Mackey Moana: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9239] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I will first remark on a comment that was made by the Hon Tony Ryall the Minister of Health. When my colleague Maryan Street was using an analogy from  
Romeo and Juliet 
 the Hon Tony Ryall said: “Yes but they ended up together in the end”. That is true I say to the Minister—but they were dead. In terms of the analogy for accident compensation I think it is particularly worrying if the Minister of Health thinks that is a good outcome. It is everyone’s happy ending; it is great—apart from the small fact that they were both dead. I think that sums up Labour’s concerns about where this legislation is taking us. 
My colleagues have talked about the Minister’s insistence that the name of this legislation needs to be changed. We worry about a seemingly innocuous move on the Minister’s part because the mere fact that a Supplementary Order Paper is put forward will lengthen the debate in this part of the Committee stage. The Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC and the Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee have already been in the Chamber desperately trying to shut down the debate and shut down the amount of time we spend debating. It is not a small move for a Minister to come here with a Supplementary Order Paper and put it on the Table—it opens things up for a longer debate so there must be some reason that he is doing it. 
The Hon Pansy Wong the Minister in the chair has refused to take a call in this debate. I think someone should place a mirror under her nose and check that she is still breathing just so we can be certain there is not something more serious going on because normally the Committee stage is about debate. It is the one time that the Opposition gets to question a Minister and hopefully get a response and she has refused to do that. Therefore we have to try to ascertain why the name is being changed from Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. 
The reason I think is that the Government is softening up accident compensation for privatisation. We know the Government wants to privatise accident compensation. It did so the last time it was in Government and it desperately wants to do it again. It got a lot of campaign donations from Australian insurance companies that will benefit to the tune of billions of dollars from picking up the work that is currently done by the Accident Compensation Corporation in New Zealand at a cheaper lower administrative cost and a lower cost to the levy payers. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am again reluctant to do this with one of my colleagues. But it has long been the case that the motives of the Government cannot be challenged. The linking of direct donations for policy is something that would certainly indicate a lack of integrity on the part of the Government. Although the Government whips and the Minister in the chair at the moment the Minister for ACC might want to accept that as a fact I think it is a reflection on the House. Any suggestion that this is a policy-for-money approach as has been made by my colleague is in my opinion out of order. I know that you were temporarily distracted Mr Chair. The Minister was clearly listening. I know that the junior Government whip was clearly listening. She appeared to be nodding; I am not sure whether she was going off to sleep or agreeing. But it does seem to me that impugning the motives of the Minister and saying that he and his party are getting cash for the policy is something that implies corruption and probably should not be allowed to continue. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The first point is that Government members did not raise a point of order because we give little credibility to this assertion which has been made on repeated occasions. Furthermore Mr Chairman I think you should take note that the reason Mr Mallard chose to raise a point of order far from actually upholding the principles of the House was to do exactly the opposite. It was simply to give him the opportunity to recite those quite wrong and unparliamentary allegations. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Firstly can I say in response to Mr Mallard’s point of order that questioning people’s motives is not a unique event in this Parliament. In fact a time when members’ motives for putting forward legislation or amendments were not spoken about would be a remarkable period of time. So motivation in my view is a legitimate part of debate for this Committee. The second point that the member alludes to but not directly is that it is contrary to the Standing Orders to imply or say directly that people in this Chamber are controlled by outside interests. I do think that the member speaking fell well short of that. I take the point that has been made by Mr Mallard that this House is brought into disrepute by some of those assertions or that implication. I will not pull the member up on it but I do think the member should be circumspect. An attack on any particular member’s motives in the House is an attack on all members of the House. I think the member should be mindful of the decorum of this place and the standard of debate that the public would expect. The member will continue. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Thank you Mr Chair. I am happy to do so. I think we are very lucky that we have the Hon Trevor Mallard as a moral conscience of this Committee to keep us all on the straight and narrow when the Government fails to do so. I say to the Hon Nick Smith that if he is so upset about these allegations he should stop hiding the money in trusts and let New Zealand people see where the National Party’s money is coming from. 
I will carry on. The reason I believe that the Hon Nick Smith wants to change the title of the Act from the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act is so that when he privatises the scheme there is absolutely no onus on the new Australian owners of the scheme to carry out those activities. He is clearing the decks and making it clear that all they will have to be in charge of is paying out money. Let me preface that comment by saying that insurance companies make money by not paying out and by refusing claims and that is the future for New Zealand workers under this National Government when it comes to workers’ compensation. 
The Hon Nick Smith is sending a very clear message that the new owners will not have to carry out injury prevention and rehabilitation. All the niceties and all the weasel words saying that that is not right and the Government still thinks injury prevention is fantastic does not hide the fact that injury prevention is being cut by this Government now. That sends a very strong message. If all the National members who took calls—and there were not many of them—were genuinely concerned about saving money then surely they would see that injury prevention is the way to do that. 
It makes far more sense to spend a bit of money keeping people well. Let us be clear that every single piece of analysis of the programmes that were in place—my colleague Ruth Dyson mentioned the falls prevention programmes—were working. They were saving money. So to say that this is all about saving money is ridiculous when we consider that this Government has cut the very programmes that do save money. 
If I were to come up with an alternative title for this piece of legislation I think I would probably come up with a title along the lines of the “ACC (Kiss Your Holidays Goodbye) Amendment Bill”. I do not think the Minister for ACC is being completely up front with people.