Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Workers Registration—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you have some words around a legislative statement?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I don’t, but I seek to table the legislative statement for the Social Workers Registration—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You say, “I present a legislative statement on”, and the name of the bill.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I present a legislative statement on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill to the House.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I first want to put on record my thanks to the members of the Social Services and Community Committee who examined this legislation. In the previous Parliament, I was a member of that committee, and I know how hard-working the members of that select committee are. I also want to acknowledge the officials from the Ministry of Social Development who worked incredibly hard to ensure that this legislation is before the Parliament. So, for those that are watching, it was a bill that was started in the previous Parliament and is being continued here today.

This bill seeks to amend the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act 2019 to delay the repeal of section 13 of the 2003 Act, which concerns the experience pathway for social worker registration, from 28 February 2024 to 28 February 2026. Delaying the repeal by two years will help to reduce workforce pressures in the social work sector by continuing to provide an alternative means of entering the profession while ensuring that the momentum continues towards a mandatory qualification environment, and there is widespread agreement this should happen.

This Government believes in investing in early interventions which will be the most effective for vulnerable New Zealanders. With this comes investing in those who provide invaluable assistance and help to our vulnerable community members. As we know and agree across the House, social workers continue to be a pillar of support across New Zealand for those in need. Recently, social workers have provided support services during extreme weather events, in addition to helping New Zealanders every day overcome challenges and pursue their aspirations.

The Social Workers Registration Act 2003 sets out occupational regulations for social workers that protect the safety of the public. These regulations ensure that social workers are competent to practise and enhance the professionalism of social workers. Under this Act, there are currently two pathways to registration for applicants who are within New Zealand. There is the qualification pathway, and there is an alternative—the experience pathway. Approximately 3 percent of the current social workers have registered through this experience pathway. So it is a very small number of those who become registered social workers. Registration provides the basis of determining the safety of social workers to practise, whether this is through the qualification or the experience pathway.

Both pathways require the Social Workers Registration Board to assess whether the applicant has demonstrable competence to practise as a social worker and, importantly, whether they meet the fit and proper person requirement. As part of registration, social workers are also required to undergo regular supervision and professional development. If they are practising, they also need to have an annual practising certificate. To be eligible for registration via the qualification pathway, applicants must hold a prescribed academic qualification that is recognised by the Social Workers Registration Board. Section 13 of the Act states that the Social Workers Registration Board may recognise practical experience, usually between 10 and 15 years, in lieu of a recognised qualification. In February of 2021, registration became mandatory for anyone wanting to use the title “social worker” and/or practise as a social worker.

In 2017, Cabinet agreed to repeal the experience pathway and had a delayed commencement date of 28 February 2024. This repeal would remove the ability for people without a prescribed qualification to apply for social worker registration on the basis of their practical experience. Social workers registered through the experience pathway prior to the repeal date will continue to have their registration recognised.

The experience pathway was always intended only as a temporary measure for social worker registration while the sector transitioned to a professional qualification environment. The delayed commencement date was intended to support the social work sector to transition from voluntary to mandatory by allowing unregistered practitioners more time either to complete a qualification or to apply to register under the experience pathway. The decision to repeal the experience pathway was made to enhance the professionalisation of the sector through the achievement of a qualification.

Academic achievement was not defined or constrained to being solely via attainment of a degree, but through the attainment of qualifications that have been prescribed by the Social Workers Registration Board. This decision was also underpinned by an assumption that there would be sufficient supply to meet future demand for social workers. There has been both political agreement as well as general support from the social worker representatives that social workers should be required to complete a qualification. However, several changes have meant that more time is needed to support the transition to a mandatory qualification environment.

Firstly, social worker shortages have continued to increase. Social workers are experiencing an increase in demand alongside a reduction in supply due to decreasing student enrolment in social work qualifications. That was exacerbated due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Cyclone Gabrielle. The Social Workers Registration Board currently estimates there are about 700 unfilled roles.

Secondly, delaying the repeal of the experience pathway will also enable the sector to maximise the opportunities presented by recent pay changes for social workers. These increases provide a financial incentive for eligible practitioners to become registered. Delaying the repeal of the experience pathway will ensure that an additional pathway for entry into the social worker workforce remains open temporarily, as it was always intended to only be temporary while steps continue to be taken to transition to a professional qualification environment as quickly as possible, and that is important for the public safety element.

Mandatory qualifications are part of the wider changes designed to enhance the professionalism of social workers and provide the public confidence in the services they provide. Addressing workforce shortages requires a multi-pronged approach, with support from the whole social work sector, including employers and industry bodies. It is important that the sector continues to take the lead in developing their workforce, working towards increasing the pipeline of social workers entering the profession.

Since becoming the Minister for Social Development and Employment, I have considered several options regarding the future of the bill, including whether the bill should be progressed, discarded, or amended. Last week, I tabled an Amendment Paper to amend the bill and shorten the time period for those applying through the experience pathway from four years to two years.

I have considered feedback from the sector, input from submissions received at the select committee, along with advice provided by officials. I have also received more recent correspondence from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, who, during the submission process, supported a two-year delay to the experience pathway. They have more recently expressed a preference for a four-year extension, together with the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association. I would like to acknowledge and thank these organisations for their contribution along with their ongoing dedication to the sector.

Based on a number of considerations, I believe that a two-year delay of the repeal from 28 February 2024 to 28 February 2026 will balance the need to support the supply of social workers in the short term while maintaining the emphasis on transitioning to a professional qualification environment as soon as possible. No one has disputed the need or justification to transition to a mandatory qualification environment, and it is important that the emphasis remains for people to start fulfilling this requirement as soon as they are able.

The Social Workers Registration Board have recently made changes to the experience pathway application process to make this more accessible for Māori. I anticipate this will support experienced Māori practitioners to register as social workers through the experience pathway over the next two years. All applications received by the board prior to the repeal date on 28 February 2026 will be considered and processed for registration, so experienced practitioners will have two years to lodge an application under this experience pathway. In addition, the two-year delay will provide an opportunity to consider alternative entry pathways into social worker registration, including reviewing recognition of prior learning requirements.

