Social Workers Registration Bill

This is a very important part of the process. We need to get it right, because the Social Workers Registration Bill will potentially affect about 10,400 social workers who currently work in New Zealand. This debate is wide ranging over the total bill, so I will work my way through some of the concerns that I have and some of the questions that I would like to put to the Minister in the Chair, the Hon Steve Maharey. First, I will discuss the title. Social Workers Registration Bill, as the bill is presently named, is not quite accurate. If it is to be appropriately named, the word “voluntary” has to be inserted, so that it becomes the “Social Workers Voluntary Registration Bill”.

One of the key things we understand about this bill is that social workers do not need to register. I would argue, as many of my colleagues have argued, that if someone happens to be one of the shonky cowboys or cowgirls of the social-work world, would that person go the distance and register? The chances are that he or she would not. When it comes to making sure that this legislation does increase the discipline on the profession, or raise its standard, or increase the professionalism within the sector, that issue can be debated. It can be debated, because many people who presently work within the sector and who may not have the qualifications and may not be implementing a best-practice approach to their profession, simply will not register, at all. I question the bill’s effectiveness in making big changes.

The purpose of the bill is to protect the safety of members of the public and to encourage competency in practice, but once again, if we are looking at really protecting the safety of the public, the State sector plays a role in that. It should be a leader within the sector, and that is why we find it quite alarming that such a big chunk of social workers has been left out of this bill. It was originally intended that they be involved. About 10 percent of social workers in this country are employed either by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, or by other Government agencies. We have to protect members of the public and especially those who are most vulnerable. People who have to deal with Child, Youth and Family Services in very difficult times will not know whether they are dealing with a registered social worker. We have some concerns about whether the bill will create a framework that will really make a difference.

I turn now to clause 4, “Interpretation”. One of the glaring problems is that “limited registration” can be up to 8 years. That is hardly a limited registration. That is the equivalent of one’s childhood. Limited registration should be for a very short period of time, and it should be a period in which, hopefully, the person is working towards full registration. So 8 years is far too long.

There are some pretty vague words in Part 2, and for that reason we think the registration board, in making decisions about social workers, will run into problems. What is a “fit and proper person”? There is a definition in the bill, but one of the things we do know about social work is that some people come into the profession having had certain life experience that allows them to have greater empathy with some of the people they are working with. At the moment, people are not allowed to be a social worker if they have a conviction that could have been punishable by up to 3 months’ imprisonment. I want the Minister to confirm that that provision will not include people with quite serious convictions that may not have resulted in imprisonment, because the judge decided not to impose a prison sentence. There could still be some pretty serious crimes that could be of deep concern to other New Zealanders.

The next issue relates to the increasingly “politically correct” approach to legislation. This legislation had some really general statements about a social worker having practical experience in social work. That has been broken into two, so that a social worker has to have specific experience dealing with Māori, Pacific Islanders, and other cultural groups. When people are dealing with those who are disadvantaged, then of course cultural issues are important, so they can tailor what they are offering.

I have some important questions about the detail in this bill that I want the Minister to respond to, and the first of those is a very important issue of principle. The previous issues of occupational regulation and the two most important reforms have been the accountants and engineers. What the Government has done through legislation such as this is provide legislative protection for a term, in the case of a chartered accountant or a chartered professional engineer, and then trusted the profession to develop a set of codes and regulations that can come through a proper process.

In this bill we have a very different approach to occupational regulation, where there is a statutory body completely appointed by the Minster making all the rules and regulations around the profession. I would like to know from the Minister in the Chair, the Hon Steve Maharey, why we have taken, and why this Parliament is taking, such a different approach to occupational regulation. What is it about social workers that means we cannot trust them? Why is it not possible, given all the work of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, for us to provide some statutory protections and an acknowledgment of that organisation and let them run the system? It was good enough for accountants and engineers; why is it not good enough for social workers? That organisation has gone to a huge amount of expense to develop the standard. That work is all washed away. It has done a huge amount of work for many social workers to be registered. Hundreds of them all over New Zealand have been put in place because the statutory framework has not been there. It just seems common sense to apply those other models. They are working well, and we should do that in this case.

