Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill

Last time we were on this piece of legislation, we were up to the ACT call, call No. 4. I call Todd Stephenson.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise this evening and talk on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the work of the Social Services and Community Committee, ably chaired by Joseph Mooney, the second-best MP based in Queenstown. I also want to acknowledge the work of Laura McClure—

Hon James Meager: Laura McClure moved?

TODD STEPHENSON: —the ACT member on that committee.

Hon James Meager: Did she move to Queenstown?

TODD STEPHENSON: Thank you—quiet over there in the cheap seats! I want to note that there were some submissions in relation to this bill—five in total, I think; one actually heard orally. But all the recommendations made by the select committee were actually passed unanimously.

This is a really good piece of legislation, this bill. It’s actually updating the Social Workers Registration Act 2003. Actually, this 2003 Act had a really excellent, built-in review mechanism where it had to be looked at every five years. This amendment bill is a result of that. We’re making sure that our social workers—who are a really important group in our community, delivering really important services—are up to standard and, in fact, the regulations that they operate are up to scratch. So it’s good that this bill makes some modifications, some updates, and some very simple but important legislative changes, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. I was also on the Social Services and Community Committee, so we saw this bill through the House. It wasn’t contentious. There were only about five submitters. A very good summary by my colleague Mr Stephenson on what the bill does.

I would really just like to take a couple of moments to acknowledge all of the social workers out there. It is a very difficult job, and when you’re in the helping profession, you do carry a lot. It is one of the reasons why social workers need supervision. Some of that is covered in this piece of legislation, but I really just wanted to acknowledge the good work that they do, and I’ll speak a little bit more in the third reading, so I commend it to the House. Thank you.

This is a split call.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. E te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. I rise this evening to speak in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill on behalf of Te Pāti Māori. I want to make special mention of my colleague and the member for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, for participating in the consideration of this bill for the Social Services and Community Committee in my absence.

Our people, our whānau, our mokopuna have long suffered under a system that has too often failed to uphold their dignity, their rights, and their tino rangatiratanga. We acknowledge that social workers play a really vital role in our community, supporting whānau through times of crisis, advocating for tamariki, and working tirelessly to ensure that our people receive the best-quality care they deserve. However, this work must be done in a way that reflects te ao Māori, is accountable to our communities, and upholds the mana of those it serves. This bill strengthens the regulatory framework that governs social workers in Aotearoa. It is essential that those entrusted with the wellbeing of our people are fit to practice and hold to the highest standards of accountability.

By broadening the grounds of interim suspension, enhancing the investigative powers of the Social Workers Registration Board, and enabling professional conduct committees to take multiple actions on complex cases, we ensure that there are robust safeguards in place to protect our most vulnerable whānau. A key provision in this bill is the transfer of investigative functions from the Ministry of Social Development to the Social Workers Registration Board. We view this as a positive step towards greater independence and oversight, ensuring that those who regulate the sector are dedicated specialists rather than Government officials with conflicting responsibilities. However, Te Pāti Māori remains vigilant, and we must ensure that Māori voices are embedded in this process, that our tikanga is respected, and that our social workers are not disproportionately targeted by these provisions. Given that the Social Workers Registration Act 2003 mandates a review every five years, we will be keeping a microscope on this space to ensure that the aforementioned be true, ensuring that the system remains fair and just for our people.

It would be amiss to not mention the practices in place within Whānau Ora and the work being done by the network up and down the motu. I would hope that for the greater good of our nation and an increasing need for social services, the board will lean into the Whānau Ora way in their delivery of services. It continuously proves to be effective when meeting the needs of our people. Furthermore, the bill adds a monitoring function for prescribed educational qualifications. This presents an opportunity to further incorporate Māori-led social worker training, ensuring that our whānau are supported by professionals who understand tikanga Māori and operate within a framework of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga. We call upon the Government and the Social Workers Registration Board to work closely with Māori social workers, educators, iwi, and community leaders, to ensure that qualifications meet the needs of our people.