The work that social workers do is tireless and deserves much recognition. I’d like to also thank the former Minister for her contribution in the first parts of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Firstly, I just want to acknowledge that we do support this legislation, and I also acknowledge that making it mandatory for registration for social workers was actually something that was supported across the House. The history of it being: I did have a member’s bill, the Government at the time didn’t support it, then the National Government did their own bill, they didn’t get to see it through, we got to make social worker registration mandatory when we got in—the main gist of it being, though, we did all support that piece of legislation. We support what is here today, which is extending the pathway for experience so that social workers can become registered.

What we’ve found over the course of recent years, even after having made social worker registration mandatory, is that there’s still a lag. There are still some out there practising in jobs where, perhaps, they are partially through qualifications, perhaps they have finished their qualification, but they haven’t yet become registered. It’s important that we provide this experience pathway and extend that opportunity, because we still experience a shortage of social workers and we all recognise, in the House, how important our social workers are and how important it is that we have them in the roles where they are serving some of our most vulnerable children, families, and communities.

What we’ve seen in recent years have been some changes. We have seen the opportunity in terms of pay that social workers are able to earn actually increase, and so that is something that we are hoping serves as an incentive for our social workers or those working in roles where they could actually get the social worker qualification and become registered, for them to pursue that. However, because we still have that workforce shortage, it is necessary to provide this extended period of time for them to access that experience pathway, because, actually, that’s important for them but it’s important for us being able to meet the workforce shortage that we’re currently experiencing.

What was disappointing with this particular bill is the Government’s decision to reduce the extension or time frame for being able to get the experience pathway from four years to two years. Initially, the bill had laid out four years for people to be able to access that experience pathway, and then what happened was that this Government decided that it would reduce that to two years. Now, I can understand why initially they may have thought that was a good idea. They did receive at least one submission during the select committee process from a reputable professional body stating that it could be reduced from four years to two years.

However, it is important to note that we tabled the letter in the Chamber during the committee of the whole House stage, which went to the Minister for social development, also came to me, and now is information that every member in this House can access, where the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers (ANZASW) made clear that the submission that had been put in, requesting that the extension time frame be two years rather than four years, was not something that was supported by their professional body. I am going to put that letter and the words of that letter on record in the House because I think it’s important. The Minister decided that despite this last-minute plea from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers she would push ahead with the two years rather than the four years that had been originally set down in the bill.

The letter to the Minister stated, “Thank you for the phone call this morning.”—that was actually a phone call to me; they sometimes forget that I’m not a Minister anymore—“Here is an update on the ANZASW position on the s13 Experience Pathway to social work extension currently before the house. The ANZASW prides itself on being a leader in the social work sector, however occasionally we get it wrong, and it appears that this is one of those times when we have been ‘out of step’ with the sector. For this we apologise. Our previous CE”—I won’t name the previous chief executive—“prepared and presented a submission to the Select Committee arguing for a 2 year extension to the s13 Experience Pathway to social work rather than the 4 years, as agreed by our other sector partners. I did try to have our submission removed and adjusted from the select committee process, but the email did not get passed on to the appropriate people. I did not follow … up, which is unfortunate. I have been in touch with Miriama Scott from the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association to affirm our collective position of supporting the extension of 4 years to 27 February 2028. The ANZASW supports the sector position that an extension of 4 years provides time for the [Social Worker Registration Board], alongside MSD and the sector, to consider the longer-term options for [entering] into social work which is a crucial need. The ANZASW supports the training of more social workers which includes alternative pathways, … for more culturally appropriate training to occur. We are very concerned with the low numbers of Māori and Pasifika social workers in the sector and note that there are many working with whānau, hapū and iwi and in marae who would benefit from these alternative pathways to acknowledge their mahi and years of experience. We also acknowledge the skills and knowledge they bring to the sector and that many will in time engage in social work education programmes.”

That letter came from Sharyn Roberts from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers. It went to the Minister, and yet the Minister chose to ignore that last-minute plea to keep the legislation as was, at four years, rather than reducing it to two years. The implications for the social workers association have been laid out really clearly. It will reduce the opportunity for some of those social workers, particularly Māori and Pacific, to be able to get registered and to be able to continue practising. That is detrimental not just for their own careers but also particularly for the whānau that are going to want to and need to access their support.

The issue that I raised during committee stages that arises by the Minister ignoring this letter is, firstly, any defence that they were using to actually justify the reduction in time is null and void when the professional bodies then come back with a letter like this, saying, “Please excuse that submission. We tried to pull it. That is not our position at all.”

Secondly, I have to say, it does cause us all to question how nimble the Minister is able to be in these situations, because, actually, she should have been able to turn around, to see that the position was different from what she had first thought, and then been able to adjust accordingly. But, unfortunately, she was not able to.

It was concerning during the committee stage, too, to put on record, that the actual Minister of the bill was not the one who was presiding in the chair at the time. It’s very hard to have a constructive debate when the person who should be most informed about this bill was not the one who was participating in the committee stage.

I raised the point during committee stage, too, that if we find ourselves in a position 18 months from now where we still have the workforce shortages in the social work sector for qualified, registered social workers in 18 months’ time, there is a very strong chance, because of the urgent need to have social workers in these positions, that we’re going to end up back in this House, having to legislate, amend again for another extension when we could have just got it right the first time.

So we do support this bill with the utmost disappointment, though, that the experts have been ignored—not the first time by that Government, I have to say—that a plea to actually keep the bill as-is was undermined, and that the decision to reduce that time period to two years has continued, despite the evidence that has been put before the Minister. That is disappointing. That is disappointing particularly in light that this is one of those pieces of legislation that there is cross-party support for. We only wish that the Minister could have been more nimble, more willing to listen to the actual experts, and amenable to actually making a change and withdrawing that amendment at committee stage. However, in saying that, we will continue to advocate for social workers, from this side of the House, and we do support the bill despite the fact that we are clearly disappointed and do not agree with the two-year reduction in time for these social workers to be able to access the experience pathway.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Green Party is also supporting the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. I’ll start by acknowledging the previous speaker, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, and her vast experience, insight, and sector relationships with social service workers, particularly over the past couple of terms in a ministerial role, which requires that insight and that knowledge to feed into what is best for social workers but also for our communities—what those needs are. We are supporting this legislation because we support the principle and the movement that acknowledges the importance of qualified and safe practice for social workers and for the people and the whānau and the communities who require social work support.

