Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill, and move, That the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin by acknowledging the vital support that social workers provide to some of our most vulnerable populations across New Zealand. They support their communities to ensure that people receive the assistance they need to live safe and fulfilling lives.

The bill amends the Social Workers Registration Act 2003 to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations carried out under the Act. Collectively, the changes these amendments make will help ensure the Act is fit for purpose, and help support social workers to uphold their professional standards while delivering safe care to their communities. It highlights our Government’s commitment to enhancing the social work profession and is a way to ensure that social workers are supported to serve our communities safely and effectively.

I want to just take a moment to quickly outline the six policy amendments in this bill. The first amendment broadens the grounds for interim suspension. Action will be able to be taken when a formal investigation is considered but not yet started. When there is sufficient evidence to believe an investigation is likely to begin, social workers will be able to be suspended in the period before the formal investigation starts. This change prioritises, of course, public safety, as people would expect, while, at the same time, addressing concerns about the social worker’s professionalism or practice, while ensuring that the suspensions meet the criteria to maintain fairness. This change would reduce public safety risk to those served by social workers, keeping our communities safer.

Another amendment allows for the extension of additional interim suspension periods from 10 days to a period that is reasonable and necessary for the board to complete their investigation. Currently, suspended social workers receive notices every 10 days, even when there’s no change to their status, despite some investigations taking up to the average length, which is approximately 17 months. So, of course, it will just help manage communication more effectively, reducing any unnecessary stress from those repeated interim suspension notices while ensuring that the correct process is maintained.

The bill ensures that the board’s professional conduct committee will also become more efficient and flexible. An amendment will allow the committee to combine available outcomes for complaints or notices of conviction rather than being limited to one per case, allowing complex cases to be processed more effectively.

To improve efficiency, another amendment will allow the board to delegate its registration functions to employed staff. This change will reduce delays in the registration processes for applicants seeking social worker registration and would free up the board’s appointed members to prioritise their responsibilities in governance.

The fifth amendment clarifies the board’s role in monitoring prescribed educational qualifications. While this function is already implied, this amendment would make it explicit in law and remove any ambiguity about the board’s responsibility to monitor the social workers’ qualifications that it prescribes.

Finally, the bill will transfer the power to obtain information for investigating individuals who falsely claim to be registered social workers or who practice as a social worker without authorisation, from the Ministry of Social Development to the board. Shifting this function to the board ensures there’s a single point of contact for the public.

In addition, the 11 technical amendments to the bill will address inconsistencies in the Act, streamline its operations, and update the language used. This aligns the Act with wider changes in how social workers are governed and contributes to enhancing the professionalism of the workforce.

There were a couple of concerns that were raised in the select committee, and they were out of scope of the bill, but I do acknowledge that social work shortages remain a concern for many. This has also been highlighted during the select committee process, and I acknowledge the challenges that that presents, both for the workforce but also for the people they serve. Work is under way to address those concerns, and I thought I would take the opportunity just to confirm that the board is starting to engage the sector on a workforce strategy and action plan.

These amendments, I have outlined today, will help to ensure that social workers are able to effectively deliver critical services to some of our most vulnerable populations across the country. As this bill goes through the third reading, I want to thank the Social Workers Registration Board for their work on the 2020 review of the Act, which has, of course, led to the amendments that we’re discussing today, and I want to thank the Social Services and Community Committee members for their review and their work on this piece of legislation.

Thanks to the submitters and a very big thankyou to the officials who worked tirelessly to ensure that the legislative changes we bring to this House will work. My final thanks, though, go to the social workers for the essential work they do in our communities, often in very challenging circumstances and dealing with New Zealanders that have very complex circumstances in their lives. I know that this bill will assist them and support their efforts and ensure the professional standards that they uphold each and every day. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It is with thoughtfulness that I stand and make a call on this piece of legislation. And I acknowledge, in the last term of Parliament, actually, that you, Madam Speaker, and I were on the Social Services and Community Committee and got to spend many a time engaging with social workers, with legislation that is important to the lifeblood of our communities and of our people throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

When I look at this piece of legislation, the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill, it is a simple, technical bill, but it is one that we should always take seriously, one that should always be considered on, because our social workers play a huge role within our communities, within our schools, within our prisons, within our aged-care facilities, within our healthcare facilities, within communities all across the country—and I’m sure I’ve missed many a part of where they involve themselves.