While we support the intent of this bill, Te Pāti Māori remains committed to advocating for a broader transformation of our social services. Our ultimate goal is the full realisation of “by Māori, for Māori”—solutions where whānau are empowered to determine their own pathways and where social services work in partnership with our people, rather than imposing State control over their lives.

Ka tū māia mātou ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Heoi anō ka whakatūpato tonu mātou kāore e mutu tā mātou whawhai mō te tika, te mana me te rangatiratanga o tō tātou iwi. Kia ora.

[We will stand confidently to support this bill. However, we extend our warning that we will not stop fighting for justice, for the authority and autonomy of our tribe. Thank you.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. This bill makes a number of minor yet important amendments to the Social Workers Registration Act, improving the processes that govern social work in Aotearoa.

Social work is an essential and often undervalued profession. It exists at the front lines of our social support system, working with whānau in crisis, supporting people through complex and often traumatic circumstances, and advocating for the wellbeing of our most vulnerable. Social workers deserve a system that upholds professional integrity, protects their mahi, and ensures public confidence in the profession.

This bill allows for the Social Workers Registration Board’s mandatory review of the Act in 2020. Many of the changes are technical, designed to fix inconsistencies, streamline processes, and modernise language, including replacing outdated gendered terms with gender neutral language. The Green Party welcomes these small but very important meaningful updates.

More broadly, this bill strengthens the integrity of the profession by improving processes around professional conduct and accountability. These changes will ensure that investigations into social workers, whether related to the Social Workers Registration Act, the Health and Disability Commissioner Act, or criminal proceedings, can begin as soon as concerns arise, rather than waiting for formal action to be under way. This is a practical step to safeguard public safety.

The bill also makes changes to how interim suppressions are actually managed. Instead of the current rigid 10-day extension periods, suspensions will now align with the time required that it takes for the investigation or medical examination to be complete. This reduces unnecessary delays while still ensuring due process for social workers under investigation. Furthermore, the bill empowers professional conduct committees to make multiple determinations in complex cases rather than being restricted to a single outcome. This will allow for a more nuanced decision-making that better reflects the realities of social work.

The Social Services and Community Committee examined the bill and unanimously recommended the bill. In the first reading, the Greens raised questions about whether these changes would be used more frequently due to resourcing pressures on social workers. The select committee report didn’t directly answer this, but its scrutiny of interim suspension provisions, particularly the time frame adjustments, ensures the process is more workable for both social workers and for the people they serve. The committee paid particular attention to the interim suspension provisions, given their significant impact on both social workers and public safety. The current law only allows 10 working days for a suspension notice, often requiring multiple extensions. The bill allows the board to set a reasonable time frame while ensuring that reviews can occur as needed.

The committee also clarified the process for transferring investigative powers from the Ministry of Social Development to the board, ensuring that all relevant information, including case notes and assessments, is included. The board intends to review suspension time frames again in its 2025 review, ensuring further refinement if needed.

This bill is not a radical reform, but it is a necessary one. It makes practical improvements to enhance the effectiveness of social work systems and support those working tirelessly to uphold the rights and dignity of people across Aotearoa. The Green Party is pleased to support it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to see cross-party support for the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. The bill seeks to achieve much-needed and better regulatory oversight over social workers, who deliver valuable health and social services. It protects them, and it protects the public. I commend this bill to the House.

That’s probably one of the worst speeches I’ve ever heard from that man, Paulo Garcia. He can do much better than that; I know that for sure, because I’ve watched him chair at select committee, so he knows what he’s talking about.

Yeah, so in terms of this, though, this is our annual review that we’re doing. This is a bill, I suppose, that the whole House can get behind, and there’s not a lot to argue with the other side about, but I will use all my time tonight just to irritate the other side.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Make it worthwhile irritation, then.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’ll try my best, Madam Speaker—I’ll try my best. The last review took place in 2020 under the wonderful Labour Government, and this bill makes 16 minor policy and technical amendments to the Act. There are some really interesting changes, I think. I was looking through it, and particularly in the ethnic cultural area, we’re making some specific changes. We’re making 16 minor policy and technical amendments.

