Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill

I move, That the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

I am really pleased to be here to speak on the second reading of a bill that has been a long time coming. In 2003, when the Social Workers Registration Act was introduced, the system of voluntary registration of social workers was intended to be a transition measure. I know that since then, both sides of the House have been interested in mandatory registration for social workers to ensure we keep our young ones and families protected and increase the professionalisation of the social work workforce. Throughout my time in Parliament, I have acknowledged the need for greater professionalisation of social workers and for further protection for some of our most vulnerable people.

In 2015, I had a member’s bill pulled from the ballot which sought to make registration mandatory, but, unfortunately, this did not receive support from the Government at the time. Now, as the Minister for Social Development, I am so pleased to be continuing to progress the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the previous Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley, for introducing this bill. Strengthening the social worker profession is something that we have in common on both sides of the House.

The bill will provide better protection to those New Zealanders supported by social workers, who are often among the more vulnerable adults and children in our community. Social workers support people through tough times, look out for the well-being of our tamariki, bring families together, and provide a voice for people in need.

In the short term, social work alleviates stresses on individuals and whānau, and addresses social problems that may be beyond the capacity of families to deal with themselves. Social workers deliver effective social services and interventions that mitigate and prevent harm that could otherwise have long-term adverse consequences. In the long term, social workers are also vital for the overall well-being of people and communities.

A lot has changed in the social work sector since the Social Workers Registration Act was passed in 2003. There has been a steady increase in the proportion of social workers who have professional qualifications. We’ve seen a very high level of voluntary registration. Around 80 percent of practising social workers are now registered. However, under the current voluntary registration regime, there is still no mechanism to effectively deal with anyone practising as a social worker who is not registered and where serious misconduct or poor practice is involved. Non-registered social workers can cause serious harm. They can potentially continue to practise without appropriate penalty or sanction, except as provided under employment law and in compliance with statutory restrictions on tasks that can only be done by a social worker.

The bill provides protection for the title of social worker. The bill proposes that any person who refers to themselves as a social worker or claims to practise as a social worker must be registered with the Social Workers Registration Board. If they are practising, then they must also hold a practising certificate, which is renewed annually. This will provide assurances for people interacting with social workers and who rely on them for support. It will also give greater weight to what it means to be a social worker for those who are practising. Employers will benefit too, as they will have more confidence that when they employ someone, they will be skilled and able to do the job they were hired for.

Before I go into greater detail about the bill itself, I want to take this time to acknowledge everyone who has been part of this process. I’d like to particularly recognise the contribution of the Social Workers Registration Board in supporting the change and in taking on the commitment to change itself. It will have a leading role in the coming months and years to give effect to the bill once passed. I also want to acknowledge the leadership of the social work sector, which has been demonstrated through the cross-sector group the Social Work Alliance. They have put significant time and effort into working with the Ministry of Social Development in the development of the bill and the Supplementary Order Paper which will be discussed further during the committee of the whole House stage.

To everyone who has participated in the select committee process, the Social Services and Community Committee members, and all those who submitted on the bill, thank you for being part of this and contributing to the bill. The feedback from social workers, organisations, employers, and service users has been invaluable. To all those involved, your willingness to work together has made the bill stronger and more in tune with the reality of social workers. It took a while for us to get here.

Once this bill is in effect, entitlement to registration will require the Social Workers Registration Board to be satisfied that the person has a prescribed qualification, is competent to practise as a social worker, is a fit and proper person, is competent to practise with Māori and other ethnic and cultural groups, and has enough practical experience in practising as a social worker. Any person claiming to be a social worker and not registered will be liable on conviction to a fine or imprisonment. Whether or not a person will need to be registered as a social worker or is entitled to be registered will be determined by whether their position description, job title, or someone else such as their employer suggests they are practising as a social worker, and/or the qualifications claimed or implied as being needed by a person for their job as part of a profession are the same as required for a practising social worker.

As part of giving effect to the bill, the Social Workers Registration Board will provide guidance that determines what positions held by a registered social worker come within the definition of practising as a social worker and those that don’t. The bill provides for a shift from five-yearly competence assessments to ongoing professional development. This is in tune with best practice and removes some costs on social workers. The bill will align complaints and disciplinary processes under the Social Workers Registration Act with other professional regulatory bodies.

I recognise that there are a lot of talented social workers in the community who do good and vital work but who may not hold recognised social work qualifications. This is why the current practical experience pathway to registration as a social worker will continue for a limited period to allow them to make the transition to registration.

If a non-registered person is practising as a social worker and they do not hold a recognised social work qualification, then they have two years to ensure they are eligible and have applied for registration under the practical experience pathway if they wish to continue practising. There will be no change to any person currently registered as a social worker based on their practical experience; they will continue to be registered.

To strengthen the bill even further, I’ve released Supplementary Order Paper 187, which I will propose during the committee of the whole House. The Supplementary Order Paper will carry forward some suggestions arising from public submissions to the Social Services and Community Committee and in subsequent consultation by the Ministry of Social Development with the Social Work Alliance. Most notably, the Supplementary Order Paper proposes scopes of practice for social workers. I know this is an issue that was favoured by the select committee and the sector. Scopes of practice provide a mechanism to describe the professional practice for a social worker and any conditions limiting an individual’s practice. The use of scopes of practice is something that is commonly applied to health practitioners. It is a tried and tested approach that has operated for many years. It will be familiar to many social workers.

Though mandatory registration has been widely expected in the profession for years, it is important to make sure that people currently in the profession, and their employers, have time to adjust because there will be changes for some people. The two-year lead-in time will give the Social Workers Registration Board time to communicate out across social workers and employers so that everyone knows what to expect and, crucially, what they need to do. The social worker profession and the community have pushed for years to make sure that all social workers are accountable for their practice and are recognised for their professionalism. This bill will make that happen. It is a significant step forward for social workers and the people that they support. I say again that the time has come to move to mandatory registration, and I’m very proud to commend this bill to the House.

I just remind speakers that the second reading is not a place to debate any proposed Supplementary Order Paper. I didn’t stop the Minister. You can outline, but we don’t go into detail.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are a number of things that we of course do agree on with the Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who has just resumed her seat, but there are also areas that we disagree on.

I want to start by commending Madam Deputy Speaker, in her former role as the Minister for Social Development, for introducing this important legislation. I’m sure it might feel a little while ago, because it was, of course, in August 2017, and it was legislation that was unanimously supported in the first reading, which I think is important to have on record.

The voluntary regime had been in place for quite some time, and there was general agreement that moving to mandatory registration was important, for a couple of reasons. One of those was to help improve the status and professionalism of social workers. I think that for a lot of people who are listening to this debate, they will have very personal experience of the work that social workers have done with them and their families. They do incredibly important work with some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders, and I want to commend them for the work they do. There will be others, though, who aren’t sure what social workers do, and perhaps won’t understand, actually, why it is so critical for us as a country to ensure that we recognise the skills and capabilities of those who are working in social work but also that we attract the next generation of people into social work.

So when I talk about the status and professionalism of social workers, that is really critical. But it’s also about those people who are interacting with social workers—the clients, the customers; you know, I’m sure we’ve got different names for the people they work with—and one of the things that they want to be assured of is that the social worker who’s in front of them in some of their most vulnerable times is someone that’s been vetted by the police and is someone who is subject to professional ethics and who undertakes professional development as a condition of their practice. One of the things that we heard through the submission process was that for some people, that’s a given—it’s assumed—but, actually, for others, it’s not taking place right now, and for a client or a customer who’s dealing with a social worker, we actually want to have that level of quality. We want to have that level of assurance for them when they are dealing with a social worker.

