Moroney Sue: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4205. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):This is a do-nothing bill from a do-nothing Government. It is what we have come to expect from this Government. When it comes to accident compensation there are so many things the Government should be doing that this bill does not do. Andrew Little is absolutely right. There is nothing in this bill that the Government cannot do already or that the Accident Compensation Corporation cannot do already and in fact does not do already. Instead we have got this do-nothing bill from this do-nothing Government.Why does this bill not do something to address the $350 million that that Government is overcharging every worker and every business in New Zealand every single year because of its determination to ignore the recommendations from ACC using exactly the criteria this legislation now codifies? The truth is that ACC already has to have levy stability as one of its criteria. It already has to take account of full funding. It already has to do forecasting to make sure that the levies it recommends to the Government every year do all of those things that the Government is now pretending it is bringing forward for the first time in this bill. Nothing here is new.Mr Young when he spoke talked about the corporation coming before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee this year. He is absolutely right. When its representatives came before our select committee I asked them whether they already met every single one of the criteria that are outlined in this bill and they said yes. They told the select committee that they had already factored every single one of those things into account in formatting their recommendation which they have given to that Government and which that Government has routinely ignored. The Government has kept the levies artificially high but for what reason?Hon Nikki Kaye: That’s not true.SUE MORONEY: Well Judith Collins told us the reason Minister. Judith Collins said: “We have to get to surplus.” That is the reason that the Government has kept the levies artificially high—we have to get to surplus. Every single New Zealander is scratching their head and saying: “Sorry? We thought the point of ACC levies is to pay for the costs of injuries and accidents not to help that Government to fail again in getting to surplus this year.” which is in fact what has happened.That Minister should be extremely disappointed and angry in fact that her Government has put her in the position where she has had to overcharge every worker and every business in New Zealand their ACC levies in order to try to make Bill English’s surplus look a bit better—the surplus that never was. Even though the Government has trumped up and overinflated the ACC levies for at least 2 years now Bill English still could not get the books to balance. He still could not get the books to balance even though the Government had cards up its sleeve. The cards up the sleeve in that poker game were actually ACC levies being overcharged to every worker and every business in New Zealand to the tune of $350 million every year.Does this bill do anything about that? Does this bill do anything about that sleight of hand with those cards up the sleeve in that poker game? The answer Minister is no. It does nothing to address that issue. In fact all it does is codify the current situation. It does not require the Government to listen to ACC’s recommendations. It can continue to ignore the recommendations from ACC. It can continue to overcharge businesses and workers. It can continue to use this bill for the wrong reasons.For that very reason the Labour Party will be bringing forward a Supplementary Order Paper at the correct time in the passage of this bill to ensure that we do something about the sleight of hand that this Government has put in place. We will be bringing forward a Supplementary Order Paper that absolutely clarifies without anyone being in doubt that the Government cannot use ACC levies for any other purpose but paying for injuries and accidents in New Zealand and injury prevention. That is not what this Government has been using it for. It said that the ACC legislation allows it to use ACC levies for anything it damn well pleases. It said that that is in the public interest. Well we will bring a Supplementary Order Paper forward that ensures that levies can be used only in the public interest with regard to accidents and injuries and not for propping up Bill English’s failed attempt to get to surplus. That by the Government’s own admission is what it had been using it for and it is not what our precious ACC system was set up to do.Another thing this bill could do but does not is restore to injury prevention programmes the funding cuts that that Government has governed over since National came into office. The truth is that the best thing we can do with ACC is actually make sure that no one ever needs to use it because we are managing injury so well. That is my dream. It is my dream that we actually get to a situation where we are working so well with health and safety in our workplaces and we have got this so well under control that actually not many people have accidents and injuries that mean they have to rely on ACC for the rest of their lives. I can tell this House that that is not a very pleasant experience at all. But what did that Government do? It cut ACC funding for injury prevention programmes. How short term is that? It does not want to prevent injuries. It does not want to prevent injuries; it just wants to keep them happening and it has no plans to do anything about that.Chris Bishop: That’s wrong.SUE MORONEY: Well Christopher Bishop does not think that ACC should have anything to do with preventing injuries. He thinks that what his Government has done in cutting the funding for injury prevention programmes is the right thing to do. I can see that Minister Kaye is briefing the next speaker Alastair Scott. The Minister is briefing the next speaker to say: “Actually we’ve started restoring the funding cuts.” The injury prevention programmes are still not up to the level they were in 2008 when Labour left Government. They are still not funded to the level they were in 2008 and that is a disgrace. That is what this bill could be doing—restoring the funding cuts for injury prevention programmes—but it is not doing that. In fact it is not doing anything that cannot already be done.I want to spend a few minutes speaking about the name of the Accident Compensation (Financial Responsibility and Transparency) Amendment Bill. In the midst of “flying sheepgate” which we have got happening on that side of the House there are distractions those members are trying to bring about to distract us from “flying sheepgate” like there suddenly being another ghost ship full of refugees on its way to New Zealand waters. The New Zealand flag referendum obviously is not distracting people enough from the issues that matter. This Government is claiming that it is bringing forward a transparency bill with regard to accident compensation. Well I challenge that Government. I will challenge that Government when we bring forward a Supplementary Order Paper that actually does require transparency from that Government to support it.The Minister has finally admitted after two oral questions fudging the issue and two written questions fudging the issue that she did not even seek any Crown Law advice on whether or not the Government had the legal right to overcharge ACC levies to prop up Bill English’s failed surplus. Why would that be? The only reason that a Minister would claim she has the legal right to raise ACC levies to pay for the Government’s failed surplus bid but not even ask Crown Law whether she is right or wrong is if she knows in her heart that what the Government has done is fundamentally wrong and probably without any legal foundation. If the Minister believed it was with legal foundation she would have sought advice from Crown Law and acted on that. But the Minister did not even seek Crown Law advice on an issue that is deeply dodgy and that is the overcharging of ACC levies to every worker and every business in New Zealand.All of those businesses know that if they had had that $350 million or their proportion of it in their businesses that would have grown the economy. They would have used it to create jobs and do research and development. That would have been a better way to grow the economy and get the books truly into surplus.