Paul Swain - MP for Rimutaka
June 2002

On Anzac Day I attended a number of moving ceremonies in the electorate. The turnout at these RSA events - at Upper Hutt, Stokes Valley, Taita and Naenae - seems to grow each year. This is tremendous. What really impresses me is the numbers of young people that turn out, particularly to the Dawn Service at Upper Hutt.

This is an indication that young people are interested in and recognise the importance of the sacrifices made by their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

It is great to see so many people paying tribute to the contribution made by those generations of New Zealanders. But at the same time we hope that future generations will not need to be asked to make the same sacrifices.

ACC

There have been some tragic accidents in workplaces over the last few years and the government is determined to do all that it can to improve the safety of workers. But instead of relying on an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff we think it makes more sense to build a fence at the top. This has been the gist of recent changes to the laws governing our ACC system.

The Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, passed last year, came into effect on 1 April. The Act focusses ACC primarily on injury prevention and is the second step of the government’s desire to restore ACC to its founding principles.

The Act provides for the establishment of a new information manager to collate, for the first time, injury statistics from various agencies including ACC, OSH, LTSA and the Ministry of Health. Most accidents do not just happen and the data will be an important resource to effectively target our injury prevention programmes.

But, where an injury does occur, the main focus will still be on the comprehensive rehabilitation of injured people, followed by compensation.

The ACC scheme continues to provide 24-hour no-fault, 7-day a week cover. The Act now extends the the principle of fair compensation to seasonal and temporary workers, and to those on parental leave, and introduces a new form of lump sum compensation in recognition of the fact that New Zealaners gave up their right to sue for personal injury.

Any move to return to a privatised ACC would expose New Zealanders to huge financial risk given the recent high profile collapses of HIH Insurance and United Medical Protection in Australia.

HIH provided 40 % of workplace cover in New Zealand during ACC’s period of privatisation under National. If the government had not acted as it did New Zealand would have suffered the results of the HIH collapse. A privatised ACC would also offer no protection against the worldwide increase in insurance premiums following the events of September 11.

Budget 2002

On Thursday Finance Minister Michael Cullen introduced his third budget. I will give a summary of the key features of the budget in next month’s column.

If you would like to discuss these or any other matters further, please phone me at my Taita electorate office on 576-0156 or my Upper Hutt electorate office on 528-5715. I am also available at my Parliament Office on 470 6565. If you prefer you can write to me C/- Parliament Buildings, Wellington (no stamp required).