We were also very, very aware that extending the lead-in time to repeal back the experience pathway was—and this is the bit of the debate that I want to make quite clear. We’re supporting this legislation. Yes, there is still another—hang on, what’s the date?—two years, so it comes into force on 28 February 2026. We too would have preferred the experience pathway to be rolled back another two years—with another extra two years—to 28 February 2028. This Government has chopped a couple of years off, and we were very opposed to that amendment to the legislation. However, we will support the two-year extension.

I talked in the first reading about centring the absolute importance of safe and qualified practice, especially for the people who require those services and that support. I used the experience of being a prevention of violence Minister over the past three years and how I came face to face all around the motu on the experience of when practice is not safe, when practice is not informed, and when social work practice and care practice is not up to speed with understanding the dynamics of being able to identify violence and being able to safely respond and also understanding the element of healing that all social work must incorporate into its practice. So I’m making it very clear that I absolutely back the sector in wanting to make sure that we have safe practice.

What I also heard about around the country, again, in prevention of violence but also in the housing portfolio areas where many of the front-line workers—particularly in the homelessness space and the social housing provider space—have lived experience of homelessness, of social housing, of requiring specific housing support. Similarly, too, I always heard around the country about disabled workers and the incredible gap that we have, especially in the prevention of violence space, of services that are specific to sexual violence experienced by people who are disabled, by disabled people, the gap in the workforce for those particular areas of need and, as the former speaker, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, highlighted, the massive and decades-long gaps in the Māori and Pasifika cultural expertise practice space. Those require us to be thinking that the needs on those particular skills and lived experience are going to increase over the coming years and not decrease. Therefore, to try and balance, to make sure we are centring safe practice but also ensure that the experience and skill and value of lived experience is utilised in a way that can only benefit communities, this is why giving a little bit more lead-in to pulling back on the experience pathway, and as much lead-in as possible, is so important.

Now, the Minister has often stood to say where they’ve had enough of a heads-up, there’ve been some conversations going since 2017 and so on and so forth. Yes, there have. But what we have not done to meet that expectation is we haven’t made the structural change to remove the barriers to the very people with the very lived experience, skill, and knowledge to be able to ease into that pathway in a way that we require. We haven’t done that structural work.

One of the biggest factors behind the difficulties and the barriers to receiving and being able to train and qualify and study for social work registration is poverty. We haven’t removed that as a barrier. This Government is showing only signs of making that worse, and so this is another example of why we needed to extend that pathway as part of understanding that the barriers haven’t been removed. Whether we’ve given them a heads up since 2000 or 2017, the barriers haven’t been removed, and so I did want to acknowledge that that is also why we opposed the amendment for cutting down a couple of years off that heads-up.

Just the weekend just gone, at Big Gay Out, we the Greens made sure to prioritise visiting the health services along that lane of tents at the fantastic festival that I congratulate the organisers for, that range of services, NGOs, attending to a very diverse set of specific needs for rainbow takatāpui trans whānau. I met and spoke with young people with lived experience who have been impacted on by the discrimination and the very health issues that rainbow communities face. And the model that they are using also provides experience, counselling, and psychological services around these young people, because this is, of course, the principle that it is the lived experience, knowledge, and skills that often have the most impact in feeling relevant to the very people whose trust often has been hugely destroyed by ordinary avenues and support. So, again, the rainbow community and young people were speaking to us very clearly about the need to ensure that we can maintain those experience pathways while wrapping around the qualification and safe practice support for them to continue to become the social workers that that community desperately requires.

I wish the Minister had spent more time even talking to those very organisations. Ms Sepuloni herself outlined that the key stakeholder in this legislation who—yes, there was apparently a submission which may have been in favour of cutting off two years of lead-in, but that wasn’t actually a consensus thought from that association of social workers. I wish too that the Minister would have sought—see, this is the problem when we go into urgency and when a Government has got a bit of a rip and tear attitude. It’s so much easier to tear things down and destroy decades of hard work than it is to create enduring solutions. And when you have that attitude of rushing through things to tick some boxes, these are the voices that are missed out. This is how bad laws are made.

I completely agree with Ms Sepuloni that we may find ourselves back here when we discover—oh, oh!—we need more disabled community support, we need more Māori and Pasifika and rangatahi support, we need more rainbow workers support, and we haven’t got enough qualified social workers yet. We haven’t ended homelessness. We haven’t ended poverty, and so the structural barriers remain to those groups seeking to be workers in a field that this House is desperately going to rely on.

So the Greens are supporting the legislation overall. We wish that the Minister had the foresight and leadership to have been able to maintain a longer lead-in. That is disappointing. I truly hope we do not end up back here in the next years to try and remedy her lack of insight. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call to support this bill on behalf of ACT in its third reading. To start with, I would like to thank all social workers for the important work that they do, and the direct and indirect role they play in people’s lives. I would also like to acknowledge the select committee that worked on this legislation and each and every submitter for their contribution to this legislation.

As I said before, social workers play a very important role in people’s lives. But on the other hand, it’s really important for people—those who are receiving services from these social workers—to also be getting the assurance that the social worker who is working with them is professional and can be held accountable. So that is what this bill is about.

There is this component of registration which used to be voluntary, but the bill originally made it mandatory, and now we have experienced that there were two pathways to getting registration. One pathway is through qualification and the other pathway is through experience. Because there are so many positions—around 700 social worker positions—still unfilled, we realised that we need to keep the options open.

So just going with one option of qualifications may not be enough, though we know that the take-up through the experience pathway is quite small—around 3 percent. But still, when there are 700 unfilled positions, we want to make sure that there is every opportunity available to any person who is enrolled as a social worker to get registered to satisfy the Social Workers Registration Board’s requirements and to be officially called a social worker.

I have seen personally how hard social workers work, and we don’t want them to get exhausted because of the shortage of social workers in the field. I chaired an NGO that helped victims of domestic violence, and I would say this: I used to see social workers involved in that NGO and NGOs that this NGO worked with—these social workers used to work day and night. During the day, they used to get several calls, and during the night as well. There used to always be a social worker on duty at night, too, ready to take a phone call if the phone rang. Especially on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, it used to be really busy. It wasn’t just about taking that phone call; it was about, once the phone call has been received, responding to that incident, so these social workers would get in their car straight away and arrive wherever they were needed, according to the phone call.