But one of the changes that I think the whole House would find very interesting, particularly in the National Party and, I think, New Zealand First, is replacing terms like “he” or “she” with gender-neutral terminology. I think that’s a fascinating change there, and I was sort of wondering how it got through the coalition Government given their—you know, I was wondering if New Zealand First had had a look at this, because it sort of goes against everything that the Deputy Prime Minister has been talking about in terms of woke and not putting up with woke. I can’t even see a New Zealand First person in the House, which is a shame—oh, there is one over there.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: New Zealand First did speak on the bill, and there is a New Zealand First person in the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, there. So, yeah, I’ve got to say to that member: how on earth did he let this get by him? Replacing terms like “he” or “she” with gender-neutral terminology, of course, is something that Labour and the Greens support 150 percent, but to see that the Greens sold their supporters out badly just to try and be part of the coalition—very sad, really, but shows you that they’ll do anything in terms of staying in power. Sad to watch the Greens giving up all their principles with regards to this. And they—

Todd Stephenson: The Greens—the Greens?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, sorry, not the Greens—sorry. New Zealand First is—

Todd Stephenson: Oh, well, you just said the Greens twice.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, thank you so much for your correction. Anything else you’d like to correct? But what I’m saying is when I look at this and I think—

Hon Matt Doocey: That’s the problem with labels.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s true, but you agree with the label, so that’s good. In terms of these terminologies, it does show you how hypocritical some of these parties can be. It does show you, but anyway, gender—I think changing these terminologies is very, very good, very woke; well done—well, according to New Zealand First, but very appropriate for us, very appropriate for us, because we’re on the right side.

In terms of social workers, this is a very important kaupapa for myself, because I managed many social workers in my previous role as a chief executive with our urban Māori authorities. I had many social workers who worked with me through the years. The key here with social workers is they go beyond the call of duty many times, particularly—and I heard the member over there talking about Whānau Ora, and I salute our Whānau Ora workers tonight, who have done so much with different whānau.

One of the things that they have been pursuing is pay equity. Pay equity is something that we were always addressing as a Labour Party Government, along with the Greens, who were supporting us, and New Zealand First, who, sadly, forgot their roots and sold their soul to the National Party, who would do a deal with anyone just to get in. Pay equity was an area that we were pushing because social workers have always been underfunded, undervalued, and they have been doing such wonderful work at ground level. When I had social workers working with me, not only were they looking after things between 9 and 5; they were looking after whānau between 9 and midnight. Many times, those social workers would go out of their way to look after whānau. I had social workers who looked after abused women, who looked after family, who went that extra mile, and we were looking always as a Government at improving their wages and their conditions. It was one of the things as a former Minister I was really proud to be part of, Labour’s push in terms of pay equity.

We’ve got to ask tonight: what is this Government doing to ensure that our social worker workforce has been compensated for the extra work? The other side of that is we have a real job shortage, we have a real worker shortage. So, again, I’d ask the question: what is the status of the social worker workforce strategy? I would say that it is at zero because this Government has not helped workers. We have workers’ wages lagging, we have the minimum wage not being increased at the rate that the Labour Government was pushing things along at, and we have social workers being totally neglected. So I’m really pleased to be able to take this opportunity. Yes, of course we support this bill, but it is a reminder to the House that yes, while we support it, there has to be a much broader and wider strategy with regards to social workers. Are they getting pay parity? Is there any equity in terms of social workers? What is happening at Oranga Tamariki? How are social workers being affected there? How are Māori social workers being affected?

The sad thing is this Government doesn’t care. They just tick the boxes off. They tick the boxes, they kick bureaucrats out; they don’t have any strategies in terms of social worker shortages. There are no targeted strategies with regards to what’s happening with Māori and what’s happening with ethnic—it’s a really, really sad thing happening.

The fourth Experiences of Care report that was released by Aroturuki Tamariki, the Independent Children’s Monitor, showed that the Oranga Tamariki social workers were still not visiting kids in care as often as the national standards say they should. Again, this is particularly because of the pressures being placed on them by the Government’s cuts. The Government is not understanding that if you do not fund and strategise with our workers and our social workers at ground level, the flow-on effect will be that social workers will not be able to get out there and assist whānau. We have seen this particularly happening at Whānau Ora level, and right now in terms of Whānau Ora there are a lot of questions being asked about the future and what’s going to happen in that area.

