SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I rise with pleasure to speak in this the second reading of the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I do want to actually just commend the Hon Michael Woodhouse for his contribution. While I come to a different view from him at least he was demonstrating a knowledge of the system to a certain extent which is a significant improvement on the National speeches on the first reading of this bill where there was the question being asked like Where's the evidence?" Actually there is so much evidence that it was a bit embarrassing. So I thank him for at least engaging with some of the real issues around this.I do want to just note that the Green Party is supporting this bill. Despite what the Minister said we didn't put in a minority view on the bill; we just indicated that we supported calls for the legislation to provide direction on an intersectional approach and to include a non-exhaustive list of population groups that would need to be monitored—didn't amount to a differing view because we were very much in support of the bill but as a distinction from where the rest of the committee got to.I do just want to go back to some of what the bill is about. It's aimed at helping put more momentum behind the shift that has been started to try and get ACC to be able to deliver on its purpose equitably across all groups in our country. We know that ACC is not delivering fairly to all groups in our country and it has been mentioned by some of the previous speakers but I will go over some of the data that we have on this. We know that Māori benefit less than non-Māori in terms of access to prevention access to care access to recovery access to compensation and even access to the disputes process enabling access to justice. Forty percent of Māori participants who had a disability at 24 months post-injury had had trouble accessing healthcare services something that should've been facilitated by the corporation and that the Māori population possibly partially at least as a result of this has a health burden of injury double that of non-Māori. I think it's for me that this point is really important and this work is really important because we've acknowledged that our healthcare system has been absolutely failing Māori and we've provided a structural solution to that through the Māori Health Authority.We need to acknowledge that ACC is part of our social safety net in terms of incomes and our healthcare and rehabilitation system. It does not make any sense to me whatsoever to acknowledge the inequities so strongly in the formal health system and come up with these really tentative attempts at just providing visibility and transparency within the ACC part of the system. But it is a first step and I acknowledge that.In recognising the change in the language that came through in the bill from "Māori and other population groups" which failed to acknowledge the fundamental Te Tiriti relationship in the country—that was changed in the Education and Workforce Committee to "Māori and identified population groups" that tacitly recognised Māori as Te Tiriti partner. I want to acknowledge again that the Greens are disappointed that despite all of the submissions on the maternal birth injuries bill that called for a Te Tiriti clause within the ACC legislation that work has not happened. Again we had submissions from everybody telling us that we needed that in this legislation but the work has not yet been done and is not ready so we just have this step until we get there. I look forward to that work being prioritised to ensure we have consistency across our healthcare system.We also know that in terms of other population groups in picking up on the last speaker from ACT acknowledging that other groups also—we do have some doubts that they are missing out. Women at least ahead of the maternal birth injury changes were I think per year getting $1 billion less out of the scheme than men. It's a pretty profound inequity in terms of access to the schemes and it's deeply built into the way the scheme is set up. It's set up like on a 50-year-old kind of understanding of work and injury and has a very biased gender lens embedded in that. Also for Pasifika we know that they have low awareness of the scheme and how to access it. They're lodging fewer claims and getting less support than their share of the population and that's exacerbated for Pasifika women. Pasifika people are returning to work more rapidly than other groups and the assumption around that is because actually they're not getting paid out in terms of ACC compensation at a rate that enables them to actually rehabilitate at the pace that's needed so they're being forced back into work earlier than is appropriate for their health. And Pasifika with serious injuries face inequities in receipt of treatment relative to Pākehā.Now I heard the Hon Michael Woodhouse say that well all of this evidence is proof that we don't need this bill because we have this information. Well we have this information quite a lot of this because the previous ACC Minister directly asked ACC to brief her on the access of those groups to the scheme. That was not being provided that information to the Minister or the public and for me that's a key point. Embedding this into legislation is driving a transparency and accountability for the agency that could not be achieved if this was just the board asking for this information.After my first reading speech I had an email from somebody working within the corporation in one of their research teams who said "You are exactly right." They provide the information but because of the corporatised culture and the culture that we know exists around disentitlement and looking at savings for the agencies instead of delivering on their purpose the data does not incentivise change across the system. They see the inequities they note it they move on.What this bill does is give us the tools to hold the agency to account to be able to push for that change. You have to acknowledge that ACC is not a ministry; they are a step removed from the Minister so that normal sense of the Minister being able to direct an agency—that is not the same relationship with ACC. They do have a board and that relationship tends to have to be more careful. So these are useful tools.The Greens however would've liked to have seen the population groups specified as I said earlier and with a clear direction towards intersectional analysis. We were assured by the officials that that would be provided through the process of their work. However considering we're needing this legislation to give us that guarantee and confidence that argument didn't really stack up to me—"Trust us we'll do it anyway." whereas actually this legislation is saying "We don't really have that confidence at the moment because this has gone on for a very long time without any change so we would like to see it in legislation."The Greens also wanted to see not just reporting on the inequities but we wanted ACC to report on what actions it was going to take in response to this information to be reducing those inequities and taking action to ensure that everyone had access. We were told it's a very complex system ACC's not responsible for all of it—I don't buy that either. That could've included actions that had them talking to other agencies working with them. It could've had them having actions around policy work on legislation.So it is not as strong as it could be but it is an important step forward and I acknowledge the Government for going in the right direction if too slowly."