What is really important in this kind of work, which I want to note, is that when a social worker is attending a case like that of domestic violence, victims share a lot of personal and sometimes a lot of sensitive information about their experience, their trauma, and what the situation has been. So they need to have that confidence that the social worker that they’re dealing with is fully professional, is competent, and they can be held accountable. That is why having this registration process is important. But on the other hand, we have to see that we have enough people in the workforce so that the social workers that are working in different fields of social work are not getting exhausted.

It’s really important to also emphasise that we need to see how the pipeline is working to ensure that we are able to fill these positions. As I said, the experience pathway was always going to be a temporary measure, and now it is also going to be a temporary measure, but this extension of allowing people to use the experience pathway for another two years will allow some last-minute social workers, those who are out there and are considering getting registered as social workers, to really seriously consider and come on board and get their registration done.

We know that there is a lot of demand out there, and people do consider different kinds of career pathways just because of the shortage of social workers. We don’t want social workers, those who are already working as social workers, to start thinking about other career pathways because of the pressure that they are going through, and that is why this extension is important.

I would also like to speak to the amendment which was put through during the committee of the whole House, and I acknowledge contributions from members from the other side and that they would have liked it to be four years. The extension is for two years, but it’s important to note that we have to find a cut-off time, and that cut-off time needs to be reasonable, and at this stage, we support that amendment which was put through during the committee of the whole House. So we support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill in this third reading. I personally have quite a passion for this area, as many know—the area of mental health. It is something that is very close to New Zealand First as well. They have always been very much a supporter of the Mike King I Am Hope Foundation, which the coalition Government has now decided to support.

There is one thing that I know to be true—and that is not only from personal experience but from also the clients that I have helped in my time in the helping profession—and that is the need for human connection. When someone is having an urgent cry for help, they will listen to someone who understands; they’re not going to ask the question, “Hang on, before I share anything with you, what are your qualifications?” They are desperate—some people are desperate to be heard. This is where lived experience is key. I studied to be a therapist in my mid-30s. I didn’t start helping people in my mid-30s; I started helping people a lot sooner, in fact, as a teenager. But the person who helped me the most as a teenager was someone who had the same problem. They weren’t qualified at all; they too became qualified later in life. But it was their lived experience that enabled me to heal from inside and start speaking to someone. And often that is the first step: it is to actually open up and just start speaking to someone, because what often stops people from doing that is shame. And if anyone understands what shame is like, it is someone else who is going through the same problem.

So that’s why I’m very quick to stand up and put my hand up to speak on this bill, because I know how short the workforce is in this area. I know how many people are on waiting lists. I hear about young teenagers who are on waiting lists to have someone to speak to about their body dysmorphia issues and their eating issues, which seems to be accelerating at the moment. This is an area where someone can help who has been through the same issue. That is why I feel that it is so important that we, all together, in the House, support this bill, knowing that it is going to help someone we know and someone who we don’t know who is suffering right now but who needs to reach out.

One of the things that I learnt on my journey was that service to another person was what often made our own life feel fulfilled. If we can support people who have a lived experience, who are out there helping others, then this will also give them some sense of purpose themselves, and maybe ignite something in them to not only be qualified but to do more in their own lives. And by them doing more in their own lives, they’re going to then lead by example to others, maybe their own clients, family, friends. But it is about really encouraging people to try and thrive as much as they possibly can and step out of their own comfort zone. For many who are workers with lived experience, who are not yet qualified, this is their own pathway to their form of greatness in some way, and it can only help serve others who are suffering right now.

So I’ve spoken a bit about shame, and I’d like to talk a little bit more about that. Early intervention is preferable, but it’s sometimes not available, and it isn’t available because many do not want to reach out and shame is what is stopping them. So one of the areas, for example, where shame really affects people from reaching out is addictions. You tend to think that you’re the only one suffering. You tend to think you’re the only one who doesn’t know how to put down the drink. You tend to think you’re the only one who doesn’t know how to stop overeating or stop gambling. But when you hear another person say, “I know what it’s like because I’ve been there too.”, that is one of the first things that will ignite hope into someone who is suffering because that will then help them to feel, “Hey, it’s not just me.”, which is why I so want to speak as much as I can on this area in my 10 minutes that I’m allowed; I may run out of time.

The other area where this is so prevalent, I find, is in abusive relationships. People stay in abusive relationships because they are too ashamed to say that their world isn’t as they are making it out to be. They do not want to say that they are actually not living in the white picket fence that they are really telling everyone about, but inside the relationship it is quite abusive and they stay. But when they hear someone else who has been able to either speak up in an abusive relationship, create healthy boundaries, or, in extreme cases, get up and leave, then that has to be a good thing if a whole family unit is suffering. So to be able to speak to someone who has been able to move on or to somehow even heal a family unit, this has got to be a good thing. And this is why we need more people with lived experience in our community helping.

If you look at 12-step programmes that have been around for decades, they are just people all coming together who want to get help, and they get help within the fellowship there. No one asks, “What is your qualification?” before they get up to speak.

So I’m speaking about these things, which are coming from a bit of a different angle, but I just wanted to share because, having been in the helping profession myself and particularly seeing and hearing what I’ve had to hear over the last few years—especially during this time of the pandemic—is the loneliness that is out there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Ms Unkovich, you’ve done some very good contexting for the bill, so you’ve probably got about three minutes now to talk about the bill itself.

TANYA UNKOVICH: The bill itself. Well, to cut it short, we really commend this bill to the House. We feel that it is the best way to alleviate the workforce shortage that we’ve got and to encourage people to get out there and help everyone else in the community. So we commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a five-minute split call between Te Pāti Māori and the Greens. Takutai Tarsh Kemp.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Takutai.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Takutai, sorry.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare anō. I’m taking this call for the third reading on behalf of Te Pāti Māori. Te Pāti Māori acknowledge the mana of social workers and tautoko this bill. What we don’t support is the shortened time frame from four years to two years. We get it—there’s a workforce issue. There’s simply not enough registered social workers to meet the vacancy needs in our community—believe me, I know. As a CEO of Manurewa Marae, we were faced with this issue all the time. And it continues—it’s not a new issue.

The bill supports our mana ōrite policy, acknowledging pay equity for Māori social workers—pai tēnā. Protecting our whakapapa is everything to the survival of our culture, our tikanga, and our mokopuna.