I was thinking about the role of a social worker as we looked at this, because very much I believe legislation like this is around protection. It’s around protecting not only the people that social workers work with but it’s around protecting the social workers themselves. We need to fiercely protect our social workers—that there are checks and balances in place for them, so that we ensure that they know the rules, they know the boundaries, but there are checks and balances, like the Social Workers Registration Board, that can be considered to make sure that we have the best people and the best places doing everything they can for our beautiful tamariki, our elderly, those who need support.

As I looked at the bill, and as we’re listening through the stages over the last wee while, I was thinking, “What actually is a social worker?” You know, we generally know what they are on paper, or we kind of have an idea—a social worker, they interact and often in dynamic circumstances and that sort of thing. But I just wanted to reflect, as we consider this legislation, on what a social worker is and what they actually do: a social worker is an advocate. They’re an advocate not only for a person but it might be for a whānau and for a community. They’re a supporter. They’re an empowerer. They’re a listener.

In many ways, we look around our fast-paced world and the disconnection that has happened in many parts of society, and, often, a social worker is at a place where someone maybe is at the most needy point within their lives, and a social worker is there not only to be an advocate and a supporter but to be a listener, when they may never have been listened to before in that community or with that person. They’re a protector, they’re a guide, they’re a connector, they’re a healer, they’re an ally, and they’re a problem solver. I think that’s one of the things that, as a society, we need to acknowledge and celebrate within our social work community: they are problem-solvers. Every single day, they go to work to love people, to care for people, to be allies and advocates and supporters, and to solve problems when, often, people have got to their wits’ end and don’t know where to go or what to do. We need to celebrate, acknowledge, and ensure that our social workers are not only resourced but protected.

As I look at this legislation—and yeah, it is technical, and yes, we do support it—we also need to be reminded of the challenges within the social sector we have at the moment; the challenges we face with funding, the challenges we face with staffing, the challenges we face when it seems that a Government doesn’t seem to care about what they are doing to ensure that our social workers are the best they can be and are the most well-resourced they can be. We look at funding cuts. We look at our workforce in terms of the percentage of people going through training and education to become social workers, the reduced hours, and the challenges that many social workers are facing, as well as the fact that many of our social workers are ageing.

I was looking at the numbers: around 40 percent of our current social workers are Pākehā New Zealanders. They’re actually not completely representative of the people they’re working with, and I believe that we need to be looking, as a Government, as a Parliament, and as a society, at how we ensure diversity and inclusion. How do we ensure that we make sure the people who are connecting and working with our communities look like themselves, sound like themselves? How do we make sure that we are putting the right funding and the right systems in place to empower our social workers to love and care for our communities, but also be representative of them?

It is disappointing when I look at the pay-equity settlements for social workers and the fact that it feels like it’s stalled and it’s not going anywhere, when I look at the fact of the cuts to Oranga Tamariki and what’s going on, and the implication that that has not only for our social workers and those who are doing the best that they can do—but, of course, it affects our tamariki, it affects our whānau, it affects our communities, and that is not OK, as a society, and it is not OK that we, in this Parliament, allow that to happen.

This legislation is important, but we also need to be critical and look beyond just what we’re talking about—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Not for the purposes of this debate.

My next sentence was to be “I understand there’s a parameter within this”, Madam Speaker. But we need to be looking at the big picture as well, because we can’t look at just a piece of legislation in isolation; we’ve got to look at it beyond that, in terms of where it fits into society. We need to get our social worker work strategy right. We need a plan. And it’s hard to look and see what is going on when it feels like this Government does not have a plan for our most vulnerable, that our Government does not have a plan to fund, to equip, to empower, to resource our social work sector, to resource our community sector, to resource Oranga Tamariki. We need to look at this legislation today, as we are, but we have to look beyond that to see what we’re doing to get it right.

Social workers are problem solvers, and we, in this House, need to be problem solvers, too. How can we work, how can we challenge the Government to look at how they’re funding things, and that people actually are more important than profits? If we don’t have people—if we don’t actually have people in the right places—what is the point of having profits? Social workers are change-makers. Social workers are carers. Social workers are mediators. Social workers, often, are responders and often end up being first responders, because they can see the situation and what is going on and what needs to be done. They’re counsellors, they’re community builders, and they are a voice—they are a voice for our community, they are a voice for society—and we need to value them.