One of the really significant challenges with this piece of legislation, which kind of does make this reasonably flat for me, is that this was an incredibly rushed process in the select committee. I want to just kind of talk through the time frame, because it will be a point that National members make in this debate and in subsequent debates. One of the roles of Parliament is to scrutinise legislation and to ensure that as the Parliament, we have the ability to produce the best law possible, with as much scrutiny as we are able. In the select committee process, the scopes of practice were raised on multiple occasions, and despite the National members requesting on more than one occasion for an extension to the report-back time frame—which was only two months from the close of submissions—the Labour members declined that request.

So there was quite a lot of frustration in the select committee process that members couldn’t explore all of the issues and concerns that were raised by submitters, and, actually, that’s the job of a select committee. So it is pretty unfortunate that the time frame for the Social Services and Community Committee report back was reduced, particularly when you consider that the report back was in April 2018. What’s interesting to note is that the revised regulatory impact statement (RIS) that is, of course, produced for the Minister was produced back in July 2018. There was plenty of time for this to go back to the select committee for consideration and for further work. There was plenty of time—no urgency.

I’m not sure why Labour members refused the request at the time to allow the select committee to do its work fully and properly. Actually, this is a bit of a bad habit that I think the Minister is slipping into, and I would seriously urge her to stop dropping large Supplementary Order Papers so that members of the public don’t have the ability to scrutinise the legislation. I accept that she’s talked about the fact that she’s worked with the Social Workers Alliance—that’s great. But, actually, there are others affected by this legislation, and the select committee is the proper place for scrutiny of legislation and for the select committee members to ensure they hear the voice of the submitters and they explore any unintended consequences.

So I do have grave concerns about this legislation and the direction that the Minister’s outlined it’s taken. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, you have said that that’s not a matter for the second reading, but the issue that the Minister raised about the scopes of practice was an issue in the select committee, and the select committee was not given the opportunity to deal with it fully and thoroughly, which is good practice. It’s actually more than good practice—it’s best practice. That’s how the Parliament is meant to work.

So my message clearly to the Minister is that it’s not good enough. It is not good enough to ignore the select committee process. It is absolutely an abuse of power and an abuse of responsibility. What we are dealing with here, as I said in my opening comments, is that social workers work with the most vulnerable New Zealanders, and the Minister should think about that when she is considering legislation, instead of ramming it through.

Actually, it’s not being rammed through, because it was seven months from when the RIS was drafted to now, so there’s been plenty of time. The select committee could have had a lot more time with submitters. We could have done another round and we could have got more advice, and that’s interesting because in the departmental report, which is from the Minister’s advisers—it is the Ministry of Social Development and, in this case, the Social Workers Registration Board were also an important part—they didn’t make that recommendation.

So one of the questions that we’ll be wanting to explore fully in the committee stage is: what changed? What changed in terms of the officials recommending no change to the scopes of practice, to now? So that sounds like a Minister that absolutely ignores the select committee process, makes her own mind up, and then goes off on a tangent, and it completely ignores the parliamentary process.

I don’t want to take away from the importance of this legislation—it is important. We have a committee stage next, in which we will absolutely explore Supplementary Order Paper 187, and we will do that in a huge amount of detail. The Minister sort of nods her head in a fairly patronising manner, but the Minister has not given the opportunity to the public to have scrutiny of the significant changes that she’s proposing, which I find quite appalling.

This is a critical piece of legislation. As I said, it was unanimously supported at the first reading. It will be supported in the second reading, and we’ll see what happens from there. I hope that it is a full discussion and a full debate and that the Minister engages in that process, rather than just abusing the processes of Parliament.

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: You’re just abusing the time of the House.

I’ve said this is an important piece of legislation. It was introduced by the National Government. I have the same ability as that member to contribute in this House and in this debate and to put important things on record in terms of the process that has happened to date, the comments from the select committee, and the concerns that were raised that weren’t addressed, and it wasn’t recommended that they be addressed.

I want to come back to something that’s been raised as an issue with this, particularly in the area of scopes of practice, because it is a challenging area. In the submissions that we heard, there were a range of views in terms of this being a very full and very tight licensing regime—which is one end of the spectrum—and other areas where it doesn’t actually change much in practice. So there’s a wide range of views around scopes of practice that do need to be explored, which is why I wanted to make sure our concerns were on record.

National will support this bill in the second reading. We want to ensure that social workers are supported with mandatory registration and—equally as important—that the vulnerable New Zealanders that they serve are also protected.

Today in the House, our Prime Minister defined what true leadership is. It isn’t about management; it’s about being bold and being able to make decisions that improve the lives of New Zealanders. Sixteen years is far too long to wait for this process. Here we are being accused, on this side of the House, of rushing through a process, denying the select committee the opportunity to make a robust bill in this House. Sixteen years—16 long years. One can only guess at how many families, how many individuals who have engaged with social workers over 16 years, have needed this bill.

That member, and also the Minister who introduced the bill in its second reading this evening, made it very clear that the mandatory registration process that this bill enables is actually good for both families and individuals and, of course, the practitioners themselves. It ensures that robust mechanisms are in place for (1) the safeguarding of not only those who receive the services, but (2) those who actually work with our people—the practitioners in the field. That’s important to remember.

So after having gone through a process over a long 16 years, and, indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, under your guidance in your time as the Minister, and now under the new Minister, and with a Government who are keen to lead—keen to make sure that we can get on with the business so that families right across this country can be reassured that the social worker that they engage with is registered, is qualified, and is able to provide the service that they need. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know as an electorate MP, and MPs right across this House will know, the situations that families present to our offices right across the country are becoming more and more complex—more and more complex.

We have just finished the inquiry into mental health. We have just finished another piece of work into looking at how we can improve the social welfare system. This is why this bill is timely, and we on this side of the House are not going to sit around and wait for debate from that side of the House simply because in the nine years that they were in Government, this didn’t happen. In fact, I recall speaking on it in the first reading, in the last term of Government, and I am proud—I am proud—that this Government, this evening, is progressing the bill. We talk about the safety of clients, and we talk about the safety of the practitioners themselves. We are also talking about an entire workforce, actually—an entire workforce; a workforce that has, indeed, served this country well. This particular bill will allow it to serve our country even better and to give the families what they deserve.

I want to quickly slip on my Whānau Ora hat and make it clear that this particular bill and the social workers that we expect will register with the Social Workers Registration Board are very different to navigators. There is confusion in our community that navigators for Whānau Ora are social workers—indeed, some of them are registered social workers and qualified social workers, but in other cases they aren’t. This particular bill will have a clear separation so that we can clearly identify what a Whānau Ora navigator is in their role, and also what a social worker is in their role, and I can guarantee that this isn’t to separate them; it’s actually to complement each other’s work, because we are working with the same people. We’re working with the same families right across Aotearoa New Zealand. So I think this particular bill is indeed timely, and I am disappointed that the other side want to try and prolong something that has already taken far too long to come to this stage.

Very briefly, the Minister mentioned the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and flagged it for discussion. We do look forward to that opportunity when the committee of the whole House sits to consider the progression of this bill. We welcome that opportunity to sit down and debate the merits of that SOP. What we do understand from social workers and leaders in our communities is that, actually, scopes of practice are important, and this is where I say once again, and our Prime Minister stated the position of the Government today: we’re here to lead, and we want to be brave when we do that. We know that it might cause some contention, and we welcome the debate from the other side of the House so that this bill is robust as it progresses through the House. But we want to get on with the job. Our people across Aotearoa New Zealand can’t afford to wait any longer.

It’s in that vein that I don’t wish to trivialise too much more time of the House, but I also thank all of the people who have been involved with this for many, many years. Some are sitting in the gallery this evening, and it’s important that they witness the progression of this bill—their hard work and the profession that they serve so loyally and, often, thanklessly. We want to acknowledge them, the many submitters, and the hard work of the committee both from the last term of Government and the current term of Government.