My first question to the Minister asks why we do not trust social workers as a profession. Surely, when we talk about professional regulation the very notion of a profession is that it is able to manage its own affairs. It is not some Big Brother State organisation imposing something on a group of individuals, but the profession having an active say in the development of its own code of ethics and its own disciplining of its members. That, in my view, is the definition of a profession. The Government is not allowing the social work profession to develop in that way, and that is a mistake.

The second key question I have for the Minister—and I will take point after point, as I am entitled to in this debate—is about the very draconian provision in clause 10 in schedule 1. That states: “The Minister may remove a member from office at any time, without compensation,”. That means any member of the board. Why is that necessary? If it were a State-owned enterprise, I could understand it; and we do have such provisions with regard to State-owned enterprises. When the Government of the day is managing a key State asset, it must finally have responsibility. But when it comes to an organisation that is setting the standards for a profession, why do we need that extent of State control? I do not know of any other professional board that has that: not one, and my understanding is that we have statutes for over 28.

I asked the library to find out for me whether there is any other professional board where the Minister has the power at any time to sack a member of that board without giving any reason, and the answer is that there is not. So why is it that this Minister wants us to give him the power to fire any member of the Social Workers Registration Board? Does any member opposite know why that is the case? Why is it necessary to have that power in this legislation, but not for plumbers, electricians, doctors, nurses, teachers, or for any other body?

I will tell members why I think it is. I think it is because the Minister has become so defensive about children and young persons that he is afraid of a strong professional body, like the Social Workers Registration Board—and it is true, Parliament does have a testy relationship with professional bodies representing teachers, or doctors, or engineers, as does the Government, and sometimes those bodies do send a missile across the Government’s way. That is part of democracy. That is part of their being a profession. My fear is that the Minister of Social Services and Employment will use clause 10 of schedule 1—which gives him the power to fire any member of the board, including the chair or the deputy chair—to give them the Kit Richards treatment if they dare say anything.

💬 John Carter: He won’t use it, surely?

The Minister seems to be indicating he will not use it. So why does he need it? Can he provide some explanation in respect of that important clause?

The Committee stage is a very important part of the process. I too would like to start with the title. We believe that the debate on the title is a very serious one, because any title must be a fair reflection of the legislation. It should be accurate and self-explanatory. Quite frankly—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): We are debating the whole bill.

That is right. The title does not reflect the content of the bill. It should definitely include the word “voluntary”.

Like other groups, social workers have been advocating for registration for many years, but we know that the commencement is going to take a fairly long time. Once registration has been introduced, there are many agencies and employers who will be faced with a whole lot of planning and personnel requirements, and that will take some time. Before they can even do this, the Social Workers Registration Board has to be established. Of course, that cannot begin until the board is established and empowered to act.

Clause 6(b) states that a person has to be fit and proper to practise social work. It is important that the definition or interpretation of these words is consistent with other usage. Likewise, clause 6(c) deals with competence to practise social work with ethnic groups, and that raises a big query as to what determines competence. Is it knowledge of language, or protocol, or religion? We do need to know.

New Zealand First, too, believes that any system that registers social workers has to be open, inclusive, and flexible, due to the very nature of social work. We support the establishment of the registration board to overview the practice and the procedures, but we know this is going to be a longer process than we initially thought.

I would also like to make a couple of comments about the title of the bill. My colleague Katherine Rich’s idea of calling the bill the “Social Workers Voluntary Registration Bill” is a very good one. It certainly reflects what this bill is all about, and does not put anybody in the situation of believing that this bill means what the Minister’s title says. I did think that a more colourful way of saying it would be to call the bill the “Social Workers (Clayton’s Registration) Bill”. I think that that would again explain to people just what this Government is up to, with this bill. The point is that the way the title is worded would give people confidence that something is happening in the industry, when it is not—in other words, give confidence that is not warranted.

I would like the Minister to take a call. I hope he is not going to sit through the whole Committee stage and not rise to his feet and explain a few things that we will be raising. I want him to explain what he really wants to achieve by putting this bill into our legislative programme. In particular, I want to ask him what changed his mind from deciding that he would require or ask all his statutory social workers to become registered. What caused him to change his mind; to say no, that he is not going to put that requirement on them, that he is going to leave registration to them, so that it remains voluntary? I want the Minister to tell the Committee whether it was the cost—$2.3 million a year, over 12 years, which works out at about $30 million.