This legislation makes some tweaks—which we agree with, which is good—to protect, as I said, our social workers, to protect those they work with—just to continue to modernise. But also social workers are a voice that should be speaking into every single electorate, into every single MP’s office, allowing us to understand what are the critical needs at the grassroots of our communities. If we were listening, as MPs, if we were paying attention, if we were meeting with them, if we’re reading the emails that they are sending us, we’d know that there is a crisis in our country. There is a crisis of community, there is a crisis of funding, and there is a crisis of ensuring that the social work workforce is equipped and that we have the right people with the right expertise and the right training, and we need to get this right.

In closing, I just want to point out a couple of changes that have been made. I asked the Minister for Social Development and Employment a question, during the committee of the whole House, regarding a simple word change—I know, one of my colleagues, the Hon Jenny Salesa, also spoke on this—changing the word from “different” ethnic and cultural groups to the reference “various”. I actually went and got my dictionary out, had a look, and realised that, actually, it does make sense, because I think it’s more inclusive. It allows more engagement. “Different”—we talk about difference; that is “I’m different to you”—whereas “various” is actually far more inclusive and brings more people to the table. So, when I looked at it, when I asked the Minister, when I read and understood, I feel comfortable, and, actually, I think it’s a good thing. We need to look at “various”—not just at differences, but at what brings us together. Of course, then, there is replacing the term “such as he or she” with gender-neutral terminology. That’s just simple stuff. That’s just making a modernisation which allows for legislation to move into the 21st century and beyond.

Our social workers are amazing advocates. They are fighters. They are champions for whānau, for young people, for the elderly, for our communities. There are people who need to be honoured, who need to be paid correctly, who need to be resourced, who need to be trained, and we must, from this House, support our social work whānau.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill on its third reading. I’ve noted in previous readings, and others have commented as well, that this is about tightening the framework that we have to ensure that social workers can be looked after, but also that there’s a level of accountability when things don’t go right.

This bill also does a lot of updating when it comes to language. As others have noted about modernising the language in our legislation, this is important, particularly, as others have noted, in the language around the gender references. So in Schedule 3, a lot of what this bill is doing is actually changing things like “he or she” to just actually say “social workers”. That is actually really, really valuable, because, at the end of the day, what we do have is a growing and diverse workforce in the social worker sphere. We do have more queer people in the social worker profession. Having gender-neutral language actually includes non-binary people and gender-diverse people in here, and it’s great that the Government is actually getting on board with modernising legislation to be more inclusive of queer people who are part of the social worker profession. I encourage them to take this inclusive approach more broadly when it comes to other pieces of legislation.

This feels like a breath of fresh air when it comes to actually modernising legislation, because, at the end of the day, the core of this legislation does a bunch of other things. The core of this legislation is actually about tightening the screws when it comes to the accountability that social workers face. But there is an opportunity being taken in Schedule 3 particularly, and in Schedule 2 when it comes to how we talk about ethnicity, to modernise things. This is something that I think the Government could take the opportunity to review and do when they’re amending other pieces of legislation to modernise them—to actually think about whether the language we’ve been using in legislation is up to date and reflects today’s society.

More importantly, I think, I want to commend the profession, because what we have right now is social workers that are working under the pump. The pipeline of training includes many low-income people who go into the profession to serve their own communities, and many are struggling to make ends meet while they are studying. What this means in practice is that we’ve got people who may come from the lived experience of being on low incomes, of struggling to make ends meet, yet they go in a profession that is overworked and under-resourced. When we have the combination of people at the front line helping others do their best and yet are under-resourced, we set them up to fail and we create the conditions for mistakes to happen.

As I have raised in other contributions on this bill, it is critical, alongside this bill, to have better accountability mechanisms and that the Government genuinely invests in resourcing and improving the working conditions of social workers so that we set them up to be their best and avoid overworking and underpaying, which leads to social workers being stressed and tired and more likely to land themselves in the very same things that the bill is trying to tighten and improve, which are those accountability mechanisms that exist for when things don’t go right.

I’m thinking of a few things the Government can do, after finishing the third reading of this bill, to improve the social worker profession. One of them is to commit to improving the wages of social workers that are working in the NGO sector and the public sector as well. Many of our social workers do their placements at, for example, Oranga Tamariki, and then they go to work in those very same agencies. But their wages actually still mean that they struggle to make ends meet.