We are proud and we look forward to further robust debate on this bill and, more importantly, to the assent of this bill. It has already been described by the Minister that it is staged out so that it isn’t the case of flicking a switch to make sure that everybody, come Monday, is going to have to be at a particular level, or qualified, or registered; it sets some very clear parameters that will allow social workers, budding social workers, and future social workers, the opportunity to pathway into what I think is a very honourable career. In its second reading, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill tonight in its second reading. Madam Deputy Speaker, I do beg your indulgence, before I begin to talk about the bill, to take this opportunity to wish communities in Tasman who are still feeling the impacts of the fire all the very best. I pay tribute also to the outstanding outpouring of love and support from within the Nelson-Tasman communities, and indeed from across New Zealand, and I acknowledge the exemplary work of Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the other agencies doing their very best to keep this fire under control and, of course, to get people back into their homes. I say thank you to them all.

I also wish to acknowledge the new member of the Social Services and Community Committee, Agnes Loheni, and a very warm welcome to this Parliament to her. I look forward to the pleasure of her company around the Social Services and Community Committee table.

It is a pleasure, speaking to this bill, to introduce a formal registration process for our social workers, and, as we’ve heard already tonight, this will provide a professionalism to this highly valued workforce. We’ve also heard tonight that this bill had its first reading in this House on 17 August, in 2017. And I just want to make a comment about Peeni Henare—who has just finished his contribution on this bill—who says he wants to get on with the job, but it has, in fact, been quite some time since the rushed report date that the select committee had to meet. And while it has been languishing since that advanced report-back date, you have to wonder why the committee could not have given consideration to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that found its way to the Table Office late last week.

But this, of course, is another great piece of legislation introduced by the former National-led Government. However, the conversation about social workers registration actually started way back in the year 2000 and it has followed a series of reviews: one in 2007, one in 2012, another in 2015, and then an inquiry in 2016, as requested by the then Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley. And it was determined through that select committee inquiry that legislative change would be required to strengthen the framework—the regulatory framework—for the sector, which is, of course, the purpose of this bill.

We’ve also heard tonight about the need for this piece of legislation also to protect the people that the social workers engage with—our more vulnerable citizens. This bill was of high interest to the social worker sector and their employers, and as a result the select committee actually received 170 written submissions and we heard 17 oral submissions. They were very detailed, and out of those submissions there came some common themes. And talking about themes, tonight we are seeing another theme developing, which is the habit of dumping significant SOPs—this one a 67-page one, as I said, delivered to the Table Office late last week, at the end of the Christmas break. However, we’re very grateful it’s not as large as the 500-page SOP that was delivered a couple of hours before the second reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Notice a pattern? Notice a pattern?

💬 Hon Member: Oh, yeah.

Yes, yes, she is making a habit of it. It means that this SOP is not going back through the select committee process and, as I said, we had ample time last year for the committee to actually scrutinise this new SOP. But, no, when the Minister considers herself the absolute expert and does not value the expertise of the people who work on the coalface, who employ those social workers, then I’m afraid that’s why we end up with rushed legislation and detail falling through the cracks. And so now they don’t have the ability to contribute any further to that SOP. And it’s not just small detail; we’re actually talking about the scope of practice for the entire industry. I would suggest that that sector—the social workers themselves and their employers—have a huge interest in contributing to the detail of their scope of practice. And had it come back to the select committee, we may have found that—for instance, we were told during the select committee submission process that district health boards have already developed scopes of practice.

We could have aligned those scopes and we could have actually made sure that they were aligned and we ended up with the best piece of legislation, or we may have even found that the scope of practice may have been better developed by the Social Workers Registration Board and didn’t need to be embedded in legislation. But here we are. So because the sector has not had its opportunity to support or have input into this Supplementary Order Paper, this side of the House will not be supporting it. However, we will support the bill. It’s a very good bill initiated by the very good National-led Government. So, of course, we understand the need for the legislation and will be supporting it.

Now, there were other things that the submitters brought up during the process that I’d like to spend some time talking about. In the initial draft of the bill, there was considerable concern that the registration process and the annual professional development would be a financial barrier to some people maintaining their registration, and, as such, some of those submitters asked that the contracts and the funding for those contracts be adjusted to reflect the added cost of compliance for the social workers. Now, the social workers are also going to be required to have 20 hours of professional development a year, and that will come at a cost to their employers and will be a cost to the contract. So, again, I ask that the Minister takes note of this request from those submitters and ensures that the social workers and their employers are not financially disadvantaged by this legislation.

The submitters also raised the issue of workforce continuity, and there was a little bit of tension, which I picked up, between social workers employed by district health boards (DHBs) and those employed by NGOs. The DHBs had a much higher ability to provide a higher hourly rate to their social workers than some NGOs did—and, as we know, NGOs are really the backbone of our community services and they, of course, do tend to run on the smell of an oily rag, so the last thing we want to do is to add added tension to them. As I said about workforce continuity, we need to take into account the ability of those sectors, the DHB sector and the NGO sector, to have a higher hourly rate and therefore enable those NGOs to maintain their workforce rather than losing them once they’ve been trained and have had some coalface experience to then be attracted into the DHBs.

There was another issue raised by submitters and that was that when the professional development is being set up, social workers have cultural competency included in that professional development, and they wanted to ensure that that was also included in the legislation. So because of this bill, a social worker must undertake that professional development, and we are, of course, supporting that, because we understand that we do need the very best workers out there dealing with our most vulnerable, but they also need to be subject to professional ethics.

Now, we take note too that this is an omnibus bill, and it will be making changes to the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004, which will ensure that any convictions are discoverable during the police vetting of social workers. I thank our social workers for the work that they do in the community—I know there are some watching tonight—and I understand the value that you bring to our communities and the value that your work brings to individuals. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s an absolute privilege to stand, for the first time this year, on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill, the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. I’ll get into the four main aims in a second, but first, I just want to address a few things that Maureen Pugh said in her speech, and Louise Upston.

I don’t blame Maureen Pugh so much, because she wasn’t here last term when this bill was introduced, and, quite clearly, she’s been given some wrong notes about the accuracy with which this bill has made its way to the House and why it has come to this House. Louise Upston made the point that—and wanted to make a point, and she literally said that she wanted it noted—the bill that was introduced by the Hon Anne Tolley when she was the Minister for Social Development was unanimously supported, and that was after an inquiry that Maureen Pugh said was instigated by the National Party and by the Minister as well. What I would like noted also is that in 2016, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni’s member’s bill that did exactly the same thing and that was pulled from the ballot was not unanimously supported, and I believe the only party that did not support it was the National Party.

So if we want to talk about political expediency, or political motivations, and getting the facts right, then maybe the National Party—and, in particular, Maureen Pugh—needs to do a little bit of a history lesson and have a look at who voted against the original legislation that was brought in by the now this side of the House and who didn’t support it when it was coming through, and who are now claiming that they are holier than thou—that they are the saviours of the social services sector in ensuring that there is mandatory registration. It is utterly not true, and they know it—I mean, the sector knows it. Both Labour and New Zealand First—because New Zealand First did have a member’s bill in there as well, and I believe it was prior to the Labour Party’s, but we won’t go there—were putting pressure on the National Government, and this is why it has come this far.

Not only that, but the first reading did occur on the very last sitting day of the last parliamentary term. So where was the importance—I mean, we’ve been hearing about back in 2000, when the requests were made about being registered and how it’s a long time overdue, but it was not until the very last sitting day of the last term that National brought this to the House. Where is the importance that the National Party has been saying is on this topic?