I want to share with the members of this House my experience in my role as the CEO of Manurewa Marae, in which I faced firsthand the issues in front of us: (1) not able to recruit social workers due to the lack of workforce; (2) not being able to recruit Māori social workers—social workers who reflected our community. Government departments were paying $30,000 more and Māori partners could never compete with the pay equity. As an employer, I could never afford to employ or recruit qualified registered social workers. So, wherever this bill lands, Te Pāti Māori want culturally competent, safe practitioners.

I hear other members, on this side of the House, reiterating the word “safe”. Safety is key to the wellbeing and healing of our people. But not just any culturally competent, safe practitioners; we want practitioners that align to our mātauranga Māori frameworks and values. We have a way. I heard a member talk about an approach—we have an approach and a way. It’s in our Māori way. Whānau ora is the way, which incorporates our own values and tikanga to build hope and belief in the healing and trauma within our whānau. Practitioners who are Tiriti - centric, mana-enhancing, and make mokopuna decisions for our people. That’s what we’re looking for: culturally competent, safe practitioners. Our homes are tapu. Our whānau need a workforce who will believe in them, who will support whānau with their healing, but, mostly, our whānau want trusted, safe practitioners. We want a workforce that breaks cycles—breaks the intergenerational trauma our whānau have suffered. Whānau ora is our way of healing, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen the healing occur.

Yes, we want to support this bill. We want this Government to stop being taringa mārō, to the solutions that will improve the healing of our whānau, and Te Pāti Māori’s role is to hold this Government to account. Kia ora.

Point of order, please, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, please, implore to the Speaker that there’s effort and correction of pronunciation of our MPs’ names. We have experienced it for the last few months. I know that it can be difficult as a second language - learner, but there is a very different meaning from the name that Takutai was referred to as, and I do think that we need to implore that the House—and the Speaker specifically—get these correct.

Yeah, well, certainly that’s an effort we will make. I did correct my initial pronunciation, but I’ll take that on board.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to reiterate the words of our co-leader Marama Davidson—we will be supporting this bill—and I will speak to part of the disappointment that was expressed earlier in her words. We support this bill because we know that we need more social workers. We’ve got, as the Minister has already outlined, 700 social workers that we’re short of in the workforce and, as my parliamentary colleague here from Te Pāti Māori has mentioned, we’ve got to have a social worker workforce that’s culturally competent.

We talk more in the academy now about coming to workplaces culturally humble or with cultural humility, and that’s the understanding of the particular frameworks in which you’re dealing with certain people. I think that that’s the kind of cultural competence and cultural humility that we’re after, and we support this piece of legislation because we know that the writings, the words, and the letter that we have received from the Māori social work group said that we want to embed te ao Māori in the practice of our social workers. In order for this to happen, we’re going to need to encourage people who are coming and who are going to use the experience pathway to be able to use it. The disappointment that we have in the Greens is that we’ve gone from what could have been four years and have reduced it to two years and by rushing this process, but not just rushing this process but by rushing people through a process for this qualification.

It’s important that people are given the opportunity through the experience pathway—which is why we call it, I’m guessing, the experience pathway—because they are coming with these experiences, having worked in these communities for a long time, to be able to bring that knowledge and that expertise to be qualified for social work. That’s an important consideration we need to make, and so it is disappointing from this side of the House that we’ve gone from what could have been four years to what’s now two years.

I come from a social work family. In fact, in the old days, we used to call it Child, Youth and Family Service, and a lot of our social workers went through there. But I think, for Māori and Pasifika communities, in particular, and for migrant communities, the service ethos is in our DNA. We’re a people who want to serve and who want to give back to our communities, and this is what this is going to allow. It’s going to allow people who come with these experiences, having worked with these particular communities—whether it’s in churches, in schools, or in youth organisations—to bring that rich experience to what they are doing. So this pathway is really important. It’s important that we’ve got qualified social workers who are working out in our communities but also people who bring this rich diversity of experience, because they’re the ones who really know how to work with many of the communities that we’re dealing with.

I know that we’ve got social workers in school. As someone who’s worked in schools for a long time, I know the difference that having a social worker in a school makes, because they’re able to connect with them. They’re able to communicate with many of our young people in a way that perhaps some of us might not know the lingo or the language. In the Greens, I’m often told “What’s the vibe?”, and sometimes that gets me because I’m not sure what they mean by “What’s the vibe?” But it’s that kind of language and those words—that vernacular; that young person vernacular—that social workers understand really well, and I’ve made commentary before, I believe, that social workers are as important as police officers, because they’re the ones who are working and walking alongside our communities.

So we support this bill. What we would have supported even more, though, and with greater strength was if we pushed it out to the four years that was originally being spoken of in the beginning, because that’s only going to help this process so that we can fill or start to fill the unfilled number of social workers which is needed, which is 700.

So, yeah, we commend this to the House, and I did like the point that was raised earlier about it being that the lived experience is key. These people bring this lived experience to the profession, and it’s a profession that we desperately need. We need more social workers and we need to provide the necessary avenues for them to be qualified so that they can be in the community with these qualifications, serving our people. They play a really pivotal part in the healing and the restoration of so many families and so many people who need someone to stand alongside them. So I’m glad to support it; I think this is really important.

I just want to close by thanking the social workers that we have, because they’re doing such pivotal, meaningful work in the community today, and we need them. The Greens stand in favour of this bill. Thanks.

I am very pleased to follow after the other member’s speech, because his speech always has a very calming effect, and it’s much appreciated in this debating chamber.

I would like to go back to the beginnings of why we have the Social Workers Registration Act. From the time that the first social work courses were offered in Victoria University in the 1950s through to the passage of the Social Workers Registration Act in 2003, the object of the Act was to build and retain confidence in the profession of social work. At that time, it was considered a crucial step forward in the journey towards raising the status of social work as a profession in New Zealand.

The registration fostered uniformity across a very diverse expanse of a professional entity that social work provides. It was a clear pathway for enhancing the qualifications and the skills that were more and more being demanded of the many social workers that have come into the professional space over time.

I take this opportunity to say a word of praise for all of the social workers in New Zealand who do a lot of hard work and who impact on the society so much. I include in that word of appreciation also the very many Filipinos who do social work in New Zealand. Social workers work in very difficult and, oftentimes, confronting circumstances that demand a very high level of professionalism and skill. We want, therefore, to ensure this level of competence and this level of accountability for the work that social workers do, because they cater to a public that can be said to be extremely vulnerable, and they are the first line—the front-liners—who deal with a very, very vulnerable public.