Another thing the Government can do, after the third reading of this bill, to make sure that the intent of this bill works is to explore things like paid placements to ensure that while social workers are learning, they are actually getting paid. What that means is—and I say this as somebody who was a field educator for social workers before becoming an MP—ensuring that when social workers are doing their training out in the field, they don’t have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and they can focus on learning, to ensure that they don’t land themselves in the very same bodies that this bill is trying to make amendments to and change the language around, to ensure that, on the other side, when we do have someone working alongside a social worker who is being failed by a social worker—because it can happen and it does happen and the consequences are often dire when it does happen—we are able to reduce those things.

If we take out the legislative jargon and talk about the real-life implications of what this bill is trying to do, it’s about when a social worker is trying to support someone who is homeless, and if a social worker is trying to help someone get on to the right benefit or navigate a complex situation with their families and relationship to Oranga Tamariki, if the social worker isn’t able to act competently for the person on the other side, it can be the difference between being connected to the community or not having a home.

To me, this is why it’s really, really important that the Government gets this right. We support the intent of this bill. We support modernising the very same bodies that allow social workers to be looked after and to have clarity around the level of accountability that social workers face. As I said earlier, so much more can be done to support social workers to make sure they are at their best.

I did want to talk a bit about the Schedule 2 component of this bill. I think the Hon Jenny Salesa talked a bit about that in the committee of the whole House. A lot of this is about changing language, such as “different” to “various” when it comes to ethnicity. I think that’s important to reflect that “different” can be othering, so we have to be intentional when it comes to the language we use in legislation. If there’s a place where language matters most, it’s how we write law. So this is not just symbolic but an intentional way of reflecting a growing and diverse workforce, particularly because recently the House updated, or more like extended, the experience pathways for social workers to be able to be registered, and that was with the intent of ensuring that we can have more Māori and Pasifika and people with migrant backgrounds in the field. Therefore, the stuff we have in Schedule 2 is also recognition of this Government, with the support of the Opposition, ensuring that we do have those pathways for a more diverse workforce to enter into social work.

I go now to the updating of gender references in Schedule 3. I really encourage the Government to review other pieces of legislation. It is about including non-binary people, but it’s actually just about making that language clear. Why would we have language that repetitively says “he or she”, when we are actually referring to a very specific type of profession and person? For example, “he or she” could be “applicant”, or “he or she” could be “social worker”. It is just common sense. If you’re reading a piece of legislation and you’re an everyday person in the public, what it means is that you’re looking at the paper in front of you and you know exactly what the legislation and the schedule is actually referring to. In many cases, “he or she” is just referring to a social worker. So I think that’s a really intentional piece that I wanted to go back to.

Finally, I want to say that the other area the Government should be looking at post the third reading debate—and I think this is something that’s been raised with me, and I’m sure with others, in relation to the social worker field—is how our tertiary institutions are resourced to adequately be able to train social workers. There’s been a lot of talk about the curriculum and how we ensure that social workers are adequately supported by those institutions. That has consequential impacts, direct impacts, actually, on what this bill is trying to do. One of the things I have noted, for example, is that, at the moment, because of that under-resourcing, many social workers aren’t even trained properly to understand and navigate things like Work and Income, and that is reflected in the field. Many volunteer organisations are working with social workers who did not receive adequate training to understand the systems of Work and Income.

I have had social workers, on the clock, being brought to organisations that have volunteers, to have volunteers explain to them how Work and Income works. That’s not their fault. It’s actually the broader system that ends up failing our social workers. So, once again, if we want to make sure that our social workers are deployed in the field in the most competent and supported way possible, to avoid them landing in the very same accountability mechanisms that we have and that this bill is trying to improve, supporting them in their training and in the field is critical to that.

With that, we commend this bill to the House and we hope the Government takes further action to support social workers.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on the third reading of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill in support from the ACT Party. I think this topic has been well canvassed. It’s based on a review back in 2020. Extremely sensible to have a review of legislation and tidy it up where appropriate.

I, firstly, just want to actually shout out to the social workers, because these guys are out there every day, and I know I’ve got some family and some friends that have been with our most vulnerable children overnight on a night shift, getting home, and then dropping their own kids off at school. So I just want to say I acknowledge you and I see you this morning, and thank you so much for your hard work. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I call Laura—sorry, Tanya Unkovich.

That’s all right. Tanya Unkovich is my name. Thank you, Madam Speaker. On behalf of New Zealand First, I stand in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill.