What’s a little bit more ironic is that the whole scope of practice and definition of the role of a social worker has dominated both speeches from the National Party members, and, in fact, the original bill that came in in 2017 did not include the definition of what a “social worker” is. One of the most important submissions and comments that was made from the major stakeholders that came through the select committee process was that there was an absolute need for the definition of what a “social worker” is, what their role is, and the scope of practice, and that is what the Minister has been bringing in, and will bring in with Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187.

Back to the bill and the aim. There are four main aims—there are actually two main aims and there are four ways of getting there. So the two main aims are to “increase the professionalism of the social work and protect the public from harm”. Four ways of doing that are “making the registration system compulsory for all social workers; protecting the use of the title ‘social worker’; ensuring that social workers are competent and fit to practise; providing an appropriate complaints and disciplinary process.”—all of which will be achieved not only with this bill as introduced but with the SOP coming in the future.

I mentioned earlier that the Minister and I had put in members’ bills on this topic earlier in 2016, and the main motivation for that was because I was one of I think it was about 85 percent of the public of New Zealand who automatically assume that social workers are registered and have to be registered in the first place. It just makes common sense, and with the fact that we know that the important professions deal with not vulnerable people but people in general and society in general, and, in particular, certain professions like teachers, doctors, nurses, and social workers deal with very vulnerable people and children. Everyone assumed—quite rightly—that they had to be registered in the first instance and they weren’t, and this is the process of getting there.

When we’re talking about a registration, above all else, it’s about not only the trust that the individual has with that relationship with that social worker but also the trust that society and the country and the community has with the important role and profession of social workers and what they bring, and the service that they deliver to society as a whole. It’s not only about the trust but also it’s about ensuring the higher levels of training and the ability for oversight of higher levels of training, quality control, and discipline, all of which are, basically, a struggle and/or impossible if there is no mandatory registration.

It’s also important to note that there were a few issues raised during the select committee process, and the main issue from the main stakeholders in the practising of social work is, like I’ve mentioned, the definition that includes the roles that use the title or description of “social worker”. So in the original bill when it was introduced, there was an ability for people to get around the—in the bill that we introduced, if we had just protected the title “social worker”, that would have led itself to be open to manipulation, unfortunately, not only by individuals, and all they would have had to do was not call themselves social workers and carry on doing the same role, but also by employers in not creating a job entitled “social worker”, and the job and the role would have remained the same.

So the problem that we’re trying to solve is not necessarily just—because it is part of it—protecting the term “social worker” but also protecting the role and the relationship that they have with those that they provide the service with, and the only way that that can happen is if there is a definition of what social work is, and a scope of practice as well. So we fully support where the Minister is going with in terms of this bill and the SOP that will be introduced in the committee of the whole House.

I’d just like to finish my speech with the reality of what the SOP is and why the SOP is needed.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you can’t—no, you can’t. You can talk about issues that were raised in the select committee, but you can’t talk about the SOP, because it isn’t on the Table.

Well, I’m not talking about the SOP; I’m talking about the reason why it’s needed, which is what I said.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no—only as it relates to the issues that were raised in the select committee.

Well, that’s what I said.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, well, you need to reframe it, is what I’m saying. Don’t talk about it as a reason for an SOP; talk about it as issues that were raised at the select committee.

OK. So one of the main issues that was brought forward, which I’ve already mentioned, for the need of something that will be tabled later on was from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. Their primary concern with the whole bill was that the bill as it was introduced failed to meet the stated objective of protecting the public from harm, as only practitioners employed—paid or voluntary—in roles described using the words “social worker” or “social work” will be required to register. It is anticipated that anything up to half of the current social work workforce would not require an annual practising certificate or be required to register.

So that’s the problem in a nutshell with the bill as it stands, and that is why—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is what was raised in the select committee.

—that was what was raised, which we will be addressing throughout the process of the bill going through the House. New Zealand First supports this bill.

It’s a pleasure to speak in the second reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill—in support, I should say, of the bill in the second reading. Before we get into the actual specifics of the bill, I just want to say that I’m seeing a theme in the speeches from the Government side today, and the theme is around how we on this side do the mahi, but the Government takes the credit. We’re seeing it with the economy. We are seeing it with things like trade in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and now we are seeing it with social services, and in particular with this bill. Let’s be clear: this is not something that’s been going on for the past year; this is something that was started by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in your role as Minister—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into the debate.

—for Social Development, and this Government has continued that on. So I want to make clear to the public that is listening at home that this was a process started by the National-led Government and then led by the National-dominated Social Services and Community Committee, and that has been continued on to this second reading, which we are grateful for. We acknowledge it on this side of the House when the Government picks up our legislation and continues it on, but we would appreciate that this side of the House is acknowledged for the contribution that we have made to bringing this legislation to the House today.

But, most importantly, let’s now get to the purpose of this bill, because it is a very important bill. It’s about the importance of social workers to the functioning of our society, and we can all agree in the House on the importance of the social worker profession in terms of protecting our most vulnerable and at-risk citizens in New Zealand, and on the value that these workers do in order to change people’s lives, to steer them in the right direction, and, hopefully, to lead them to a better and happier life.

At the last census, we had on record, roughly, about 8,000 or so social workers in existence. About 6,000 of those are, in fact, registered, and there are about a quarter, or 2,000, that aren’t, but that doesn’t include the vast array and thousands of people out there that are fulfilling the tasks of social workers but that are not necessarily in the role of social workers. So I do want to put a special thanks out and acknowledge the contribution that social workers make to the fabric of our society, and the hard work. This bill is about, essentially, improving the professionalism of the social worker profession but also making sure that the public have certainty and assurance over the quality of these social workers, because we know that the issues that these social workers deal with are very complex. This bill seeks to, essentially, make sure that we’ve got the very best people dealing with these complex issues for the benefit of New Zealanders.

So about this bill, which was supported by National in the first reading and will be supported in the second reading as well—it provides for a number of provisions. Firstly, it enables that, essentially, an unregistered social worker cannot claim to be a social worker. So there will be a process in place where you need to be, essentially, certified before you can go out and call yourself a social worker, and that is for several reasons. One is so that the public of New Zealand and these vulnerable people that these social workers are dealing with have a sense of security that these social workers have the qualifications to deal with these complex issues but also, too, do the employers that take them on to help encourage and grow the profession even more. It also defines the practice of what a “social worker” is and makes sure that that is enshrined in legislation and that it is used throughout the profession. It also sets professional regulations for social workers in the areas of being certified to say that you must have a qualification, and it also provides an array of processes in place for employers to, in fact, come to the Social Workers Registration Board with complaints over social workers’ conduct.

Finally, in terms of the legislative changes, this is an omnibus bill, so it does impact several other pieces of legislation, and my colleague Maureen Pugh has already gone into details about some of those Acts. But, as I said, essentially, it professionalises the profession and provides a process for employers to take disputes or issues with social workers to the Social Workers Registration Board.

So I just want to talk a little bit about the select committee process. My colleagues have already outlined that we have concerns about the way in which Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187, on which I will not go into details—you’ve already traversed the reasoning for why that is the case, Madam Deputy Speaker. But I do want to express my dissatisfaction that we weren’t given an opportunity as a select committee—which I now sit on—to actually review that SOP, which is about 37 pages long. The Minister for Social Development actually had the time in order to go through the select committee, but instead the Minister has dropped this SOP at the last minute. Again, it’s a recurrence with this Minister of making changes at the last minute and not bringing the parties or the people in the House along with this. So I do have serious reservations, and we would have loved to have debated the SOP in the select committee, had we had the time to do so.

But we will support this bill in its second reading. We will support it because we believe in the impact and the value of social workers in New Zealand. We believe in creating a professionalised workforce, partly to encourage and attract more social workers into the profession but also to retain existing social workers and make sure that they feel valued and they feel that what they are doing is a professional aspect of society, and we feel that this bill will, in fact, go along those lines. So this bill, essentially, provides better outcomes for social workers and, we believe, better outcomes for the people who are being dealt with by these social workers—and we all know social workers in New Zealand. I’ve got social workers in my own family. I’ve got next-door neighbours that are social workers, and they work very, very hard and often without the valued respect that they deserve.

