O'Connor Damien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled 
O'Connor Damien: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:660;Page:9202] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to speak however briefly on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill because this is vital legislation for the agricultural and rural sector. The issues have not been raised in this Committee but as the previous speaker said in Part 2 there are some real dangers with regard to unknown work-related injuries relating to poisons used in the agricultural sector during the 1950s and 1960s that have now been clearly identified as being highly toxic but without the results of that being fully known yet. It is very very important that people who have put their heart and soul into their jobs and who have worked their body almost to the point of collapse to create export earnings for this country can be rightfully compensated in their old age. There will be injuries that we have yet to clearly identify. 
The principles of accident compensation must be upheld. Those principles say we are a society and a community of different occupational groups and we share risks at different levels but it is through cooperation and the sharing of risks experiences and professions that we drive this country forward. This bill will divide us into little risk groups: high-risk groups of people who work on farms and in rural areas chopping down trees and low-risk groups of people who do the administrative work for their industries and who sit on their chuffs in Wellington as we do. If we allow the privatisation of accident compensation we will see the division of this country into low and high-risk groups and ultimately see costs and profits extracted from the very industries that drive this country and its economy. 
In the rural provincial areas through tourism agriculture farming and horticulture people take risks every single day. They work in remote areas they work with animals and they work with machinery in the highest-risk occupations that we have identified. Through accident compensation we take a societal and a community approach that says we must move forward together and we must ensure that there is adequate no-faults protection for each and every worker in this country. Yes there will be some apportionment of higher risk through the earners account and the non-earners account and that should be so. But if we are to divide up those accounts even more and assess as the private sector will do the very high-risk areas then we may see small businesses that drive this country through farming through forestry contracting and logging and through agricultural contracting services being driven out the back door. 
There is a growing realisation throughout the rural sectors that the changes that this Government is making to accident compensation will undermine their viability and may see them become exposed to litigation—because that is the inevitable outcome of these changes—and to costs that will mean they cannot afford to employ people to do the work that is necessary. I say every New Zealander should read the Labour minority report on the bill which clearly identifies these risks. But the Government through blind ideology is determined to push ahead and privatise accident compensation. 
Part 2 deals with some of the technical issues and speakers before me have rightfully identified the difficulties in assessing hearing loss and the long-term effects of that on any New Zealander. But there are unknown effects that will be eliminated from investigation and proper compensation by the changes that are being made here. If someone has his or her claim in now that person will be OK but some people do not know and have yet to make a claim.