Moroney Sue: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):An excellent choice it is too because I want to speak about ACC in this debate on the annual reviews. I want to start off by saying something that I never thought I would say in this Chamber and that is that I agree with John Key because John Key has claimed that the surplus is now an artificial target. Well boy oh boy is it ever artificial. It is so artificial that those members are using smoke and mirrors to try to obtain a surplus and they are still probably going to miss it. The smoke and mirrors that they are mainly using is the overcharging of ACC levies to every worker and every company in New Zealand and the Government knows it.The Government by its own admission—by its own admission—ignored the recommendation made by ACC itself to drop the ACC levies. It ignored that recommendation because it wanted in Judith Collins’ words to “get to surplus”. So let us just investigate what that means because that is what the select committee did when the ACC board came before it for its annual review. We asked the ACC board what the impact was of the Government’s overcharging of levies and this is what it had to say. I am actually quoting from the Financial Condition Report 2014 of ACC. It said: “The higher than recommended Work and Earners’ Account levies mean that these Accounts will all other things being equal accumulate further funds in excess of the Board’s funding target.” What that means is that the Government is putting its sticky fingers into the pockets of workers and companies to the tune of $350 million a year—Dr David Clark: How much?SUE MORONEY: —$350 million—that it does not need to cover accidents and injuries because it is using this technique to try to make it look as though the Crown’s books are in surplus. So I agree with John Key; it is completely artificial because of course as we all know the money that is sitting there—the riches that are embarrassing the ACC board which are sitting in these funds untouched—cannot be used on anything else. They cannot be used on anything else in the Crown accounts. They are simply fat sitting in the ACC’s accounts against its wishes by the way. The ACC board recommended substantial cuts to ACC levies but that Government ignored it because it has failed—it has failed—to get to surplus by growing the economy. That would be the traditional way to get the Government’s books into surplus. That is what every New Zealander would want in terms of getting to surplus.New Zealanders want to get to surplus because they want to see a growing economy that delivers that. They do not want to see businesses and workers ripped off to the extent of the $350 million that they are being overcharged in ACC levies in order to try to get to surplus yet it looks as though the Government is still going to fail to get to surplus even though it is using this false method to get there so badly has its fiscal credibility plummeted. A lot of credibility has plummeted over the course of the last few weeks. John Key’s credibility I think lies in tatters but so does the National Government’s financial credibility. There is no doubt about that.In those burgeoning accounts in the work account—that is the account that all businesses pay into—there is 140 percent of what is needed to pay for accidents and injuries sitting in there. In the earners account—the one that workers pay into—130 percent of what is needed is in there. After the gradual process injuries are taken into account there is still more than is needed sitting in those accounts.Who is out of pocket? Well it is the companies and the workers. Here is the bizarre thing about it: if those companies and those workers had their money back in their pockets rather than being overcharged in ACC levies that would drive economic growth because they would be out spending that money. Companies have said—they have told me—that they would be using that money for research and development for giving their workers a wage increase and for employing more workers. An independent report said that they would be using it for up to 700 more workers in the economy. That is the bizarre thing about what the Government is doing.Then there are the motor vehicle levies.