So the changes that have been outlined in this bill that result from an inquiry that the previous select committee recommended are changes that we will support on this side of the House. So that is, in a nutshell, my position on the bill, and our position. I do want to acknowledge the former Minister for Social Development—your contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker—in bringing this to the House. I do want to acknowledge also Minister Carmel Sepuloni for continuing this piece of work that is really, really important and for bringing this to the House. Again, we would have loved to have had the constructive dialogue on the Minister’s SOP in the select committee, but we understand that this is a behavioural trait that we’re coming to terms with, with this Minister, of dumping SOPs at the last minute. So I just want to say on behalf of the National Party that I must strongly commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I’ll try and speak through my cold and hope I can be understood. It’s a great pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of the second reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill and the introduction of a mandatory requirement for registration. I think, in getting to speak at this stage, that it’s hard not to reflect back on the journey to get here, and I’m looking at the speech that the Greens’ spokesperson gave in the introduction of the original legislation in 2003. After listening to the submissions at that time, she noted that we felt that in order to enhance the quality of social work, the bill should reflect a commitment by the Government to work towards the mandatory registration of all social workers within an agreed and specified time frame.

We had offered the suggestion of 10 years in that time, because we noted and understood, from listening to submitters at that time, some of the logistical and financial challenges for our practitioners and NGOs to get to that point of mandatory registration. So here we are, 15 years later, at that point again of still in some ways having that conversation. I’ve been in Parliament now for seven years and this issue has been with me the whole time—sitting on the select committee and hearing from the Social Workers Registration Board, which appeared in front of the committee and told us how things were going and what issues they saw out in the community. Every time they presented to us, they raised their concerns that anybody could operate as the social worker and there was no ability to actually be able to engage with the quality of their practice or to intervene if indeed there was a dangerous practice happening.

It took until the now Minister Carmel Sepuloni introduced a member’s bill that really prompted the shift in the conversation to “Let’s do this”, which then enabled the National Government to support it. While they voted down that legislation, actually, there was support for an investigation into it and then there was the introduction of this bill.

So it’s one of the things that I reflect on in all of that process. I think the submissions in terms of the Social Services and Community Committee also showed that we are on a journey, and it’s really important that we start moving to more partnership with the social work profession. We talk, and there have been speeches from everybody in this House tonight acknowledging the importance of social workers to our collective well-being as a society. The job is incredibly difficult. You can’t come up with an A plus B equals C kind of flow chart for how to respond and work with families or individuals. Lives are complex, and there’s often a lot of danger, particularly for people who have been discriminated against and pushed out into the margins.

So it requires a huge amount of skill to do this job well and safely, and we have undervalued and under-recognised that work. I would say that over the last 10 years there was a sense that often when we were discussing really tricky, complex social issues, actually, there were simple solutions—there aren’t. It’s ultimately about getting good social policy that supports everyone and enables relationships to be able to support change for individuals and whānau and families. That is why we need to respect and value the work of social workers.

So, clearly, through the process of the select committee, many issues were raised about this legislation. Certainly, Parliament was given the feedback loudly and clearly that the initial legislation as introduced by the last Government lacked a defined scope of practice for social work. There was a real concern that our community organisations and anybody employing social workers may just take the name out and, in effect, keep the job the same to avoid the cost of registering, and that we would not see an improvement in practice and support for our families.

I think it is important to note with that that there are two sides of that. So there is the issue around the scope of practice, and there’s also the acknowledgment of the absolute reality that our social services have been run down and neglected, and that they have not been funded properly. So when I heard a National Party member just earlier speaking about financial barriers and implications for our community organisations from mandatory reporting, and that being raised, just the irony of that sat with me quite deeply after we heard those organisations being questioned again and again by the previous Government about whether they were making any difference whatsoever in our community, and that absolutely a freeze on their funding had implications for their staff, to the point that some of those organisations’ staff members were having to go to food banks to be able to support themselves and feed themselves and their families because of the decisions and the undervaluing of those organisations’ work, which is connected to not understanding the vital importance of social work within our society. So I have absolute confidence that this Government will take on that issue and that the Greens have always stood strongly for well-resourced and properly valued community services, and we will continue to do that.

I know that this is out of scope for this stage of the debate, but I will also acknowledge that there is a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that has been tabled and that will be discussed in the committee stage. I know that there are some concerns amongst some social workers that I really look forward to exploring through that debate and for the Minister for Social Development to be answering some of those concerns, to put people’s minds at rest over that. I would point out too that my understanding is that that SOP has been developed in partnership with the PSA and the alliance of social workers—so with the profession. That is a very significant change in approach from what we had under the previous Government, who thought they could sort it all out. Actually, this Government recognises that in working with the experts in our communities and different sectors, we get a better result. So my understanding is the SOP is a reflection of that new approach.

I would flag that—and I’ll be interested in the Minister’s discussion around the potential of this in that debate—I have heard a concern raised that the Social Workers Registration Board will play a very significant role in terms of the new direction of this legislation, and that those positions are all Government-appointed. There is a discussion about when social work is not just about working with individuals but about challenging Governments to do better and get our social policy settings right, and they have a duty to tell us things that we may not want to hear—actually, whether we would want to build in a new mechanism to enable more independence for that board, which may protect into the future the values of this Government. So I’ll be interested in that discussion as we go forward. But, in conclusion, this has been a really long time coming, and I want to congratulate the Minister for progressing this through.

Look, I’m absolutely delighted to be able to stand and take a call on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill in its second reading. Look, as colleagues have indicated, we are, overall, supportive of this bill. As has also been noted by colleagues, it was a bill introduced, mostly in its current form, by the Hon Anne Tolley in the previous Government and we are pleased on this side to see that the bill is progressing. I’ll touch on some caveats near the end, but we’re pleased to see that the bill is progressing.

Once again, it’s not a surprise that it’s, effectively, at this point, a National bill which is being picked up by the Government. I noticed today that there has been a lot of talk about a great vision being put forward. I must have been in a different House of Parliament or another temporal moment, but I didn’t hear any vision, and when we come to the House, the first piece of legislation is, yet again, a piece of legislation of the past. We’ll just have to wait for all those hundreds and hundreds of committees to come back before we see some new legislation.

Look, the overall intention of this bill is to increase the confidence of—and confidence in the work of—social workers, and, as a couple of colleagues have noted, it’s here, thanks to the work that social workers do. They fill a particularly important role in our community, alongside a whole lot of other people who support our community in different ways, be they from the medical profession, through to iwi leaders, churches, and so forth. So I give my thanks to those who are in the social work profession and, of course, the many who have inputted into the process to date.

One of the difficulties, though, with social work is that it’s rather difficult to define, and that’s been one of the conundrums, I think, that’s faced the progress of this bill to date. I suspect most of us in this House—and people out on the street, if you went on to the street now to talk to them—intuitively have a general understanding of what social work is. The difficulty comes when you try to define it, when you try to put together a scope of practice to specifically and definitively define what it is, and it is one of the issues of this House when we try to take these rather general aspects of a profession, or we take a general policy idea, and have to define it quite precisely in law. And that’s one of the reasons that it’s taken quite a while for this bill to progress.

A member who spoke earlier was lamenting the lack of priority—that it’s taken something like 15 years, I think, for this bill to progress.

💬 Hon Members: Sixteen years.