If the Minister does not take a call, then the Committee has to assume that he is not prepared to invest in his staff, particularly in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. We have to assume that he is not prepared for that department to take a lead in social work registration in the country; and that he does not believe, in his heart, in raising professional standards, because it seems he is not prepared to invest in the staff. Unless the Minister takes a call, I am afraid that will be the conclusion the Committee has to reach, and it will be the conclusion that New Zealand will reach. So I do implore the Minister to explain to us why he changed his mind.

The other point of concern is the Social Workers Registration Board. Again, I would like the Minister to explain to the Committee how we will know that the board is not going to be made up of Labour Party hacks—candidates who did not make it, and people who are friends of the Labour Party. How can the Minister assure us that that board will be well representative of the profession, and that its members will not simply be the Government’s lapdogs. We do know that this is a Government that likes to preserve its power. The honourable member Nick Smith mentioned Kit Richards, who was one of the first people in the public sector to stand up for a cause that he believed in. And boy, did he get guillotined as quickly as anything! The Minister of Social Services and Employment has made it clear that he is in control of the board, so does this mean that that Minister will have control of the whole social work profession? That is what I believe is intended, unless the Minister takes a call and explains to us that we are interpreting this wrongly.

It is a very serious business if we have political control of a profession, driven through Parliament, when only a very small proportion of that profession works in the public sector and a great many people in the profession work in the private sector. What we do not want in this country is for political control to go beyond the realm in which it should exist.

The other point I would like to raise is in respect of clause 7, which relates to overseas-qualified social workers. Clause 7 has a whole lot of provisions whereby those people will be able to work in New Zealand. We all know the plight of overseas-trained doctors who come to New Zealand full of hope, after being told by the Immigration Service that they will be able to work in this country, only to find that they cannot work. What we do not want is for people overseas to say to themselves: “Well, New Zealand, I’m a trained social worker. I’ve got heaps of experience—years of it. I’d like to come and work in this country.”, only to hear that they will be able to come to New Zealand, but cannot practise.

Just because there may well be some people still listening to this debate outside the Chamber, and they may well seriously have taken in any of the arguments that have been put up so far, I will spend a couple of minutes advising them that this is the normal kind of Committee debate, where Opposition members entertain themselves by raising issues that they know the answers to. For example, Dr Nick Smith, who has been a Minister, knows that the Crown entities legislation is reflected in this bill and that the clauses in it are standard to that kind of legislation. Muriel Newman knows that also.

The main reason we have changed from 6 years to 8 years for registration was explained in my second reading speech, and I am sure Dr Newman sat riveted in her seat, listening to it. We have changed it because we believe that probably the most likely thing is that people will settle into a 3 years academic, 2 years practise, requirement to become a registered social worker. Many of them will have to do this part time. It seemed to us that 6 years was a little tight for that, so we have agreed to allow 2 years’ latitude.

Dr Newman had just started on a question about overseas-trained social workers. Yes, we do want to get our share of those skills that move around the world. Some of them will be social workers, and some of them will want temporary registration, and this bill allows that. There will be other questions, for those people who are listening at home to this debate, but I give an assurance that most of them will be rhetorical. Members are asking questions, to which they know the answers.

United Future would like to draw attention to clause 10 in Part 2, which the Minister has just referred to, where the provisional registration timing has been lengthened from 6 years to 8 years. Initially, we were concerned with the timing of 6 years, then a bit more concerned when it turned to 8 years, but we have considered the advice given by the Minister. We understand that the introduction of registration has to be looked at in context. In the 2001 census, 46 percent of those who identified themselves as social workers had gained only a school qualification, or less. We realise that our current social workers will have to consider either returning to university or starting from scratch if they want voluntarily to become registered social workers. They will need to be given time to do that if they want to continue working while processing their qualifications. Because a large number of women are in social work, they will also have the added responsibility of running households. We want to see that life-work balance considered as we give time for people to upskill and register.

However, with the 3-year review built into the bill, which falls inside that 8-year timing, we suggest that some questions will need to be asked in 3 years’ time—that is, what progress have provisionally registered social workers made towards full registration, how ready are we within New Zealand for mandatory registration, and does the title “social worker”, with time, need to become a protected term? We would like to see protected within the 3-year review that the term “social worker” can be used only by people who are registered, as opposed to at present when the term “social worker” can be used by unregistered people. That is a question that may need to be asked in 3 years’ time, as we see what progress has been made by those people who are provisionally registered.

