verbiage from the Hon Maryan Street who was going on about injury prevention. I tell Maryan Street that it would be worthwhile for her to actually look at the annual report for 2009 of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) which states that despite all the money that Labour put into the scheme and all the money that Maryan Street lost the rate of serious non-fatal injuries among all populations has shown an increase. It has gone up from 211000 in 2005 to 218000 in 2007. 
There has been an increase in rates across the road work and falls areas. The rates of assault and intentional self-harm are also showing an increase but that could be a result of reporting behaviour. Finally the frequency of hospitalisation from serous non-fatal injuries has increased since 2004. That is the legacy of Labour’s contribution to the accident compensation scheme over the last few years. 
Labour members say that they are sorry about it but the issue is deadly serious. They are simply off the planet. The Hon Nick Smith has explained the situation—because on that side of the Chamber is the previous accident compensation Minister and the corporation’s last report showed a loss of $4.8 billion. In the year prior to that the corporation reported a loss of $2.2 billion. That makes that member responsible for a debt of $1800 for every man woman and child in New Zealand. That is a significant amount. The member shakes her head. She will not take responsibility for that very fact. 
We also heard Maryan Street talking about the various Woodhouse principles and she went on about community responsibility. She said: “If we all pay a little we all get a lot.” She went on and said something to the effect that a motorcyclist who comes off his bike no matter how he has driven his bike whatever it is he should still receive and pay the same. This is quite extraordinary left-wing socialist cant. She has totally forgotten the idea of individual responsibility and the basic concept of incentives for better behaviour. This is shown so demonstrably well in the affiliated providers’ scheme. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The member might just listen to this. The affiliated providers’ scheme has an excellent record of low premiums excellent rehabilitation—getting people back into the workforce much faster than anywhere else—and huge interest by industry to actually apply injury prevention. She forgets those basic principles—a human instinct—that must be followed. 
I turn now to the speech made by the Hon David Parker. He was talking about just how low the levies are in New Zealand when one looks at the benchmarking programme that is taken throughout Australasia. Once again we see misleading comments coming from the Labour Party.