Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Wong Pansy: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7433] 
Hon PANSY WONG (Associate Minister for ACC) 
: 
 In the year 2000 the Labour finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen said he would recommend that the House accept a 31c residual claims account levy and promised with that that the accident compensation scheme liability would be fully funded in 5 years’ time. In fact he went one better. He asked why the House should not take the increase to 35c so that the liability should be fully funded 2 or 3 years earlier. From my quick calculation the previous Labour Government had promised that the liability would be fully funded by 2014 or earlier. But here we are today in the House once again and the front-bench Opposition spokesperson on accident compensation the Hon David Parker is asking what the problem is and saying that all we have to do is push out the funding date for another 5 years. We can choose just to ignore those statements. 
In 1972 the 24-hour comprehensive no-fault accident compensation scheme was introduced into the House by a National Government. National is very proud of introducing that 24-hour comprehensive no-fault scheme but the problem is that every time Labour is in Government its ill-disciplined tax-and-spend mismanagement of the accident compensation scheme consistently wrecks the scheme and puts it under risk. 
I will focus on only three areas to demonstrate why our hard-working dedicated Minister for ACC Dr Nick Smith has been forced to bring into the House dramatic measures to ensure that the accident compensation scheme brought in by the National Government will continue to be sustained for a very very long time for the benefit of New Zealanders. First of all in 1999 the National Government opened up the work account to competition for 1 year. At that stage the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) was charging the levy for the work account at the rate of $1.47 per $100. Under the 1-year period of competition the amount dropped immediately to $1.20. Then the Labour Government took over ruined all the good work and chucked back the account to the ACC monopoly. But through this exercise ACC became disciplined so the levy amount continued to track downwards to $1.12 91c and 90c. Unfortunately today after 9 long years of ill-discipline and mismanagement by Labour we are staring at an increase that will put the levy back to the 1999 level. So I welcome the investigation into competition for the work account because that 1 year of competition introduced good discipline and showed the corporation that it could have managed the account much better. 
The other area I will touch on concerns fairness. As Associate Minister for ACC I have the delegated responsibility of answering individual complaints. Many good law-abiding New Zealanders have been totally frustrated with people who have incurred an injury during the committing of a crime and who have then gone on to claim all sorts of compensation. I remember that 2 years ago we heard a case about a burglar who demanded to have cosmetic surgery because a small part of his ear had been bitten off during a burglary attempt. The then Labour Minister for ACC came out and said: “Well he’s entitled to it.” and all that nonsense. But from this side of the House Dr Smith has brought in changes to say that if the injury is incurred during the committing of an offence that will incur 2 years’ imprisonment no compensation will be payable. It is about time that the accident compensation scheme answered to the needs of law-abiding New Zealanders. We will not squander compensation on people who are injured while committing a crime. 
The third issue I want to put on the table is the reason why the Labour Party is never going to be trusted again. Last year after the general election both the Minister for ACC and I were summoned to an urgent meeting with officials. There was an urgent request to inject $300 million into the earners account. We are supposed to operate on a no-surprises policy so this type of bad news set ACC off to a very bad start. 
The last point is that apart from this legislation the good Minister Dr Nick Smith has also set out to change the culture in accident compensation. I think that everyone in the House and out there will remember the extravagant $5 million Covered campaign run by ACC on television etc. That campaign was challenged by the Advertising Standards Authority for being misleading. We can contrast that time with this year when ACC ran a 1-week home safety campaign. It was very well-covered and effective and it cost only $500000. I congratulate the Minister for ACC on making the tough call to ensure that the accident compensation scheme that was proudly introduced into this House by the second National Government will continue to exist to protect and benefit New Zealanders.