Sixteen. Look, it wouldn’t matter if it was 20. Sometimes things take time to progress through and to get through right, but notice there are two things that were noted there. One was that it’s now so important—it’s still taken this new Government a year, if not more, to get to it. The second is—and we’ll come to it later with the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—that they’re actually trying to ram things through. As we say, it’s a difficult thing to define. Social workers work across an incredibly wide range of areas, with an even wider range of people with, actually, a very complex array of needs. And I think, as I quickly skim the SOP, I can see the array of problems. “Problems” is probably the wrong word; it’s the difficultly in, again, trying to define things. Overall the bill is processing it well.

First and foremost, it seeks to protect the name or the title “social worker”, and that makes perfect sense. A person in this country should not be able to manifest themselves as a social worker if they have not done some training and some form of registration. When we initially introduced this bill, we had not moved towards a licensing of people to social work; instead seeking, rather, to certify, to make sure that those who are or wish to become social workers obviously have been police-vetted. There are some elements around the clean slate Act there which are rather important—that a person can indicate sufficient training, sufficient competency to be able to take upon themselves the title of social worker and then, importantly, to register themselves.

Again, I think that nuance there—the difference between certifying titling versus licensing—is fairly important, and, again, indicative of the complication that’s here. The best analogy is ultimately from the medical or the legal field. A number of people undertake legal work, but not all those are lawyers. It’s the same in the health profession. There are some that are doctors, there are some that are nurses, but, actually, the health profession is much, much broader than that.

So, again, we say we are, overall, supportive. The problem that we are about to run into is ultimately that an SOP has been dumped on this House. That’s a problem for a number of reasons. One, I suppose, just from a process point of view, is that the SOP was not given in good faith to the House first and foremost. That was only done in recent days. We first learnt of this through a press release on the Ministry of Social Development website. I don’t think that’s very prudent.

The second is that we had a truncated select committee process. This is becoming an unfortunate habit of this Government, and that’s of concern—particularly when we’ve had speeches earlier about how we have to listen to people and we’ve got to be empathetic and understand what people say. But when the tyre hits the road, the Government’s not particularly interested in engaging with people. We’ve been seeking, as an Opposition, to find out from the Minister who she did consult to bring about this SOP, and there’s been incredible reluctance—incredible reluctance—to say who. In fact, all we wanted was just a bit of evidence of what was said.

We’ve had some indications from the Green Party tonight that it was the unions—I suppose not a complete surprise; not a complete surprise. But the problem is, you see—[Interruption]—I’m hearing a funny noise. I’m not sure if it’s tinnitus. The thing is that the unions are one voice; they’re not the only voice. That’s the problem with the left and progressives—they often think that just because the unions have a say, that’s the say of everybody. And I think those of us who have had the privilege to sit on select committees understand that there are an array of voices that want to be heard. When I think of the social workers that I’ve worked with over the years—some are in the union, some are not—some would support this bill, and some would not. It’s a variety of views that I think deserve to be heard. So I’m concerned again that this particular Minister, Carmel Sepuloni, is dumping an SOP on the House at the last moment—an SOP that will not be put in front of the public.

And again, part of the argument’s been, “Well, we’ve waited 16 years, so now we have to rush it through.” Well, if I’ve learnt one thing in my years in the House it’s that when we rush things through, we make mistakes. If all the seriousness and the compassion being manifested by those on the Government side—of course, they all talk about the empathy required to be given to people yet, of course, if they get this wrong it’s going to be those very people they want to help that they’re going to harm the most. So I’m disappointed.

The consequence, of course, is that we as an Opposition will need to take a good amount of time to debate this in the committee of the whole House to understand more fully what the SOP is about. Fortunately, it’s not like the last SOP of 501 pages that was dumped. This is about 37 pages, but I think we give it a good hearing so that we can properly understand what this is doing to the public of New Zealand.

Fundamentally, as we say, a good bill started under National, engaging continually and over and over with social workers—both those, if you will, professionally unionised and those without—to understand how we progress forward. But I return to what I indicated at the start: social work is a fantastic and important profession, alongside many others, but it is a complex work. It is not easily and readily defined. I think one of the concerns that has been manifest throughout the progress of this bill over many years is making sure that we enable those who wish to be social workers to continue their good work for the communities of New Zealand and not to be limited. I can see that as an unfortunate consequence.

So I look forward to this progressing—well, I suspect it will progress tonight; we’ll see how we go—to the committee of the whole House and, eventually, towards this registration that has been mooted for some time. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me pleasure to rise to this bill, the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill, after much of the heavy business of international politics and finance. We could have come back here on the first day to something that is really bread and butter politics here, or bread and butter legislation, I should say, because this is the type of thing that actually does impact on people’s lives. It’s not going to impact just on the social workers, it’s not going to impact just on the social work profession, but it’s actually going to impact on those they deal with.

I had the privilege of sitting through the Social Services and Community Committee, and we heard a range of submitters. One of the things that did strike me is one of the submitters who talked about where they were accompanied by someone who purported to be a social worker, called themselves a social worker, and, as far as those taking the advice of that person were concerned, they were actually a social worker. It turned out they weren’t, the advice was terrible, and it just highlighted the need to ensure that when someone is administering advice that is actually life-changing and is going to be heavily influencing decisions people make, they must have the confidence that that person has been through some sort of a screening system—that they are professional. And that’s what this bill really does address.

I was fortunate to come to the committee after a previous profession I was in where I was working with my Australian colleagues to try and work through a registration process for policing within the eight Australian states and New Zealand. And that gave me an understanding of the need to understand, for those who do call themselves a police officer, like those who call themselves an electrician or those who call themselves a doctor—as referred to by the previous speaker—that it is important that there is actually an element of trust or understanding that to do that, you have come to that position with a suitable level of training and understanding of what it is you should be doing. That project is still ongoing; trying to get eight Australian states to agree on anything—last I heard, they had different gauges on their rail lines so that may well be something left to my successor’s successor.

But coming back to New Zealand again, I talk about the need—when we talk about social workers, so often we are talking about the traditional dealing directly with people who really need assistance to be able to participate fully in mainstream society or just get back on the horse or to do whatever—they’re going through some sort of period in their lives. But it’s much more than that, the social workers—I mean, I had a personal experience myself. I had a child who was at death’s door and one of the pieces of advice I got from the then social worker at the hospital was “Think about where you’re going to bury this boy if he dies.” Now, that is something that was, it actually turns out, very good advice. I can say he didn’t die, but it actually did turn my mind to those issues that people who had been experienced in that situation before, who knew what was going to come up, knew what’s going to happen—and that was actually having someone experienced in that position and that person was a social worker. As people go through different aspects of their life, they will encounter social workers who are practising a profession and understanding a body of knowledge that they are putting into practice that is absolutely essential.

So just going back to what a social worker will be: it will be an offence to call yourself a social worker if you’re not, and that’s important, and I think that really lies at the basis of this. So if you are dealing with someone who is a social worker, who says they are, they will be, and we can understand they have that level of understanding. They have to have a prescribed qualification, be competent to practise as a social worker, and be a fit and proper person. And, again, part of the element of a profession is to ensure that there is a governing body over that. A very important part of this is the competency to practise with Māori and other ethnic and cultural groups, and to have enough practical experience in practising as a social worker—all those things that are incredibly important.

In my short time left to me, I’ll just speak about the matter that has being talked about, the scopes of practice, which will be the subject of a Supplementary Order Paper. It became clear from listening to submitters that the fear will be that simply—one of the previous speakers talked about 8,000 social workers in the last census, but that could very quickly drop down to 2,000 if the profession is not defined. So there is going to be an important bit of work, and I look forward to being part of that discussion, part of that debate during the committee stage of the bill. So thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill.

I call Hamish Walker—five minutes.