Last night, during our contributions, I wanted to acknowledge all of the social workers out there for everything they had done. It was really great to hear the support from the other side. A little bit disappointing to hear a member on the other side use the reading of this bill to try and roast our party. I had the benefit of the mute button on my remote control in my office.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: It was that troublemaker—it was that heretic.

Oh yes, yes, no. And then, I believe the member opposite also went on to say that they didn’t think that anyone on this side of the House probably even knew a social worker. I’m not sure of the exact wording. Well, part of the prerequisite of obtaining my diploma in counselling was obtaining a certificate in social work. I’ve spent many hours listening to people who are suffering, and I know what suffering tastes and feels like. So I would like to just say that members on this side—there is always a story behind the face. So just a wee lesson there.

On that note, there’s nothing more to add. We’ve all said enough on this bill. It is a technical bill and not a lot of controversy really. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Mōrena tātou. Mōrena e te Whare. I rise this morning to reaffirm Te Pāti Māori’s support for the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. While we support the passage of this bill, Te Pāti Māori remains steadfast in its long-term vision of “by Māori, for Māori” solutions that empower whānau to determine their own pathways. Te Pāti Māori continues to challenge systems that seek to control rather than uplift, and we will push for a future where Māori-led social services are the norm, not the expectation.

Don’t get me wrong, social workers hold a vital role within our communities. Over the many years that I’ve worked in the community, I’ve worked alongside so many great social workers, and so many not-so-great social workers. This bill helps tighten the practice and supports the future pathway for those social workers in the field.

I want to actually take this opportunity to acknowledge a social worker who cared for me in the last seven weeks of last year, which I spent in hospital. I never thought I would need a social worker, because I didn’t know why I would need a social worker, but, obviously, at the end of those seven weeks in hospital, I truly did need a social worker who could manaaki, who had aroha, who had compassion, and, at the end of the day, was able to keep the confidentiality of what I was going through at that time. So I want to acknowledge the social worker, Moana, who supported me at Middlemore Hospital, at Te Kaahui Ora Maaori Health Service.

It’s not an easy job being a social worker, I’ve got to say. There’s a huge, negative light on social workers within vulnerable communities, and especially within Māori communities. When Māori families hear the words “social worker”, they’ve been referred to them for what? They’re scared. They become isolated. It’s like the police knocking on your door when you’re told you’re being referred to a social worker, because you’re unsure of why that is happening. So we want to be able to change that, and we hope that this bill is able to help those social workers in the field change that negativity and light for our whānau. We need social workers that are embedded and have the understanding of a tikanga-led, mokopuna-focused model of practice that will empower our mokopuna for future generations. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise also on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill. I think we have heard a lot from across the House, but I think it does deserve mentioning every single time, the important mahi that our social workers do for Aotearoa every single day. It is important that we do have a sufficient safety net, but also recognition of that work, but also acknowledgment of the safety net for people that they support when something doesn’t go well.

In this case, when we are looking at this bill, there are a number of quality-of-life improvements that we’re seeing when it comes to social workers and the rights of social workers here. Particularly, from us, the establishment of the tribunal and also the board when determining suspensions, or when addressing the issue of suspensions, is particularly important. It’s something that greater clarity is needed, and we’re hoping that this bill addresses some of that, and we’re really looking forward to how we are going to be able to provide that level of confidence and clarity and transparency through this. So from that perspective, we’re interested to see the work of the tribunal as it is established.

As we’ve heard, there are also additional other quality-of-life changes in here that I think deserve mentioning, and this is particularly when we’re looking at Schedules 2 and 3 of this bill. And I think this is something that my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March mentioned earlier in terms of the fact that replacing terms such as “different” with “various”, and not having that othering effect—particularly for Māori, for Pasifika, for migrant social workers and workers in general—is incredibly important.

We are seeing that, with the latest census, the demographics of Aotearoa are changing. We are seeing record numbers of Māori—proportion of Māori—and also of Asians, of other migrants, of migrants of colour, and their visibility and their culture and their experience is an integral part to how our societies now operate. In terms of this, it is really heartening to see bills like this that actually highlight some of these, and the changing nature of some of that. The fact is that, when we are introducing legislation, when we are looking at public services, we’re still seeing the fact that migrant workers, and also women and anyone with an intersectionality component, are often not only invisibilised or undermined but also that they simply are being paid a lot less in proportion.