An article from Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work highlights that the Social Workers Registration Board goes through the process that ensures that the registration of social workers confirms their demonstrated competencies and capabilities as they are enabled to hold themselves out in dealing with the general public and, more particularly, the very large and very diverse cultural and ethnic society that New Zealand is.

Now, by 2021, the Act made social workers’ registration mandatory. There are two avenues to become registered. It is actually such a big opportunity for many social workers who may not have possessed the recognised qualifications that the registration board required but had what was described to be extensive personal experience in doing social work over a period of time in New Zealand and that if they were able to demonstrate that, then they could be registered. So there is no better opportunity for social workers who are doing social work through experience to become registered. But going back to the 2003 Act, where the object was to enhance and ensure that the public that the social workers in New Zealand deal with understands and holds to a high degree of respect and accountability social workers, then it is incumbent upon social workers to take advantage of that opportunity to become registered, if not through qualifications but through their actual work experience done over many years.

Now, in 2017, this side of the House agreed to an extension of time for the opportunity to become registered under experience as a pathway to four years. Now we support this move with the amendment by the Minister to shorten that extension from four years to two. The object there is to hasten those who are already able and those who have been made aware of the pathway to become registered through work experience in New Zealand over time.

The opportunity has been there for quite some time, and there is really no opportunity to delay, and that’s part of the reason why a shortened extension is deemed appropriate. There remains two years to be able to do that, should this amendment pass, and two years also for the opportunity to become qualified, which is something that everyone should take advantage of. I have met and spoken, within our friends, with so many social workers who are Filipinos, and I keep telling them to take advantage of this opportunity to become registered. And there are very different reasons why they could be slow in taking that up: they are steeped in work; they are working very late hours over many days—not just the normal 40-hour work week. And so that’s one of the hurdles. They just ignore it because they’re working, working, working and they will just end up missing the opportunity. So a gentle push and a reminder that that extension is now proposed to be amended to two years will, hopefully, facilitate their improved uptake and serious focus on the opportunity. On this basis, we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. As has been said by previous speakers from our side, we will be supporting the bill. However, I do want to take this opportunity to just outline some of my concerns about what happened in the committee of the whole House stage of this debate on the bill, because I agree with the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who, actually, for the benefit of the House, read the entire correspondence sent to the Minister for Social Development and Employment by significant organisations regarding the reduction of the time from four years down to two years. I want to just take an opportunity to put on record what my unaddressed concerns were about that.

I asked questions in the committee stage about whether the Minister, in her consideration of her tabled amendment, had given any or sufficient consideration to Māori impacted by her proposed changes. Because we had a letter from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers and a message included in that from the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association, saying that their written submission was incorrect; they made an error. They tried to withdraw their submission. They tried to correct their position. The proposal to reduce it from four years down to two years was on the basis of the Social Services and Community Committee report which relied on these submissions, which the submitters said they tried to have removed, but due to some procedural errors at the select committee, that did not happen.

So they wrote to the Minister on 13 February to have her reconsider the tabled amendment of reducing the time frame from four years to two years. We interrogated that; there was some questioning and answering happening in that stage, but what I didn’t get answers on was any specific consideration given to Māori social workers—no answer; the debate closed.

The Minister today, in her third reading speech, talked about a very small number of social workers who apply under section 13 to the pathway to registration, but what I want to note is that there has been an increasing recognition of the value of indigenous, te ao Māori practice in social work where the experience pathway supports this. Around a quarter of social workers registered under the experience pathway over the past 13 years have identified as Māori; however, the proportion of Māori under the section 13 applicants is increasing. For example, between the years 2020 and 2022, 31 percent of social worker registrations under the experience pathway were people who identified as Māori. So the Minister said in her third reading speech that it’s a very small number that we’re talking about, and that she doesn’t, in her opinion, regardless of the letters that she received from those two organisations that I mentioned earlier—in her wisdom, she believes that it should, in fact, remain as she proposed, two years instead of the four.

So I’m standing to reluctantly support this bill this evening. I wanted to totally support it, as it was originally introduced by the Labour Government with a four-year extension. We fully supported it. When the Minister first picked it up, it still was four years. However, it’s been reduced to two years, and I have some serious concerns about that, and other speakers in the House tonight have said that we hope we are not back here in two years’ time taking up more of the House’s time to consider whether an additional extension is required or not.

So that’s all I wanted to add to the debate this afternoon, summing up our discussion, our questions and answers that we had last week in the committee of the whole House stage, our unsuccessful attempts to get the Minister to heed the request of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers and the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association to go once again to four years instead of two years. She is totally ignoring that, and, in her own wisdom, insisting that we stick with the two years, and today saying it will affect a very small number of people, yet the evidence that I have in front of me is that is an increasing number of Māori social workers. As we know, social workers provide a really important service to our most vulnerable, and, as we’ve heard in debates earlier in the House this afternoon, with 7,000 more children likely to be in poverty from one single action of this Government this afternoon, we know that Māori are impacted in many of the areas that require social work services, and so I am disappointed that the Minister did not heed the request and advice of these organisations and extended it out to the four years. So we are supporting the bill this evening, but are disappointed that the Minister did not take that advice.

Tōku tino pai ki te tū i tēnei Whare anō, me te tū me te tautoko i tēnei pire.

Ko te tuatahi e mihi ana ki ngā tauwhiro, ngā social workers, e tautoko, e manaaki i ngā tāngata katoa puta noa i te motu nei e pā ai te mate hōhā, mate mānukanuka, me te mate hinengaro hoki.

Ko te ingoa o “social worker” i te reo Māori, tēnei ingoa ataahua “tauwhiro”, e rua ngā wāhi o taua kupu. Mō te “whiro”, ko Whiro-te-tipua is a tama a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku, me te kupu “tau” is the verb for “settles”.

[I am very happy to stand again in this House, and to stand in support of this bill.

Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the social workers that support and care for all people all across this country with respect to harassment, anxiety, and mental health also.

The name for “social worker” in the Māori language, this beautiful name “tauwhiro”, there are two parts to this word. For “whiro”, Whiro-te-tipua is a child of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, and the word “tau” is the verb for “settles”.]

Therefore, a tauwhiro is someone who literally settles the evil, the darkness, the death that is around. Nō reira kei te mihi ki ngā tāngata katoa e mahi i ēnei momo mahi. 

