Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to take a call on the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is my first opportunity to contribute to this debate even though I was a member of the select committee.I want to just start by picking up on something the previous speaker Marja Lubeck pointed out. It's been made very clear in the initial briefing to the Education and Workforce Committee—that Marja is the chair of—that actually prior to 2010 there was no threshold for hearing loss. So it wasn't that National shifted it from a certain percentage to a certain other percentage; we introduced the percentage and we did this in line with other countries like Australia and the UK. We did this in 2010. So contrary to what Marja Lubeck has just stated we introduced that percentage; we didn't change it. It's interesting to note that actually official advice says—there are several studies that suggest that hearing aids don't have any benefit until a person has between 5 percent and 6 percent hearing loss anyway. That was some of the information that we got at select committee. So the benefits of this change will be marginal and really at best—and this has been mentioned by previous speakers—this is a bit of window dressing.As has been mentioned in this bill in prior readings the ACC scheme will soon turn 50; 50 years since a relatively unique piece of legislation and world-leading piece of legislation has been introduced. But it is interesting to look at it and read some of the old documents—that really does date it. If you fast forward to today where woman are working far more than they were in the seventies—Carmel Sepuloni mentioned in her initial speech today that women make fewer claims than men and on average their claims are about a third of the value of what men make. Now it's interesting to note that and this bill is really important today in the fact that it goes some way to adding more ability for women to claim on maternal birth injuries. But as my colleague Michael Woodhouse has pointed out in this reading today and in previous readings what's really important to note as well actually is that the reason that men claim more and have higher claims granted is because of the risk taking that is inherent with young men. I can see this because I've got a son and I can see this because I played hockey for many years with men and they are inherently greater risk takers far more reckless. But also you can understand why it is that they claim more often and that their claims are much more. So it's really important as Michael Woodhouse pointed out the equity needs to be gained from both sides not only in increasing the cover to woman—importantly as we're doing today—but also in making sure that men are claiming at a far lesser rate by better prevention measures.But it is very important to note that there are some historical discrepancies as to why women don't claim as much. And that's why this bill is so important. It's been mentioned many times that we know that about 85 percent of women—most woman—will experience a maternal birth injury ranging from things that are very minor to things that are very severe and life changing. Many women in the past have struggled to get treatment and support. We all know someone who's been in this situation or it may have happened to one of us. For me it was a friend of mine in a coffee group who suffered an extremely severe prolapse which had huge impacts on her bonding with her child and caused severe pain for a really long time—and she wasn't able to get any of the support that will be offered through this bill. So while the bill will change this and it may be too late for my friend it will aim to help 28000 women. Again important to note that that number has increased by about 18000 since the first reading—from 18000 to 28000 as new information arose.This bill will allow women like my friend and those other 28000 women to access surgery and pelvic physiotherapy cover which ACC has previously denied to many woman resulting in pretty negative effects. And there have been a load of petitions on this case. At this point I want to acknowledge some of the people who need acknowledging given this is the first time I've spoken on the bill that was at my select committee. Firstly we need to acknowledge Kirsty Watt who petitioned Parliament back I believe in 2020—the last two years are a bit of a blur but I believe it was 2020—to make improvements to care and rehabilitation for women post-birth. Her petition has made a difference. I want her to know that it's made a difference. She shone another very important bright light on this issue and here we are today. So petitions do make a huge difference and I would encourage more people to do them.We also need to thank the submitters the 46 that came to our select committee and the nearly 800 that wrote in. But for those who turned up to select committee it was very personal and very gruelling for some of those women who needed to go into quite graphic detail in front of strangers at the select committee. Their bravery needs to be acknowledged because actually that graphic detail was really important for the deliberations of the bill. So I want to say to each of those women who came in front of our select committee thank you very much for sharing your very very personal stories. And it's important to note here given their stories that these maternal birth injuries can cause a huge amount of mental anguish a lack of confidence lack of bonding with the baby—as what happened to my friend—and difficulties with relationships as well. This bill will go some way to helping those women.It was discussed in the bill around whether or not we should have a list of injuries or whether or not we should just have the words maternal birth injuries". What we've settled on I think is the right way to go with a list of injuries as the maternal birth injuries definition was too broad and could be applied inconsistently. I know that the Green Party disagrees with this view but I think that we got it right. It was really important in the deliberations of the select committee actually and at this point I probably should thank Sarah Pallett as well because it was very useful having a midwife on the select committee who could actually say to us well actually what we thought was a definition that covered lots of injuries in fact didn't. And so many of the things that the officials had thought were covered in this list of definition weren't. So there were a number of cases where we added—certainly around tears I believe—words to make sure that all of those individual injuries were covered even though as the Minister has said she intended all maternal birth injuries to be covered. And so we very thoroughly went through and made sure that they were in fact—not only that there were other injuries that were thought to be consequential injuries and would therefore be covered by the Act but again the officials and Sarah explained to us that actually some of these injuries could be caused during the birthing process and weren't always consequential. So we've added those in as well. So there was a lot of work done to make sure that we got that list right.I do understand the Green Party's problem with the bill and that it should just be a bit broader. But that's I think been covered in the fact that we've got this review built in that needs to take place three years after the bill has been introduced to make sure that there aren't any maternal birth injuries that aren't being covered that have slipped through the cracks which may happen. And look I hope not because we did go through this with a fine-tooth comb but the officials did fill us full of confidence that they would take this review seriously and add in any maternal birth injuries that hadn't been covered in that three-year period.I just want to pick up very briefly on something that Michael Woodhouse my colleague has mentioned and that is around the injuries to babies. I also think this needs to be looked at and the reason I think that is because when I go into schools and I talk to teacher aides they say to me well this child is fully covered under ACC because of a domestic violence incident that happened when they were a baby and the injuries that they got mean that they are covered by ACC but this child over here is not covered because their injury happened at birth. And as we know getting covered by ACC at birth can be a bit difficult and it's not always clear as Michael Woodhouse has pointed out. I do think in line with what Michael said that this needs looking at because it's pretty heartbreaking when you're in a classroom and two children with exactly the same needs are being treated extremely differently.I will just finish again by saying thank you very much to all the submitters thank you to Kirsty and also to Sarah on our select committee for giving us a hand with this bill. I'm very happy to commend the bill to the House."