With this particular bill, and with the broader picture—and lots of people have been talking about the broader context of social work and our public services—we would like to see other forms of legislation, or other measures and levers, to address the fact that we do not have pay equity in certain areas, from a gender perspective, for wāhine Māori, for Pasifika women, for migrant women, who are some of the key workers when it comes to social work, because it is still predominantly a female-led workforce. As we have seen with other female-led workforces, there is a general assumption that just because you care, it means that you don’t have to be paid as much. We have actually heard high-ranking officials and public servants who are in a directorship role or deputy-directorship role vocalising the fact that just because, you know, you care, they will keep taking on more burden, they will keep on burning out, and because they just care, we don’t have to give them more pay. And I think this, both in the private and public sectors, is something that we definitely need to address.

Finally, I just want to say that it is incredibly heartening to see support from across the House for gender-neutral language under Schedule 3 of this bill. As we have heard previously, we are seeing a greater representation of our rainbow whānau within the latest census, and we think that our trans and non-binary whānau are an integral part of our social workforce as well. With that, we support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill enhances the social work profession in New Zealand. It also enhances the public safety aspect of the service that they provide. Registration elevates social workers to the level of other professions that require registration, like teachers, lawyers, and doctors.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that I believe that social work is a calling, and I thank everyone who has responded generously to this call and who works hard out there in often difficult circumstances. I end with a shout-out to the very many Filipinos who are social workers and who work all throughout New Zealand quite selflessly. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I definitely want to join that acknowledgement of the work that social workers do, but what I want to do is talk a little bit about the wider concerns here. This legislation is an attempt to make the registration network that belongs to the social work system stronger and, actually, a bit more autonomous, because the board will have five social workers on it, and it will become much more regulated by itself, as are other professions. But I want to really just focus for a minute on the incredibly critical role that social workers play and just acknowledge that currently that system is falling down.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care noted the following: “Social workers should have been a critical lifeline to the outside world for children and young people who were being abused in social welfare care. However, the Inquiry heard from many survivors, as well as former caregivers and social workers, that social workers visited less frequently than department policy required them to, and sometimes did not visit at all. State documents reviewed by the Inquiry show that social workers’ caseloads were often too high to effectively manage, which meant they visited children less regularly than required.”

Now, that remains the case. We’ve heard from many colleagues across this House that we know we have a shortage of social workers. We know that they’re overloaded. We know that they’re underpaid. We know that that group of social workers is 85 percent female, and that we have a problem in this country acknowledging that work that is caring work is valuable work and should be paid at a higher amount. So while this is a bill that really does improve the way that social workers are regulated, it’s a small piece of the puzzle. I heard the Minister for Social Development and Employment say that this bill would ensure that the social workers would be able to effectively deliver services. Unfortunately, that’s far from the truth. This bill will be a step in the right direction, but it will not ensure that they are able to deliver services. So I would ask this House to consider what will make that difference, because this is a critical role and currently it’s falling short of the mark.

We have, I think, 50 percent of the workforce who are over 50 in social work. We are under-represented, actually, in male social workers as well as other groups. But, mainly, we have an issue with an overload of work and the work burns people out. So we are going to have to build a different value into this work. We just cannot get away with what we have been doing. We need to make sure that our social workers are not leaving because of burnout, high workload, and poor pay; and that we’re adequately supporting them in our system. That does not mean we should not hold people to account who do not do their job. Those things go side by side, and so it is good that we have put this bill in place, which is more nuanced and is also, I think, really interestingly, reviewed every five years. A very good way of handling a new situation is to review its effectiveness.

All of that is good and Labour stands with the Government in support of the bill, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t see the big picture. We now have 7,520 people practising social work under licence in this country. We need to make sure that that workforce is fit for a new generation, that it’s able to sustain itself, and that means we need to put our money where our mouth is. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Social workers play a crucial role throughout New Zealand, and it’s a real honour and privilege as the member for Wanganui to meet with social workers on a regular basis, to talk to them about their mahi in our community. There are two things I wanted to note particularly about this bill in how it supports them and recognises their profession. Currently, you cannot be suspended as a social worker where there are concerns about your work, and this bill enables that to happen. It also enables the combination of outcomes for decision making about professional conduct, rather than being forced into choosing one of the outcomes, to ensure an effective resolution to a concern that’s raised about a social worker. For these two reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou ka ora ai te iwi—with your food basket, with my food basket, things will be well for all of our whānau, even up in Ngāpuhi!