[So I acknowledge all of the people that are engaged in this type of work.]

Section 13 of the Social Workers Registration Act 2003, and it’s been well-covered in the various stages of this debate, was a pathway to provide an alternative registration process for those people who hadn’t gone through the formal qualifications but who did have extensive experience in this area of work. I had the pleasure in just my second week being a member of Parliament for Maungakiekie of meeting with a social worker who had come into the registration through this pathway. So she was a kuia, she was working specifically with Māori communities in the wider Tāmaki-makau-rau area for one of our local hospitals, and she had extensive mātauranga Māori. So she was the kind of person, the exemplar, for why this pathway was established, and it was a delight and an encouragement to hear of her ability to be able to stay in this workforce that otherwise could so easily have alienated her.

At the same time, my conversations with both her and with many friends of mine who both work for and, in a couple of cases, actually run major social work agencies. One of them is the largest private foster-care agency in the country—a long-term childhood friend of mine from the Wairarapa—right through to the work of the organisation in Māngere, Te Whare Ruruhau o Meri. These and others said to me that they supported section 13. They also supported it coming to an end for the very purpose that the registration process was set up in the first place. They and many others believed that certainly a two-year extension was sufficient.

So I acknowledge and hear the concerns from the Opposition, but I am well-convinced from other people, the experts within the sector, that two minutes—sorry, two years—ironic, two minutes is not enough, but two years is. Two years is sufficient for extending this piece of legislation.

Can I just also take the opportunity, though, to echo some of the suggestions that have been made in other parts of the House, as well, for us to look, as a Parliament, at providing other pathways to entering the social work agency. We have 700 vacancies at the moment, and the reality of it is that there are many, many people who would love to enter this workforce, but the current process—what will be the process in two years’ time of between three and four years of full-time qualification—is beyond them.

So I wonder if we might consider things such as a postgraduate diploma—that was the pathway through which my own wife entered the counselling profession recently, being able to build on her previous work, actually in the nutrition sector. Similarly, in terms of a number of my friends who are recently looking for a mid-life change and wanting to do something more meaningful in terms of their careers and decided to do no higher calling than to enter the teaching profession, and they, again, were able to do a postgraduate diploma of one year.

Can I also add to that a plea that we consider paid placements as well. That’s something that could work not only in the social work and the counselling agency but potentially also in the likes of nursing and others.

Finally, can I acknowledge the evolution of this legislation and this framework over successive Governments. This is something that has been in play now for nearly seven years—seven years where there has been magnificent progress made towards the professionalisation of the social work agency and recognising the incredible role of those tauwhiro, who support those individuals, those whānau, those hapū, and those hapori who are most struggling in our country. It is my great pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

It’s a five-minute split call—the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai, otirā ki a tātou katoa i whiriwhiri i ngā kōrero mō tēnei pire i tēnei wā. Nō reira tēnā rā tātou.

[Thank you to the Speaker, indeed to all of us who have discussed the statements about this bill at this time. And so greetings to all of us.]

I’d like to join with colleagues around the House, first of all, to acknowledge the importance of social workers in our everyday lives in Aotearoa. In particular, I think back on not even the last decade but even further, and, quite often, social workers have been used sometimes within politics, to often batter them around what’s happening in places like Oranga Tamariki and in other organisations. I think this Chamber should always take care not to do that. My thoughts around it, picking up on what a number of MPs—I think every single member that has spoken on this bill about the lived experiences of some social workers to be registered that do not have academic qualifications to do so but they have a whole lot of lived experiences and a whole lot of skills that ought to be valued.

I suppose my big question about this is trying to understand what the country gains by only having a two-year period as opposed to a four-year period, and what we potentially lose. We’re probably not going to know that until two years from now in 2026, whether those 700 places have been filled and whether or not they could have been filled by people who are currently practising but who have not got the relevant qualifications to be able to be registered on any other pathway. So that’s my basis for wanting to talk about this.

I was involved in Maatua Whāngai in the 1990s. I don’t even know if Maatua Whāngai still operates around the country, but they were certainly still operating in the 1990s. The organisations that I worked with were all either volunteers or they were paid employees that did not have academic qualifications. The interesting thing for me is that these people were quite often very well regarded within their communities. Of course, Maatua Whāngai, they were all Māori. I remember those young adults that were training to be social workers, a number of those institutes would send their students to those Maatua Whāngai to learn how to be a social worker and, more importantly, to learn how to work with Māori, because we all know—and we’ve all seen the statistics—that within that field of work, there are many, many shortcomings for social workers who work in mainstream who did not have the skills to be able to help Māori whānau.

Therefore, that’s the main thing that I want to say. An additional two years could well have made a big difference. We won’t know that until two years from now. Nō reira, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a very short contribution on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill at its third reading, which will soon become law. Since 2021, the Social Workers Registration Act has required all social workers to register with the board, and to be eligible for registration, applicants must have a qualification recognised by that board. However, there is an exception in section 13 which allows an alternative pathway for people with extensive practical experience but without a prescribed qualification to become social workers.

This bill addresses a concern that we have on two hands. One is that we have serious shortage of social workers, and we have heard this afternoon from many contributions to this House the huge value that the country and that this House has with our social workers, who provide a very important function in our communities, often dealing with the most vulnerable people dealing with some of the most difficult moments in their lives. They help those people, and that’s something that we wish them to do, but we wish to make sure that people have the relevant experience and/or qualifications to do so.

Presently, we are wanting to ensure the public trust and confidence in the social work profession is there, which is the aim of that legislation I mentioned at the beginning, which is the purpose of having a change to mandatory qualifications. However, recognising that we are 700 social workers short as we speak, at least—that’s the understanding—we’re changing this to give a two-year buffer for this experience pathway to exist as it currently does, to balance that need to account for the current shortage of workers while promoting a timely transition to mandatory qualifications to enhance that public trust and confidence in the social work profession. Also, that two years will provide time for entry pathways into the social work sector to be considered and, potentially, broadened.

