Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:16949] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Although Part 2 looks just a small part it is—as my very learned intelligent hard-working colleagues David Bennett and Dr Paul Hutchison have pointed out—a very very important part. I am just so glad that Hamilton East is serviced by such an intelligent hard-working member of Parliament as David Bennett because his speech was in great contrast with that of the member for Hamilton West who did not seem to be able to even read Part 2. It is a very small part and he could not even comprehend it. 
We all have a lot of respect for my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison. He is a real medical doctor and that is why I listened carefully to his dissertation on the amendments to schedule 1 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act which are outlined in Part 2 of the bill. I listened particularly to the point about whether the Accident Compensation Corporation is supposed to fulfil the objective of this legislation which is to introduce the scheme’s provisions on sustainable grounds. Although we may have well-meaning good intentions we have to be very careful about the way we relax and simply increase the number of the types of claims types of covers and types of diseases because after all I would say that the Labour Government continues to damage the ability of the corporation to operate on sustainable grounds. 
The schedule could easily be extended to state what would happen for example if the Government were not to try to ban smoking and drinking. These substances cause harm to people’s health. If on the one hand we started to go down this track and state that the accident compensation scheme is aimed at minimising and preventing injuries but on the other hand we will allow substances such as tobacco drugs etc. which might cause ill health to those who use them then where does it end? All these substances can be harmful. If individuals continue to indulge in smoking cigarettes drinking excessively or taking drugs and they then injure themselves in the workplace then according to Parts 1 and 2 of this bill that injury could fall into the category of a gradual process injury. So where does one stop? 
This accident compensation scheme started off as an objective comprehensive 24-hour no-fault scheme but Labour members continue to forget that the reason we have this compensation for victims is that victims have forgone the ability to sue the offenders—it is the forgoing of the ability to sue. Now in this bill we have started to introduce types of injuries that could be self-inflicted. How can people sue someone else if they have injured themselves? Why are the provisions on self-harm and self-injury being brought into the legislation? People cannot sue themselves for injuring themselves; that goes against the original principles of the accident compensation scheme. 
We are very concerned about Part 2 in terms of the relaxation and the ease with which the different types of causes and cover are being introduced to this legislation. The more cover and the more subjective provisions that are introduced to accident compensation legislation the more often that long-term doubts will be raised about the corporation’s ability to provide the scheme. At the moment we already know that the accident compensation scheme has $3.4 billion in unfunded liability and it is supposed to be fully funded by 2014. I doubt very much that that can be fulfilled under this legislation.