Willis Nicola; Mallard TrevorNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Education and Workforce Committee as we considered this bill. As previous members have discussed what was very clear to us in hearing submissions on this bill was the depth of feeling about the ACC scheme in New Zealand. It was a shame that a large number of the submissions we heard were formally outside the scope of the bill and therefore the committee was unable to respond to those. However I do want to put it on the record of this House that as a committee we recommended that the Minister for ACC note those submissions in the substantive review that is being undertaken. And I want to thank all of those who did submit and who shared with us sometimes harrowing stories of the fights they have had to go through to access compensation under ACC.This bill of course goes to address some of the anomalies that have occurred in the legislation that have excluded some people from accessing ACC compensation which Parliament would have rightly expected them to be able to get.Hon Clare Curran: What did your Government do about any of that over nine years?NICOLA WILLIS: We have had agreement across the sides of the House and I'm not quite sure therefore why Clare Curran is addressing me now as I speak because we have had agreement across the House that these are issues that should be addressed. These are loopholes that should be tied up and that we should ensure fairness in these provisions.Hon Clare Curran: They could have been tied up in the last nine years.NICOLA WILLIS: Clare Curran is addressing me again and I find this most flattering that my speech draws so much attention from her. She sat on the committee of course alongside me for the latter stages of consideration of this bill and we did work in a productive cooperative manner and I'm sure that this is the spirit in which these interjections in my speech are given.In terms of the specifics of this bill of course we have the removing of the requirement for ACC clients and their dependants to choose between weekly compensation and New Zealand super or the veterans pension. This was an issue that we did discuss in some detail and that officials were able to advise on—a long-standing issue that this bill carefully resolves.Also the issue of the gap for those who have been posted overseas—that their spouses or those in New Zealand can actually get access to ACC—and I think this is very important because across the Parliament we have a view that those who are serving our country overseas are doing us a great public service; that these are people who are in a sense being our great patriots representing New Zealand offshore being the flag-bearers the representatives for our people and often serving us in ways that are brave and further the interests of New Zealand. So it has been a shameful anomaly that in some cases those people's partners spouses and dependants have had difficulties accessing ACC and it is positive that this can be addressed through this bill.We then of course have the provision allowing surviving spouses to receive up to five years of weekly compensation regardless of age. Similarly this goes to the issues that we have heard about where there was the blurring between superannuation entitlement and ACC entitlement. The simple principle here that Parliament agrees on is that you shouldn't have your compensation from ACC curtailed in these circumstances. And as the member Clare Curran has addressed this bill disestablishes the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority.I think in considering this bill on the select committee the reflection that I had was that when it comes to a scheme as complex as ACC and as far-reaching as ACC actually there will always be loopholes and things in the legislation that Parliament must be prepared to address as we are in this bill. And that's because we can never in this House predict the individual circumstances tragedies and events that will unfold in people's lives or the particular circumstances in which they find themselves. So as we see ACC in action in effect it's appropriate that we take the opportunity to review it to ensure that it's living up to our intentions of providing compensation to those who have suffered accidents. These amendments as proposed in this bill today achieve that and I think also go to the willingness of Parliament to work in a cross-party way on issues of this gravity.So I commend this bill to the House. I again thank my fellow members of the select committee for their due consideration of it; I thank the officials who advised us as we considered this bill; and in particular I thank those submitters who with significant passion came and spoke to us about their experiences of the ACC scheme. We offered them our compassion but in the future it is beholden on this Parliament and it is beholden on the Minister to ensure that there are further opportunities for their concerns to be addressed as they lay outside of the scope of the bill. I commend the bill to the House.Marja Lubeck: Mr Speaker.Erica Stanford: Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Erica Stanford—a five-minute speech. We're sort of doing a slightly different order.