Lees-Galloway Iain: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: 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.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I also want to try to clarify some of the discussion points on Part 1 of the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill. We have had the Minister for ACC’s contribution and we have had the contribution from Mr Young but I feel as though we are sort of talking past each other a little bit here. First of all I want to make it clear that we are not proposing that we go back from “should” to “must”. We understand the argument for why the word “should” in new section 166A(2)(b)(c) has been used rather than the word “must” because this is about ensuring that the Minister and the Government have some flexibility. I think Jonathan Young used the example of the global financial crisis coming along or a significant disaster like the Canterbury earthquakes or the Pike River mine which have had a significant impact on ACC and so we need the flexibility to be in there. That is fine. We understand that.Jonathan Young: So it got through.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: What we are saying though—if you will listen for a second Jonathan Young—is that it does open up an issue that can be solved with Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper 123. The issue that gets opened up is that if you go from saying for instance that the levies derived for each account “must” meet the lifetime cost of claims and change that to “should” or that if an account has a deficit of funds to meet the cost prescribed or has not accumulated surplus funds the deficit or surplus “should” be corrected rather than “must” be corrected then you open up the opportunity for the manipulation of the levies that has occurred in the past. So on the one hand we totally understand the change being made and we appreciate there are good reasons for making that change but it opens up a problem which actually this bill intends to solve. What we are saying is to make the change and support it with the changes to the definition of “public good” and “public interest” that Sue Moroney has offered. That way we would get the flexibility that the Government is looking for and we would get the assurance that the public is looking for that levies will be used strictly to ensure that ACC is appropriately funded to provide the compensation and treatment that people expect from it and I have yet to hear an argument against that.I do not at this stage know which way the Government is going to vote on Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper. I suspect I know what it is but I have not heard either from the Minister or from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee chair Jonathan Young. We have got numerous members of the select committee sitting opposite. They have taken time out of their day to come down to the Chamber. I would be quite keen to see one of them at least get up and actually tell us what their view is—whether they are for or against Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper—because I cannot imagine why you would be opposed to it unless the Government wants to leave open the possibility that the levies can be manipulated. Everything the Government has said is that that is not what it wants and that the purpose of this legislation was to close down that loophole. So is the Government going to support Sue Moroney’s Supplementary Order Paper? If it is that is fantastic—we would welcome that. If it is not we would like to hear some constructive reasons why it thinks it is not necessary or why it thinks it might be detrimental to the legislation. At the moment as I say what I have heard is the two sides of the Committee kind of speaking past each other and what I would like is some clarification around what people’s views are on this.I just want to address one other thing very quickly in this contribution and it is that Jonathan Young said that there is volatility in the various accounts and that at the beginning of the year we saw a massive drop in some of the accounts. Well actually what happened was for instance the work account which is the one that was 140 percent funded as at 31 December at 31 January had plummeted to being 135 percent funded and then by 28 February it was back up to being 141 percent funded. So yes it can move around. We appreciate that it can move around and that is why we agree that there should be a funding band but it is still absolutely clear that the work account and arguably the earners account as well are both thoroughly overfunded because the levies that have been taken are too much.