Can I take this moment to acknowledge all of our social workers across Aotearoa New Zealand. E mihi ana ki a koutou mō te manaakitanga o tātou tamariki, tātou whānau i roto i tātou hapori. Tēnei te mihi, tēnā rawa atu ki a koutou katoa, ngā kaimahi tauwhiro o te ao nei.

[I wish to thank you all for caring for our children and our families in the community. My sincere thanks to you all, all the social workers of this world.]

That was just an acknowledgment to all of our social workers—champions of our children, of our whānau, our families, and our communities—who really step up in a space where others can’t, others are unable to, to ensure that the advocacy of our most vulnerable in this country is heard and that their rights are before them.

The Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill is important, and Labour supports it today because it will strengthen the regulatory framework for monitoring and governing social workers in Aotearoa New Zealand. This isn’t a controversial bill before us today. Every five years or so, the Social Workers Registration Board works together with the Ministry of Social Development to review, to update, and to improve this particular piece of legislation. The last review, in fact, was conducted in 2020, under a Labour Government, and it is great to see that the changes proposed in this bill actually reflect the findings of that particular review. We also support the proposed amendments, because they align with our values of fairness, of social justice, of workforce sustainability, which I’ll come to in a bit, and, of course, public safety.

There are three particular points, or issues, that I’d like to discuss in the House today. The first one: I have been working very closely with the North Shore Women’s Centre, which has suffered quite significant cuts from the Minister for Oranga Tamariki and has reduced counselling and social work services to our North Shore community, from Glenfield right up to Rodney, restricting them back to only two days. The services available at this particular centre service almost 500 women across Auckland’s North Shore and, of course, the children and families alongside of them. As this Government cuts back there, of course, so do those services.

The question becomes: what is that risk? What is the outcome that we will see as a result of those services not being offered, the Government burying their head in the sand and not wanting to engage with these particular services or assist them with finding any alternative support mechanisms for that provision to continue? So can I just acknowledge the team at North Shore Women’s Centre. We will continue to stand with you while others can’t, and won’t, and we will work together to ensure that those services continue to be made available on Auckland’s North Shore.

The second point here is, of course, about the workforce shortages that we experience—of social workers. It’s a tough job, it’s not incredibly well paid, but any Government has to do more to ensure that we just keep up with the numbers required. There’s an additional 142 full-time equivalent social workers each year that are required just to meet the population growth that we experience around the country. And, of course, I look to the Minister for Vocational Education and ask the question: what is it we are doing, with cuts to Te Pūkenga, to the Tertiary Education Commission, and to universities forecasted? How can we ensure that we are growing a workforce to meet the demand that is in front of us, to ensure that we have practitioners available that are well trained, that know what they’re doing, in order to support women, children, and families moving forward? I’m not seeing that. I’m concerned about that. While this is a small bill with technical changes, it’s significant in the greater context of everything.

Lastly, can I acknowledge the Government for making some step to the recognition of non-binary and trans whānau, using gender-neutral language. I know many of them are scared of this approach. It’s about the inclusion of everyone in this country. Mr Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

This is a good bill and I wish to acknowledge all those social workers across the country for the contribution they make to our community, including my sister, who is a registered social worker. I acknowledge Chontelle and all the work that they’ve done. This is a great bill. I commend this bill to the House.

💬 Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Moumou wā, Dan—moumou.

Āe. Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tautoko ana au i tērā kōrero. “Moumou wā” tērā kōrero i tērā taha. He aha te kōrero o tō tuahine ki a koe e pā ana ki ngā mahi o ngā kaimahi toko i te ora?

[Yes, greetings to the Speaker. I agree with that assertion. What they are saying on that side is a waste of time. What did your sister say to you about the activities of the social welfare staff?]

I stand in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. I was a member of the Social Services and Community Committee and sat through the submission process on this, so I want to acknowledge all of my colleagues that were on that select committee for this piece of work that we have done. As others have mentioned, this isn’t a controversial bill; it does enjoy support across the House. The bill is straightforward in terms of recommending minor and technical amendments. These amendments, as has been said, have come out of a review that has been done of the legislation, and I, along with others, believe, that these minor technical amendments will improve this important piece of legislation for a very important sector and workforce.

I want to join with others and acknowledge the social workers, the work that they do with our most vulnerable people—such as children in care and the youth justice system—in our health system, and in our aged-care system. I think that it has been important to draw the House’s attention to the wider context in which this bill sits in terms of our social workers, in terms of workforce in that particular sector.