So when we talk about this bill, yes, obviously, we’re going to support the technical amendment changes—of course we’re going to support that—but what I want to remind the Government today is that it’s not just about technical changes for social workers; it’s about a broader strategy. What’s happening at the coalface? Are we getting pay equity? Is there a strategy around workforce development? Does this Government care? We know on this side of the House that they don’t care. Everything suggests and tells us there is a—

Katie Nimon: That’s not on.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That is a fact; I’m sorry to inform you, but you are an uncaring, useless, hopeless Government who don’t care about workers at the coalface, don’t give a damn, and, basically, you’re just trying to tick things off. You sacrifice your principles, you have idiots in ACT over there who wouldn’t know a social worker if he fell over one—probably never met one in his life. Basically, you’re a shameful Government and you’re a disgrace to this nation.

But I’m very happy to support this bill tonight, a bill that was promoted by a Labour Government. That’s the good thing, that Labour promoted this. The other side can go and jump in the lake. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I think I’ll just bring us back to the bill. We support the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. I will just clarify that on this side of the House we are very caring and very efficient and into very practical legislation, which, of course, this is. So without any further ado, I’d like to also acknowledge the amazing social workers we have out there, working in our communities. I thank the Social Services Committee for all the work they’ve done on this bill. It’s great to see the cross-party support on it. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. I was on the committee, so am very happy to speak to this bill. Actually, with all due respect to the previous speaker, Catherine Wedd, it’s all good supporting minor and technical amendments, but if the member was not listening to the previous contribution and not understanding the seriousness of the situation—

Hon Member: Cos it’s nothing to do with the bill.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: It had everything to do with the bill.

Hon Member: No, it didn’t.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: It has everything to do with social workers. If the other side of the House cannot understand and cannot connect the dots to the issues and the challenges that social workers are facing, what is the point of having a registration board who has all of these powers that we have in this piece of legislation if there is a workforce shortage? So I might just start there, because the sector is struggling to meet the ever increasing needs of children, whānau, and communities.

In a recent workforce survey that was done, around 13 percent of the workforce indicate they are planning to leave or to reduce their hours. There is no strategy. There is no workforce strategy for social workers. Was the House listening to a previous contribution where it has been pointed out in the most recent care experience report, and I quote, “The Independent Children’s Monitor showed that Oranga Tamariki social workers were still not visiting children in care as often as the national standards say they should.”? And this is partially due to the pressures placed on them by this Government’s cuts.

Laura Walter’s report said, and quotes Jones: “Social workers were unable to provide the care and support they wanted due to cost-cutting measures, perceived hiring freezes, a lack of resources and training, social and mental health workforce shortages, a siloed approach to care and service funding between government agencies, and prevailing societal attitudes.” The Monitor also noted that “recent internal restructuring of Oranga Tamariki had pulled focus away from front-line work, while scarce resources were even harder to secure following the changes to commissioning and contracting.” So I did find that last contribution disappointing, and in fact the heckling around the House, because I think they were trivialising the points that the side of the House was making and the connections to the sector that we are talking about.

Let me come to acknowledging the social workers and the very important work that they do, and that we know how much pressure they are under because of the decisions that this Government is making. So it’s fine to make some minor and technical amendments to a piece of legislation for them, but why is that side of the House not speaking up about the changes and the pressures that the workforce are experiencing? Didn’t hear any of that in the 30-second contributions that everyone chooses to give tonight.

Now, as was said by this side of the House, these technical and minor amendments come out of a review that was done under Labour’s time, so of course we support these changes and we support this legislation tonight. But I did want to use my time to remind the House of the wider challenges and pressures that the social workers face and that we should be mindful of that when we are passing this legislation, because some of the provisions in here are to deal with things that can happen when social workers are put under pressure. If that side of the House can’t see the connection to it all, they are not paying attention.

