Street Maryan: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Street Maryan: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9233] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 Clause 1 of the bill that came back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is: “Title: This Act is the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Act 2009.” At the initial stages in tabling the bill for the first time the Government clearly did not think it was an issue to keep the name as it had been. At the select committee and the second reading the Government clearly did not think it was an issue to keep the name the same. Come the Committee stage the Minister in charge of the bill the Minister for ACC lodged a Supplementary Order Paper to change the title to the Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010 and proceeded to perform like a seal about how important it was that the bill would now be called the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. He made a song and dance about it and he enunciated in the most exaggerated terms he could possibly manage that people on the street would not know what the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act was. Now it is imperative that it be called the Accident Compensation Act! 
My question to the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC is why this change suddenly became important. I say to the Associate Minister that it leaves the Opposition thinking that there is an agenda. I quote somebody who is rather more famous than me: “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet;”. There is as much difference between the names Labour and National as there is between the names Montague and Capulet which is what Shakespeare was talking about. There is as much difference between Labour and National over the title of this bill as there is between the names Montague and Capulet. 
This change raises questions about the agenda and I would like to ask two questions apropos of this name change. What are we to read into this change? If the legislation is to be called the Accident Compensation Act are we now to understand that there is to be no injury prevention rehabilitation or compensation? Or are we to understand that anything that is an accident will be covered by this legislation? I ask whether the Minister has considered—and whether this has an impact on fiscal aggregates—the term “cerebrovascular accident” commonly known as a stroke. Does this change in the name of the bill indicate that the Government is looking to include strokes otherwise known as cerebrovascular accidents in the coverage of the compensation? If so the Government should say so and it should prove that there is no fiscal aggregate impact from that change. 
My second question is: if only accidents are to be covered by this legislation and not injuries where does that leave sexual abuse victims who sustain injuries but never by accident? Sexual abuse does not occur by accident; it is perpetrated upon victims and it creates injuries. At the very least it creates mental injuries. Are we to assume by this change of name that there is some agenda to move stealthily and without any recourse to the public to take sexual abuse treatment out of accident compensation? That is the impact already of moves this Government has made in changing processes on treatment of sexual abuse victims. Already there are people who cannot get treatment and who risk suicide because they are unable to get treatment in a timely way because people are waiting for decisions to be made about whether there is an injury.