In my contribution to the second reading last night, I pointed out my concerns that we do not have a workforce strategy for social work. But I am pleased to hear that Minister Penny Simmonds, who was in the chair last night on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment who is sponsoring this bill, said that the Government is going to work on a workforce strategy and an action plan. I can’t stress enough how urgent that is—in meetings that I had this week, it was said that 13 percent are looking to leave the profession in the very short term and that we are unable to recruit the amount of social workers that we need into the profession. In fact, there’s a downward trend of numbers enrolled, and over 45 percent of social work students leave the course before completion. We heard that the number of social workers that we need is not keeping up with our population growth, and we also know—we know—and have heard loud and clear from the sector, that the impacts of this Government’s cuts to the back office of Oranga Tamariki has put more pressure, more work—

💬 Carl Bates: Next time, don’t spend so much, and then we won’t have to clean up your mess. It’s pretty simple.

—on the front-line social workers. Quite simple, is it? Quite simple to cut back-office jobs and load that on to front-line social workers? Quite simple, according to that member across the other side of the House. It says a lot about their priorities, doesn’t it? They could have cut funding from other areas, like landlords, like tobacco companies. They could have taken the money from there, but, instead, you will take the money—Mr Speaker; instead, they will take the money from Oranga Tamariki, who service our most vulnerable children and families. We will take $30 million from early intervention and prevention services from the North Shore Women’s Centre, as was mentioned previously.

💬 Carl Bates: Useless governing.

Oh, Mr Speaker, I was only going to make a short contribution to this bill, but—

💬 Carl Bates: Oh yeah—I believe that!

—but, however, when you have comments like that from the other side of the House—

💬 Tangi Utikere: Disgraceful.

—disgraceful comments like that from the other side of the House, when they would prefer us—

💬 Carl Bates: I’ll tell you what’s disgraceful: wasting New Zealanders’ money. That’s what’s disgraceful.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Bates, I note that you had a speech, a very short one, which perhaps gave you the opportunity—just short and sharp and not ongoing commentary, please.

Wasteful spending, that member says—wasting it on servicing our most vulnerable children and families, on early intervention and prevention services. Cutting $30 million a year—over $120 million. Wasteful spending? I could tell that Minister—that member, not Minister. I could tell that member where that Government is wasting money: bad choices, wrong decisions, and wrong priorities. And this is supposed to be a non-controversial bill—the bill isn’t, but the wider context is.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Listen to yourself.

Oh my gosh! Mr Speaker, now the Minister on the other side of the House is taking issue with what I am saying in terms of this sector—tone deaf. Tone deaf.

Let me read you the headline, Mr Speaker, of an article: “Fears children will be harmed as Oranga Tamariki staff grapple with overwhelming workloads”. The article says, “Oranga Tamariki social workers say they are living with the constant fear that a child could be harmed on their watch due to their overwhelming workloads as they begin industrial action”—because apparently it’s wasteful spending to give them a pay rise. They’re not happy with the 0 percent offer from the child protection agency. They said it was insulting and would fix nothing about unsafe workloads. Tone deaf—that’s what I think of the comments from the other side of the House today.

I will conclude my speech here, much to the delight of the other side of the House, I am sure. Labour was proud to have been part of this review and part of this legislation—the drafting of this legislation, the technical and minor amendments that are being proposed here. We are proud to support this. We want to thank our social workers for the important work that they do in our communities every day. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d also like to commend our social workers for picking up the pieces for people when they come across families that are devasted by the effects of drugs, of methamphetamine. I do want to recall that the previous Government gave $2.75 million to the Mongrel Mob, but our social workers that we’re commending around the House today—

💬 Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Meth has gone up 95 percent, Rima. It has doubled in the last year.

—have to deal with the mess that that wasteful $2.75 million to Mongrel Mob has created.

💬 Hon Willow-Jean Prime: What’s your Minister doing about that?

What I’d like to do is I’d like to commend the Social Services and Community—

💬 Hon Willow-Jean Prime: You have no plan to reduce meth.

—Committee for the work that they did.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Ms Prime, having been on the receiving end of an equal barrage, I thought you might like to actually take cognisance of the advice I gave to Mr Bates.

This Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill is a logical, a practical, a sensible, and a positively impactful bill, and is part of changes that we’re making to demonstrate our Government’s commitment to supporting our social workers. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.