Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20264] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I want to raise some very serious issues and I hope that the Minister in the chair the Hon Taito Phillip Field will take a call with regard to the recognition of another acupuncture treatment provider. When this bill is passed by Parliament the New Zealand Acupuncture Standards Authority Inc. will be recognised as a treatment provider for claims by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) alongside the New Zealand Register of Acupuncturists the first to be recognised as a treatment provider before the 1990s. A High Court case challenging the process of the authority being recognised as a treatment provider was mounted but a decision was made to drop the case because Parliament was going to pass this bill to recognise it anyway. So I would like the Minister in the chair to take a call to explain why when there was a High Court challenge to the process the Government insisted on debating and passing this bill to recognise the authority as an acupuncture provider. 
But there is a more serious issue. Two other groups have been challenging the process whereby acupuncturist organisations are recognised by ACC as having treatment provider status. They are the New Zealand Traditional Chinese Medical Practitioners group and the New Zealand Chinese Acupuncture Association and Register Inc. 
Before 1990 ACC decided to recognise the New Zealand Register of Acupuncturists Inc. as a treatment provider. The two other groups came before the Regulations Review Committee in 1990 and asked the corporation to publicise the process of recognising those treatment providers but nothing has happened even though the select committee concurred. Then 7 years ago in 1998 the same groups had to again complain to the Regulations Review Committee of which I am a member. Once again the select committee found the ACC process wanting in recognising those treatment providers. 
In 2003 the Minister the Hon Ruth Dyson wrote to the groups and said that it was inappropriate and a waste of time for those groups to apply to become treatment providers. At the same time the corporation was considering the recognition of the New Zealand Acupuncture Standards Authority Inc. I must say I become quite cynical in wondering whether the reason the two acupuncturist groups still have the doors closed on them is that they happen to be headed by New Zealand Chinese whose efforts in those processes have been frustrated. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The Labour member may find the whole thing funny and laugh during this debate but I am talking about a very serious issue. The two groups have been trying to get recognition as treatment providers since 1990 and I am wondering whether the fact that they are Chinese New Zealanders is the reason that the process has been frustrated for so long. 
The Minister in her latest letter to the groups in July 2004 said that this bill would make an amendment to the process of recognising future treatment providers and that the process would be by regulation rather than having to go through legislation which invariably takes a long time. However I read through the legislation quickly and did not quite see how that process is being incorporated in it. I therefore am taking no risk and have tabled an amendment to the definition.