This is a very interesting bill and one close to my heart: my sister is a social worker. She’s been a social worker for the best part of 15 years. It is a very, very interesting bill—I mean, the Government had time to scrutinise this bill, to go over it with the select committee. The thing that really disappoints me about this bill—National supports this bill but we oppose Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 in the name of the Minister for Social Development. The Government had time but they chose not to use the time to go over the bill, and one thing I’ve learnt in my short 17, 18 months as a member of this Parliament is that select committees improve bills. It’s a chance for members from all sides of the House to panel-beat the bill to make it the best bill possible. And, unfortunately, this Government—which is very common, very typical of this Government—has chosen not to.

This bill was introduced by the last National Government and was intended to help to increase the status and professionalism of social workers. I just want to acknowledge all the social workers out there. They do a fantastic job, and just over this recent summer talking to my sister, some of the cases, some of the people that she helps—it’s just incredible and they deserve a lot more credit than they currently get. And as a result of this bill, people would like to know, basically, when they’re dealing with a social worker. There are a number of different social agency providers across New Zealand, so it’s good, once this bill passes, which was introduced by the previous National Government, that people, the members of the public, will have a very simple, easy process to follow so they know when they’re dealing with a social worker.

Because of the restricted time frame and the fact that this Government chose to not put it through the select committee, submitters’ concerns were unable to be fully addressed, and this bill really needed more time to come back in front of this House. So it’s very disappointing. In saying that, we support the bill, but we oppose SOP 187, and in future, for the better of people of New Zealand, if the Government can follow proper process and put it through the select committee.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It is an absolute honour to be able to contribute to the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill in its second reading. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, for championing this bill through the House.

But before I get to that—most people today have referred to “I know of social workers.”, “I know of cases.”, “ I know of what—”, “I know of what—”. I have the social work registration number 1473—

💬 Hon Member: Yeah!

Yay—and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge my lecturer in Auckland College of Education, Robyn Corrigan, who first introduced me to social work in my first year; also Shannon Pākura, whose parents were caregivers when I was a social worker in Ōtāhuhu, and she was also the Chief Social Worker at that time; and the managers here at Child, Youth and Family, now Oranga Tamariki.

I want to bring a voice of insight from the field. Social work is a calling and it is based on values and ethics. The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers has 11 principles which its members must abide by. But I want to just cover three points, three of those principles, because then I can go on to talk about the reasons why this bill is so important and that it is about time that this bill—as I acknowledged to the Minister, it is about accountability to the ethics and value of our profession of social work.

So the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers that I used to be a member of—I just want to say that my annual registration expired on 30 June 2018. My competency certificate does not expire until December 2019. Members of Parliament do not have a job description, so the social workers registration board said to me, “You are non-practising, because there is no job description for members of Parliament, so we cannot actually measure whether you actually do social work or not.” So my official title—I’m listed as a non-practising social worker with a competency certificate that expires in December.

OK, let’s just talk about those values. I’m going to have to read them because it’s important that we all hear that in the House. One of the ethics and principles of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers talks about “Upholds value of democracy and human rights.”, “Protects the client’s integrity”, “Recognises and accepts Māori as tangata whenua of Aotearoa, and that the social worker’s role is to achieve social justice for Māori at both a structural and individual level written within the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” Unfortunately, Māori are the mainstream clients of Oranga Tamariki. The reason why I refer to that principle is because it is important when we say social workers are credible and they are fit to practice that they must be able to demonstrate that they can practise with a cultural component, and the majority of that needs to be Māori, the tangata whenua of this country.

I’m not sure Mr Assistant Speaker, whether this is a split call or am I speaking for 10 minutes? I just want to confirm—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Keep going until he says stop.

Keep going until he says—yeah, OK. So one more minute; OK. So the Minister referred to—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: It’s a split call.

It’s a split call. So the Minister referred to an acknowledgment of the cross-sector group the Social Work Alliance.

We hear from the other side—they keep saying, “Oh, we need more time to hear from the people. We need more time. We need more time.” Let me recall who exactly is in the Social Work Alliance: it is the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association, Careerforce, it is the Council for Social Work Education Aotearoa New Zealand, Social Services Providers of Aotearoa, New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, District Health Boards Health Social Workers Leaders’ Council, ministry of Oranga Tamariki, Social Workers Registration Board, and New Zealand Public Service. I think those members actually represent the voices of people who bring the experience and the insight into the service that is for most of us, people who refer to ourselves as social workers; it is a calling and it’s a value-based profession.

Anybody at the moment can call themselves a social worker—anybody can call themselves a social worker. But a person who’s done a law degree at university cannot call themselves a lawyer unless they’ve gone through all their practising, done the hours and time. The social work profession—I’ll come to a close soon—to practise as a social worker, it is never done in isolation. Social work is group work. I’ve come through the service as a social worker. I’ve been a social worker and in my role as social worker I’ve had supervisors who supervised and critiqued the decisions that I made. I’ve had practice leaders who actually look after social workers and supervisors to make sure that they’re practising. All these people that are referred to within this bill are people who must be registered social workers, all reading from the same hymn book, and all singing from the same hymn book.

I cannot wait—I cannot wait—for the debate of the committee of the whole House because it is important that we get this passed so that, number one, when we speak about the most vulnerable, the people who make decisions about the most vulnerable children, the people who make decisions about vulnerable parents, and the people who make decisions about vulnerable communities are people who will call themselves social workers. We need to be accountable as country. It is about social justice. It is about human rights. People who have the honour—the honour—to serve and to service the people who are most vulnerable need to be accountable. Actually, we need to be able to stand with our hand on our hearts and say, “We have come up with this great process to make sure that they are actually following due diligence and being professional at their profession.”

I must conclude now, but I just want to acknowledge all the people that work within the social work field, people who go above and beyond. A social worker never ever works eight hours a day. A social worker goes well above and beyond their call of duty, and I want to acknowledge the profession. People out there who call themselves social workers and say, “Oh, you know, social work is easy work to do.” It is not for everybody. I don’t think that anybody here who comes across the ministry of Oranga Tamariki who somehow has not done a good job of being parents, and has somebody at their door to take away their children because we’ve made an assessment that they’re not safe to be in their care, would want that person to actually have been sent by their peers, by their profession, if they are not actually capable of making those decisions. Mr Speaker, that’s it from me today, social worker registration number 1473, who’s not practising. Malo.

I thank God for the day that registered social worker 1473 came into the Community and Social Services Committee, because the day that she came in, she added a bit of common sense to this bill, when we had that in the debate, and I did say that to her. One of the issues that came up during the discussion, and especially during the select committee process, was about scopes of practice. I know that she knew what we were talking about because that was an issue from the very organisations that she’s just named.

Those organisations said, “Look, the bill is great; it’s heading in the right direction.” We know the numbers: 6,300 already registered, nearly 2,000 that were unregistered, who wanted to move from a voluntary to a mandatory regime. Not a problem. Everybody agreed that that’s what we should do. But when it came to the select committee process, through the submissions, from the very organisations, they said this: “All we ask is that you include it in there—not to define it so that you’re bound by legislation. Regulation will define the specific areas of that scope, but you should include that into the legislation.” We on the select committee then said that we’d like to take that back through the advisers, back to the Minister for Social Development, and so forth. But here’s what we got back: “Time is short; we’ve got to move on.” In fact, I want to read some of the advice that came in the regulatory impact statement. It talks about these very scopes: “Scopes were initially considered during the early development of the Bill, but on balance they were not seen as required to meet the objectives of the proposed legislation. Cabinet decisions from mid-2017 affirmed the decision not to include a scope of practice …”. In the regulatory statement that’s what the officials gave back to us.