While it looks as if 8 years is a soft and lenient period in which to gain full registration, we consider that we do need to support current social workers. We have to understand that we are now asking more of people who are already overworked and under-resourced, and we need to support those people in our request that they become more accountable and competence-based in our social work system. United Future’s concern is with that part of the bill. We support it because it provides grandparenting provisions for people to become registered, but we think that in 3 years’ time some hard questions will need to be asked.

As I mentioned earlier, the Green Party does support the bill as amended. I am taking just a very short call to talk to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 73, which we received only recently. In particular, the Minister deals with clause 11(2)(b) that relates to limited registration being no more than 4 years’ duration. When we looked at this provision more closely we thought that allowing people to continue through periods of 6 months’ temporary registration was too long. We would like to see that reduced. To that end we have put an amendment on the table calling for it to be no more than 3 years. I understand that the Government will support that amendment, and I welcome that. It is part of the social work profession’s desire with this bill to do everything it can to increase and enhance professionalisation, and not to allow people to continue for too long in a temporary situation.

We do understand the need for this, in that we welcome qualified and experienced social workers coming to our country from overseas. All too often they are needed to bolster our workforce, which is in decline in some respects. We also welcome, at times, retired people going back into the social work workforce with all their experience. It is not that we are against people working on a temporary basis, but we do not think it should go on for too long, and therefore we welcome the Government’s support for our amendment.

As chair of the select committee that helped to process this bill, I want to take a short call to say that the provisions in the bill, and the issues we were dealing with in the select committee, provide a good balance in relation to what is needed in a transitional period when we need to promote competent, well-trained and qualified social workers. We have known for a long time, and even from the sector, that there is a need to improve standards. I believe that this bill fulfils the needs that have been expressed by the sector, particularly with regard to registration. We also need to give people who might be well experienced as social workers the opportunity to get themselves qualified and trained to meet the requirements of registration.

After so many years of the issue being raised by social workers and those who wanted to see standards raised, I congratulate the Minister and this Government on this bill finally coming before the House. In relation to social issues and the care of children, there is a great appreciation by the community that we need well-trained and qualified people who are properly registered to be effective in looking after children. That is one example. There are many other areas of social work where registration will help promote standards.

What the select committee and the Minister have done in setting up the regime for registration strikes a very good balance for the next 3 years. At the end of that period, there will be a proper review so that we can look at what has happened in that time, and then look at mandatory registration and other important issues. I congratulate the Minister and hope that members will support the provisions during the Committee stage.

I note that in relation to the title of the bill that it has been generally agreed—certainly from this side of the House—that the word “voluntary” should be inserted. I also have another suggestion, and it is that we call this bill the “Steve Maharey Let’s Make Social Work Registration Very Complicated Bill”. As my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith pointed out, we have something like 109 pages of Maharey complications, in order to achieve voluntary registration. This is a tribute to a sociologist’s dream—or a sociologist’s nightmare.

I now cross to the purpose of the bill, which is to protect the safety of members of the public by providing for mechanisms that ensure that social workers are competent at, and accountable for, their practice. Yet we learn here that there are 10,483 social workers, that only some of them will register, and that a large number of them will not be accountable for their practice. Those who do register, only have to do so every 5 years, or is it the practising certificate that has to be—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It is every single year.

As I was saying earlier on, in terms of accountability for practice, some social workers are involved in very high-risk activities. I am extremely concerned by the recommendations of Judge Mick Brown that by mid-2002 social workers should not be able to exercise statutory powers—except when co-working with registered social workers, or members of the police—and that the department must set an agreed percentage of registered staff as a goal that must be realised by mid-2002. I would like the Minister to take a call to tell the Committee what he has achieved, or confirm that he has achieved nothing, or at least tell the Committee what he intends to do about that recommendation. We need a degree of accountability, and there is a huge absence of that from this Minister. It is regarded as one of the important parts of the purpose.

I note that there is no definition of a registered social worker, but again, when we have a bill whose genesis has taken, according to the Minister, 20 to 25 years, it seems absolutely absurd that we do not have a definition of what a social worker is. Apparently, there are over 10,400 social workers, and surely this Minister, who has managed to contrive a 109-page bill, should be challenged intellectually to try to achieve a basic definition of what a social worker is. We find that a certain percentage of social workers will be registered voluntarily, and that is terrific—we support that. We want to achieve high levels of professionalism in this country, but when we have a bill about social workers that does not even define what a social worker is, there is a huge gap in thinking. I have asked the Minister to take a call to give us his thoughts about what a social worker is.

