Twyford Phil: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): As my colleague Jenny Salesa said Labour is supporting this bill. There are a number of important principles that are reflected in the policy intent of the bill and let me just touch on them. The bill will improve the process for levy setting by requiring the Government to set out a funding policy in line with the principles in the bill which will inform ACC’s public consultation on the levy rates. It is a good thing. Setting a funding policy will also improve the transparency of the levy-setting process so that the public is better informed—so far so good. Perhaps most important the bill would have improved the framework for funding ACC’s accounts through levies by replacing the current provisions with a more comprehensive set of principles.The big concern that we have with Part 1 is that the very principles enshrined in the title of the bill—financial responsibility and transparency—have been watered down. As Jenny Salesa said there is more than a little echo of what we saw with the Health and Safety Reform Bill. It is a bill that is brought to the House and sets out to fix a political problem for the Government with great fanfare goes to select committee and then the usual vested interests rock up to the committee and exert a bit of influence. Then the result is a 10-minute apology from Jonathan Young in his most recent contribution—a 10-minute apology for the replacement of a lot of “musts” with a lot of “shoulds”.Iain Lees-Galloway: Coulda shoulda woulda.PHIL TWYFORD: Yes that is right—coulda shoulda woulda. Thank you Iain Lees-Galloway. So really the good intent of the bill—Labour supported it; we still support the intent of it—and the basic principles have been significantly undermined by this kind of weak-kneed backsliding in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which unfortunately has made this bill a lot less effective than it otherwise would have been.The principal example of that watering down is to be found in Part 1 clause 5 inserting new section 166A(2). Instead of saying levies “must be set in accordance with the following principles” it has been replaced with “When making recommendations in respect of regulations … the Minister must have regard to the following principles:” a much weaker and more inferior set of words. It is sad that a Government that so transparently cooked up a funding crisis when it came to office—a manufactured funding crisis in relation to ACC—and then hiked up the levies now seeks to repair some of that political damage with this bill but bottled out when it got to select committee with just the slightest bit of influence from the vested interests. What could have been a good bill has—Iain Lees-Galloway: Could have been a good bill.PHIL TWYFORD: Could should would—it “must” be a good bill but it will not be under the dilution of its core principles at select committee. That is a shame.I want to really just add my voice to the support for Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper 123 which I think would pretty much repair the damage that was done at select committee. It sets out for example in amending clause 4 to make it very clear that “public good” in this case “means the public interest with regard to reducing injury and accidents”. The public good should not be some kind of mask for the Government to milk ACC to support its ever-diminishing aspiration for getting its books back into surplus because—let us be really clear about it—that is what has happened. That is the story of this Government’s ACC policy over the last few years. Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper makes it very clear in amending clause 5 that the state of the Government fiscal position is not to be a consideration when setting ACC levies. If the Government was true to the principles if it was true to the policy intent if it was true to its rhetoric then it would support Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper. Why not? Why should the ACC be used as a cash cow to try to fund the Government’s surplus target?