So why are we here now—and we’ve got Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 to now include into the bill? There was plenty of opportunity. We were pushed, we were rushed, to get the bill done. We wanted to give it time and space to allow for those issues to be discussed. We were told, “No, we’re going to move on.” The officials have given their advice, which would have come from the Minister as well. Not today, not now, and probably not ever, but now we are here over in the second part of the bill. We agree with the bill. You will get the vote from National in regards to this piece of legislation. What you won’t get though is the vote for the SOP, and here is the reason why: poor practice. We’re talking scopes of practice inside this bill around the registration on social workers; how about practice in regards to the Minister in her practice?

Here’s an even greater concern. We were asking officials in the Minister’s office, “So what was the change of heart? What was the change of mind? Was there official advice? Was there a report that was submitted? Was there some other part of the regulatory impact statement?” No, there wasn’t. It was a conversation that was had with some other social workers after the fact. For a Government that talks about being transparent, a Government that’s talking about evidence-based, why is it that now a decision to change has simply come through a conversation with some friends? That’s what we’re protesting about. That’s the reason why we’re saying it over and over again. We do not deny the fact that scope of practice should be there. In fact, all of the parts of the bill, this select committee, along with National members, absolutely support it. What we are protesting against—and it’s silence of the lambs on the other side because they know it to be true—is the fact that this is poor practice, didn’t need to happen.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: How did the Saudi sheep farm happen?

Didn’t need to happen. OK? Well, I don’t know about sheep farms but what I do know is about social workers, OK, that came to us in the select committee from the very organisations—from registration 1473, as she named them, inside here, in this House. Those very people, possibly some of the lecturers that would have lectured social workers, said to us, “Please include scopes of practice.” That’s what I can tell you about. Those are the words that they shared. That’s what we wanted to push through but it didn’t happen. And again, what has to be of great concern to those that are listening on the outside is why having a conversation, possibly over a cup of tea, would’ve changed the mind of the Minister. I know the Minister’s better than that. But I have to say, Minister, on this case here, I have to say it’s poor practice.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Only that party has secret cups of tea.

Yes, the member over there can keep trying to interject because it’s a bit silent on the other side, because the reality is they know it to be true. We’re not contesting anything inside this bill. We’re not contesting anything inside this bill but the point we do want to make is this: when you had the support of the House to support this Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill, when you had the fact that we were supporting all the elements in that, would it have taken—and here’s the other thing: from the time that we then had the bill submitted with the report, sent back into the House, six months—six months—it sat there. We were told to rush the bill through. Why? Because time was of the essence. We needed to get this completed because social workers in the communities in Aotearoa needed to have this bill passed. We waited six months before we even got to this point where we’re now having the second reading. What was the rush? Why could you not have taken the time? Why are we here?

There’s only one point to be made tonight in the speeches of the House from this side: it’s poor practice. That’s what we’re saying. If you’d just taken the time—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Nine years your party did nothing.

Nine years. Well, let’s just talk about that. As the chairperson in 2016 of the Social Services Committee, we initiated, and as the chair I initiated, the inquiry into social work practice, and in particular around managing registration. In 2017, this was initiated by the Hon Anne Tolley. [Interruption] Well, you can talk about that. What about the nine years previously, under a Labour Government, when they were lobbied—when it was advocated—for change? Did they change? No, they didn’t. You see, the reality is, you’ve got your history of inactivity, and in our time, we began the process and would have passed the legislation.

💬 Hon Member: You had nine years.

Throw your nine years, but here’s the reality, right? The point is that we would have done it. We would have continued the process through.

So you know what? The nine years is not about—the fact is that we are supporting this legislation. You’re hurting because of the poor practice. That’s what you’re hurting about. And you know what? It’s great—I’ve got another three minutes where I can keep saying it: poor practice. That’s what it is. All you needed to do was take another two to three weeks. That’s all we asked for. We asked for an extension—not given. All we asked was to take a little bit more time, allow those very social workers that you are standing up there for and championing; the very social workers you said are doing a great job, and we absolutely agree; the very social workers you stand up and say “We are the champions and the advocates for”—they asked for this, not us. They asked for it. You didn’t give it, and now we’re back here again.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I didn’t give it.

Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker. I do apologise. I know you’re a strong advocate, Mr Assistant Speaker. But the community of social workers asked for this. They asked for this. They asked that we would simply take the time to extend this to include the scopes of practice. Every time I stand up here and say it, I know it hurts, but it’s the truth. It is poor practice, and what they should have done is just take an extra two weeks, allow them to come up with a submission, extend it—we wouldn’t even be talking about this. We would have been standing alongside you, championing all the parts of this bill. That’s what we would have been doing.

It’s unfortunate that we are at this place, and so I again want to affirm the words that have been spoken on this side. All it would have taken is just a little bit of extra time to turn around and listen to the words that were supported through the submissions by the social workers themselves: “Please include scopes of practice inside the legislation.” It’s what we ask for. But, unfortunately, it had to come through the back door. Unfortunately, it did not come, and when our officials actually asked of the Minister’s officials if we could have some of that advice that was given, it was not forthcoming. That’s an even greater concern: not a single report, nothing that was there that shows the evidence, but, simply, it was advocated in the quiet and in the silence. For a Government that prides itself on transparency, that was not the case in this situation. That is the point that we make here on the side of the House. We will support the bill. We will not support the Supplementary Order Paper that’s being submitted by the Minister.

I’m absolutely delighted to be the last speaker in the second reading, where we’re not debating Supplementary Order Paper 187 this evening; we’re talking about it as it is in the second reading coming back.

I’m delighted because I had to have a wee laugh at my colleague here, social worker No. 1473, when she said around people saying how social work is an easy job and can be easy work. I do sympathise with that because I have worked in my previous career very, very closely with a number of social workers, and I hold them in the highest regard. As a principal of a school, I worked with social workers from Oranga Tamariki. I had our own Social Workers in Schools social worker, who I thought was absolutely crucial to the running of the school. We also worked with a large number of social workers from different hauora. These people had the ability to, and did, change lives—constantly, daily. I think they made lives so much better for the people that I worked with, not just my children that I worked with but also their families; not just their immediate families but the wider families and the wider community—exceptional people, absolutely amazing in the work that they do. So when people say that this work is easy work, then I just absolutely laugh at that, because I think they are just the most incredible people.

Having said that, and having worked with so many social workers over my career, it wasn’t until the last few years that I actually came to the realisation that they didn’t have to be registered. I didn’t know that. I thought that everyone that walked through the door of my school and presented as a social worker had to be registered. I think that that is wrong, that it’s taken so long to rectify that. That’s why I’m excited about this bill as it stands at the moment, and I really do commend the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, for the work that she has done and continues to do on this particular bill. I’m excited about where it’s going.

I think that I wouldn’t be the only person. I think I heard the Minister in front of me say that it was a wee while before she had that realisation, as well, that this is so important, and I presume that’s why she put that up as a member’s bill originally, which got turned down by the previous Government. It’s been 16 years since the Social Workers Registration Act was introduced. I don’t think that that’s good enough.

I’ve been part of a profession where registration wasn’t mandatory when it first came in, and I remember going through the process of it becoming mandatory. It didn’t take long. It was only a few years in that first instance. Since then, the teaching profession also has had a number of iterations in the changes of registration. It’s improved along the way. Not only has it helped the people that we work with because it gives them surety—and this will be the case for the social workers, that it will give the most vulnerable people surety, and the people like myself, who worked with them, surety in that registration process—but it will also show value in the profession, and that’s what I’m excited about. This is where we can actually say that these people are highly skilled and they are registered and we have the absolute surety around that. That has got to be good for the profession, and I say “profession” because that’s exactly what it is.

I’m really excited to see this bill come in in the process it is now. I’m not going to talk about the Supplementary Order Paper because this is not the time. However, I am really looking forward to the committee of the whole House stage because I think that’s where we will have the informed debate and hear why that Supplementary Order Paper is coming through. So it’s been said here tonight—I don’t need to add to it. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.