I would like to move to the area of registration and practising certificates. I note that a person who has a recognised New Zealand qualification is entitled to be registered if the board is satisfied that his or her competence to practise social work has been found satisfactory, and that he or she is a fit and proper person etc. The bill goes on to state in new subparagraph (iv) of clause 13(1)(b): “that … he or she—(A) is competent to practise social work with Māori; and (B) is competent to practise social work with different ethnic and cultural groups in New Zealand.” But where there is a lack of clarity is that there are no ongoing quality assurance requirements. Could the Minister explain?

In response to my earlier points, the Minister gave one of those lecturing-type of speeches in which he said: “Don’t worry. Trust us. What’s in here is the same as all other similar legislation.” I want to challenge the Minister on that point. I want him to tell of a single other professional body or registration board in respect of which there is the power for the Minister to fire any member. Does the Minister have the power to sack any member of the Nursing Council? No. Does the Minister have the power to sack any member of the Engineer’s Board? No. Does the Minister have the power to sack any member of the Chartered Accountants Board? No. Does the Minister have the power to sack any member of the Plumbers Board? No. Having told this House that this is the same as any other legislation, can the Minister tell me whether he has the power to sack any member of any professional board? The Minister has told this Parliament that these provisions are identical. I simply ask him to give me one other example. The library has provided me with the information on 28 other professional boards, and its best advice is that for none of them does a Minister have that particular power.

💬 Katherine Rich: None?

Not one. So how can the Minister stand up during this important Committee stage and tell us not to worry because it is the same as every other provision in every other bill? I ask the Minister to perhaps ask his officials to give us an example of one other case. If he cannot, then he has misled the House—and the listeners—and that is very serious.

My second point is this: we all know that social workers working for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services have a huge turnover. We know that they are under a lot of pressure, and we know that their salaries are not particularly high. I want to ask this Minister whether the fees for this bureaucratic monster that he is creating will be paid for by the social workers in its employ? It is a very reasonable question, because not only do we have the annual registration fee, we also have a fee for disciplinary matters. So what does that mean? It means that if there is a disciplinary action against a social worker, the cost of that will be imposed on all the other social workers. Can the Minister assure me that the levy that will be struck will be paid for by the department, and will not be a sock on the private earnings of those workers in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services? It is a fair question. For instance, I know that the Government has just whacked up the teachers’ fee by 80 percent. This Government says that inflation is only 3 percent, but it has just increased the fee for every one of our 45,000 teachers by 80 percent. Now the Government says that the boards of trustees can make a decision about whether teachers pay those fees, and some of them do and some of them do not. But in this case, the Minister is the employer. We have, I understand—

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: We are not the employer.

The Minister’s Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is the employer of social workers. Are those social workers in the department—

💬 Steve Chadwick: There are plenty of other departments.

Indeed, but this is the most significant employer. Can the member from Rotorua give me an assurance that the fees that come from this legislation will not be taken out of the wages of social workers of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services?

💬 Steve Chadwick: It depends on where they work.

So if they work in Nelson they might; if they work in Auckland they might not?

💬 Steve Chadwick: No, in which context.

Well, if they work for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, will they be expected to pay this fee out of their private wages? The Chamber is silent. Is that not a fair question? Is that not a question that the Minister in the chair should be prepared to answer? It is a simple question—yes or no.

💬 Steve Chadwick: It is up to their employer.

Well, hang on a moment! The employer is the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. The only income the department has is prescribed by this Parliament and this Minister. I want to know who will pay this fee. I do not want to see it as a further imposition and a further nail in the coffin of the huge morale problem within the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. This Minister owes Parliament an answer because he is creating this bureaucracy. He controls that bureaucracy. If he had left the matter over to the profession, there might be a fair argument. He has not, and he should answer that question.

I did appreciate the Minister taking a call a little while ago. I now know that he has answered the question I asked about whether he was prepared to invest in his department. The Committee will recall that the cost of upskilling his staff, or registering the departmental staff in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, was about $30 million. I asked him to tell us whether that was why he no longer requires the department’s staff to become registered. Was it the cost? He failed to answer, so that means that we have a Minister who is not prepared to provide the support, if one likes, for his department so that it can take a lead in becoming a registered agency.