So this is a good amendment that takes into account the practical realities of our present time. I would, before I finally commend this to the House, just once again thank all those who work in this profession throughout the country. They really do contribute a huge amount to our communities, and I thank them on behalf of my community and our communities.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin my contribution this evening by acknowledging two amazing wāhine toa, Sina Latu and Suliana Ika, who are involved in the mahi that we are discussing with this piece of legislation tonight. They work very hard for the community of South Canterbury, providing social worker services, and I just want to acknowledge them tonight. I’d also like to acknowledge all others involved in that work in the social worker sector, because what they do is work with such a diverse range of people—some of our most vulnerable people with some extremely complex issues. I can imagine it would not always be an easy sector or profession to work in.

I am pleased to speak in support of this legislation, but I too want to express my disappointment that the Minister—as was mentioned by Hon Willow-Jean Prime—in her wisdom, chose to change the extension to a two-year extension only. As my colleague Adrian Rurawhe said, what will the country be missing out on by not having a four-year extension in order for people to register as social workers?

We know that prior to 2021, registering as a social worker was voluntary. I think that this is the right thing to do to ensure that social workers are seen as a profession. When you study for such a long time to gain your qualification, it is important that all social workers are registered, just as it is important in the teaching profession that all teachers become registered in order to have that profession and the acknowledgment of their study recognised, but also so that the people that they work with have greater protections as well with the social workers that they are dealing with.

We’ve heard that there are the two pathways, obviously, to becoming a registered social worker: one through a registered training organisation and a recognised qualification, but also through the experience pathway. And I think the experience pathway is an extremely valuable way for people to become registered social workers because it gives an opportunity that perhaps may not otherwise have been available to them. If I look at people who, perhaps, maybe have been working in the sector for some time but are unable to go through that formal study because of the expense of it, this is an opportunity to allow people to gain their qualification and recognition and registration through this pathway.

We also know that with the pay equity extension out there, it looks to increase the pay of around 5,000 people. I think this is also an incentive for those who’ve been working within the sector to perhaps want to become a registered social worker when they can see that there is the pay incentive. They’ll have professional development paid for, their registration’s paid for annually, and things like that. So I think that that is a really great way of incentivising people to become a registered social worker.

The Hon Willow-Jean Prime mentioned about the increasing recognition of the value of indigenous te ao Māori practice in social work with the experience pathway supports. And the Minister, in her contribution, mentioned that it was only a small percentage of people that were using the pathway that identified as Māori, and quite rightly, as the Hon Willow-Jean Prime pointed out, that has increased quite significantly. And what we do know is, with the shortage of at least 700 social workers across the country, which was in 2022—which may well be more by now—that there is a large proportion that are needed that are Pasifika, that are Māori, that are disabled, etc. It’s important that these people have the opportunity to come through this experience pathway.

I also agree with words that have been spoken on this side of the House that I think it’s unfortunate that perhaps the Minister didn’t think a bit more longer term in that we may well find ourselves back here in a couple of years because we still haven’t been able to address that workforce issue in people registering to become social workers because the two years has been not enough time to enable them to do that.

So I am pleased to support this piece of legislation. It is really great when we have legislation that comes through the House that all parties across the House can support the kaupapa of, but it is very disappointing that it has been reduced to two years and not four years, as was in the initial piece of legislation. So I commend this bill to the House, but do express my disappointment. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise to speak to this bill that we’ve been discussing, the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. I would also like to start by acknowledging a few people that have done tremendous mahi in this milieu. I’d like to acknowledge Sharon Wilson-Davis from STRIVE Community Trust and her team there. Now, STRIVE Community Trust, for the benefit of anyone that hasn’t come across this organisation before, they are, essentially, a social wraparound service, and the backbone of this service is their social workers. I’ve come to experience what they do, STRIVE, and the excellent social workers they have, through my work at Te Mahia Community Village, which I’ve spoken about before, the emergency and transitional housing facility in Takanini that I’ve worked with. Now, truly, social workers are unsung heroes. The amount of care and compassion that they put into the delicate work a lot of them find themselves in is commendable. So I would like to acknowledge STRIVE. I would like to acknowledge the work you do, Sharon, and all your team.

I come from a family of workers in the mental health arena, including my sister, who’s a mental health nurse specialist, and my second sister, who’s a psychologist. I also see how beneficial work in the mental health space is. So what this bill is doing is that we are saying, yes, we agree—that is, the Government and most of us in the House—that there needs to be another pathway to being qualified as a social worker. Currently, there’s two pathways. There’s the traditional sense of becoming registered with a traditional form of qualification—that’s a prescribed form of qualification—and then there’s the alternative experience pathway, which we’ve been speaking about today. In 2017, the Government of the day agreed to remove this, but we’ve since said we need to delay this removal for a number of factors, two of them being COVID and, recently, the cyclones. This really exacerbated the need to have social workers available, and so therefore we said, “Look, we’ve got to delay scrapping this pathway until we kind of find that we fill up those gaps.”, because, as we’ve said, there’s currently a gap of about 700 social workers. Unfortunately, the supply continues to decrease—as I said, it’s been exacerbated by the recent events of the last few years—so delaying will ensure that this additional pathway to qualification is temporarily available.

Now, there’s kōrero going around about whether it should be two years more or four years more. The amendment that the Hon Louise Upston has put forward is that this be for two years. What I would like to highlight—something that hasn’t really been highlighted in the course of our conversations today—is that all applications submitted before the repeal date of 28 February 2026 will continue to be processed by the Social Workers Registration Board. So I think it’s really important to just highlight that fact. I know that there’s some concern from the other side of the House about the time frame going from four years to two years, and that’s why I would like to reiterate that we need to remember something that’s available, which is that applications submitted before the cut-off date will continue to be processed. That’s an important point to really make. I just feel that sometimes when we make arguments, we shouldn’t be omitting certain points.

We’ve recognised that the four years was just a little bit too long and it could impact on public trust and confidence in the social work profession. My colleague Greg Fleming, he’s a gentleman that really puts himself in a lot of these fields, and he said that he, as well, has had a number of conversations with professionals in this field who also told them that, look, two years is that good kind of Goldilocks balance in terms of what we’re dealing with here today. Two years balances the need to account for the current shortage of social workers while promoting a timely transition to mandatory qualifications.

What I also would like to raise today is that, yes, as I said earlier, the unsung heroes, social workers—something I feel needs to be said to anyone listening today, something that my sister says, and she’s, as I said, a psychologist, so it’s in that milieu of mental health work, is: don’t be afraid to go and seek help. Don’t be embarrassed and don’t be shy, because a lot can come out of seeking help. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.