I think this is a very serious issue. I understand that there are 989 full-time staff in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and some 580 of them are unqualified. The cost to register them, at $14,000 a head, would be about $30 million. From what the Minister failed to say, it means that he is not prepared to make that investment. If he is prepared to, I would like him to tell the Committee. Does he expect the department, if it is going to support the staff, to find that funding internally? Will he be granting it from the Budget process? I see he is making all sorts of moves with his head, and I would like him to put the answers on record by taking a call.

An issue of extreme concern to me is that the Social Workers Registration Board has the absolute discretion to grant registration based on any criteria at all that it thinks fit. The original assumption was that registration would be based on having a social work diploma qualification. But I understand that that board, which is appointed by the Minister, could change it. It could decide that instead of needing a qualification, that 5 years’ experience would be enough for someone to be eligible for registration. I understand that the Minister has seen papers that outline that to him. It means that this Minister could decide that someone does not need a qualification; someone needs only 5 years’ experience.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Before the dinner break I was reiterating that there are some 580 social workers in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services who are unqualified. It would cost the Government around $30 million to provide for their qualification and registration. But now we understand that the new Social Workers Registration Board has absolute discretion to grant registration based on any criteria that it deems fit. I think most of us thought that registration would be granted on the basis of whether the applicant had a diploma or a qualification of some sort. We understand that the board could change the basis of the criteria to the number of years a person had been in practice. Therefore, 5 years’ practice could make a person without a qualification eligible for registration.

The implication for the department is that instead of costing $30 million, it would cost only $12 million to register the 264 people who would now need registration. If the Minister has a lapdog board, made up of Labour Party supporters, he can save the Government a cool $18 million by changing the criteria that everybody expects. I would like the Minister to take a call on that very, very serious matter. I do not think that most social workers in New Zealand realise the discretionary power that the board has. It amounts to an opportunity for political interference at the highest level. A Minister can change the criteria, if he or she has a board that is compliant. I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Steve Maharey, to tell us what safeguards the profession has to know that political interference will not be undertaken either by himself or by any other subsequent Ministers.

The Minister has to realise that Labour will not be in power for ever. Many of us hope that at the next election the balance of power will change. The Minister has to think about what he will do if he is in Opposition, and he sees a National Government Minister changing the criteria to suit him or her. It is not in the best interests of the profession. We need high standards in this profession, not political interference.

The Minister of Social Services and Employment said he was looking for some steady debate and some good questions, so I will rise to that challenge, on the proviso that I hope he will rise and answer a few of the pertinent questions that the Opposition has raised about this bill, in earlier parts of the debate, that have not been answered. Unlike what the Minister said, these questions are not rhetorical. We are hoping for some answers and some clarity.

One thing I would like to know is why recommendation 3.5 of the Judge Mick Brown report has not been followed. It was received 2 years ago, and clearly stated that the introduction of social worker registration should be given urgency, but that has not happened. It has been a couple of years.

💬 John Carter: We’re in urgency now!

Yes, but it is 2 years down the track. It is happening a lot later than many people thought it would.

The second thing Judge Mick Brown recommended was that, by mid-2002, social workers should not be able to exercise statutory powers, except when co-working with registered social workers, and/or members of the police. Why was that not implemented? Judge Mick Brown said that the department should set an agreed percentage of registered staff as a goal that must be realised by mid-2002. Once again, why did that not happen? There was certainly an expectation that it would happen. The Minister wholeheartedly endorsed that report when it was received.

We have not heard an explanation about why the Government has backed away from asking the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services social workers to register. We have not heard the Government’s explanation as to why it has backed away from that. We have a few ideas as to why the Government has decided not to include all Government social workers, as was the original intention. The Minister even went to the trouble of getting it approved by Cabinet, only for it to be rescinded some months later, once further homework was done. I think it is extraordinary that things would go as far as that, only for a total about-face then to occur. We have not had any explanation for that.

At the moment, the country faces a huge shortage of social workers. It will be a real problem for this country if we do not work out better ways to support social workers to undertake social work in this country. There are two reasons for that shortage. The first reason is the number of social workers who leave the country after they have graduated. I come from Dunedin, and I know that there is an English group that comes in every year to actively recruit New Zealand social workers and take them over to the UK. We are also pretty dependent on immigration, on overseas social workers coming in to plug a lot of the vacancies that cannot be filled.

If I look at the parts of this bill relating to overseas-qualified social workers, I realise how difficult we are making it for them to come here and practise. We are asking overseas-qualified social workers to clarify whether they are competent to practise social work with Māori. A very experienced social worker from the UK, who has perhaps practised in London, will have worked with a wide range of cultures and peoples. I do not think there are any social work courses in the UK that specifically deal with the Māori culture, but I doubt whether that has anything to do with the quality of a social worker, or his or her practical ability when working in this country. It is an unnecessary hurdle. The principles of social work apply equally, regardless of the nature of the client. Yes, a social worker has to be able to react and tailor his or her service to a wide range of people, but to ask overseas-qualified social workers to go on a specific training course is quite unreasonable at a time when we do not have enough social workers to fill vacancies.

The second provision is that someone from overseas is required to live and practise social work in New Zealand. Social work is becoming a very specialised profession, and there will be some occasions where someone who has a specialist interest in a certain area may not choose to live in this country. That person will come over and just work with specific cases. For example, somebody dealing with Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy might live in Sydney and travel to this country.

I have to say how disappointed I am in the Minister of Social Services and Employment. It is a huge disappointment, because we know that this is a Minister who is not shy about talking. I would like to try to understand a little bit better why he is not prepared to take a call. I remind him that this bill is being passed through all its stages under urgency. Here we are, late at night on a Thursday, going through the motions, with a Minister who will not talk to the Committee about the issues the Opposition has raised. I believe they are extremely serious issues, and if the Minister does not want to treat this bill with contempt, he will get to his feet and he will answer some of the points that have been raised.

I want him to tell me how we can be guaranteed that political interference is not behind this bill.

💬 David Benson-Pope: Don’t talk to us about contempt.

Maybe Mr Benson-Pope would like to stand up and put on record how the Opposition can be assured that this bill is not a mechanism to bring political interference into another area of professional expertise in New Zealand. There are no guarantees in this bill that the Minister will be kept under check by anybody. The point is that if the Minister puts in place a bunch of his mates, they will be driving the profession. They will be able to change the criteria, without any checks and balances. Where are the safeguards for all those people who rely on social workers to help them with their problems? There are none.

I tell the Minister that I believe that this is an extremely serious issue. I am not aware that anybody in the profession understood that the criteria could be changed in the way that they can be. There are no criteria written down in the bill, so it is up to the judgment, if one likes, of the profession. In my mind, changing the criterion from a qualification to a number of years of experience with no qualification is a huge change—the two are poles apart.

That was the official advice the Minister received. It was pointed out to him. He made no decision to try to put it right in the bill—to include it in a form that would assure members of the Opposition or members of the public that it was out of the politicians’ hands. I would like the Minister to take a call to tell us that my interpretation is not the correct one, and that the safeguards are actually written in the bill.

The other point I would like to make is that it costs $14,000 per social worker to get a qualification. Those workers may not even need to get a qualification, according to the advice the Minister has received. Are we to put enormous compliance costs on social workers and on the organisations they work for, when that might not be needed? If he does want them to train for and obtain a qualification, can he tell the Committee what he has done as Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) to ensure that enough providers of services will be out there to help those social workers who would like to gain qualifications to get them? I understand that at the moment the need out there and the actual number of people who can provide help are absolutely out of kilter. There are nowhere near enough trainers in social work to help those people get qualifications, if they so desire.

It is very important that the Minister sets the record straight, and that he tells us exactly what the criteria are to be from his perspective, because he will be the one who is guiding this. He will be the one who sets the basic criteria for how people gain their registration. We have seen two very different scenarios put forward in the advice that has been given to the Minister, and it is only fair that New Zealanders and social workers who have a very, very keen interest in this matter are informed by him. The Committee stage of a bill provides the Minister with an opportunity to address the nuts and bolts issues that are raised.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Sue Bradford to the amendment set out on Supplementary Order paper 73 in the name of the Hon Steve Maharey to clause 11 be agreed to:

to omit new subclause (2)(b), set out on Supplementary Order Paper No 73, and substitute the following paragraph:

(b) must be such that, when it is added to the duration of any previous period or periods of limited registration of the person, the total is no more than 3 years.