Hon Member: We certainly are.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: They are not paying attention to all of the information.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. I really enjoyed speaking on the bill in the first reading. I’ve been pleased to see what has come out of the select committee process—and, as we’ve made very clear, some very technical amendments that will help professionalise a very growing, increasing-need sector. So, with that, and to reflect the sentiments of my colleagues, with the support of the social worker sector and profession, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. First of all, happy birthday.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

HELEN WHITE: I want to draw on the comments of my colleagues about what the purpose of the bill is. Really, it is a very serious one, because we absolutely know we’ve had problems with abuse in care for children and that we have real needs in our community, and social workers are an integral part of fixing that situation.

I want to go to a report that was written by the Independent Children’s Monitor and just read a short segment of that. It says, “The State should be a model parent.” It then goes on, later, in a couple of paragraphs, to say, “To improve compliance in 2024/25 and beyond, Oranga Tamariki must address how it can free its social workers to do what they are trained to do—being there for tamariki and rangatahi, completing thorough assessments and plans, supporting caregivers, and ultimately helping to keep tamariki and rangatahi safe, loved and cared for.”

Now, I wanted to start with that because it’s a reminder of the purpose and the role that a social worker plays and how critical it is. Social workers don’t, of course, only work in the situation of caring for children, but they’re also out there in our health system, they’re all through our community organisations. And this bill is about making sure that we have enough checks and balances in the system, run by the board, so that there can be a job done in terms of keeping social workers within the bounds.

In this bill, there are rules about things like interim suspension—there’s a movement away from a 10-day interim suspension to a 10-day suspension and then a reasonable amount of time necessary—the board having a right to investigate social workers, and the new role of that board to look at educational qualifications but also to monitor them.

Now, we’ve got about 7,520 practising social workers at the present time. We didn’t start with this kind of registration system—that’s actually really new. In 2003, when the Act was put in place, there was no such mandatory regulation. It’s actually only since 2021 that we seem to have mandatory regulation.

I want to talk about the acknowledgment—and lots of colleagues across the House have made it tonight—that this is a really hard job. While we’re putting in place structures which mean that social workers who get it wrong, or who are unsafe for our children or for those that they’re caring for, are able to go through a process, we also have to acknowledge that it’s one of the hardest jobs. I wouldn’t really want to do it myself. It’s so hard, I think it compares unfavourably, in terms of the burden it has, to the job we all do. I think social work is a job that’s still well underpaid. Actually, the latest survey suggests that those in the profession are often burned out, there is a high work-load, there is a perception of poor pay—and I think that bears out: there is poor pay in the sector. As a result, we’ve got people moving out of it all the time. It’s a profession where the surveys that are done are well attended—people will tell the board what is going on for them—and the latest survey suggests that more of those social workers feel unsafe due to abuse from clients. So it’s a really high-stress profession. It’s also a profession that’s 85 percent women. Colleagues today have talked about the fact that the low pay of those social workers is very likely connected to the fact that it is a female profession.

I think we’re moving into a time when we’re going to have to have a really big rethink about the way that we treat workers doing this kind of work. Because while we definitely need those kinds of boundaries around a job and a process of education, etc., we also just need to pay people better and treat them better and be more reasonable about what we expect of them. We’re moving into a time when we’re going to have automation in a lot of jobs, and these are the kinds of jobs that must be done by human beings and they must be done well by human beings. At the moment, we seem to have really devalued them. That’s the moment in time we’re at now. I’m hoping that in the future, we will move away from that model and we’ll see a flip: jobs like this will become much more highly valued and will pay people better in our society. And I do think that will affect the quality of the people that we get doing this work—or will affect the quality of the work they do, is probably a better way of putting it. Because as long as we devalue the work, as long as we put people under huge pressure, as long as every time the Government changes there’s a slash to the budgets of people, then, actually, we will end up with trouble keeping people and keeping people working well in this area.

So while I am very supportive of this piece of legislation going through with the structures that it’s got, I do think there’s another harder piece of work to be done, which is getting the pay up of these workers, making sure that we are really thinking about our value system and what we value. From my own personal experience, I have parents who are ageing—my father’s 93. I think that the people who I value the most are the people that are assisting my parents stay in their own house. It’s incredibly important work, but it’s also work that could be badly done or it could be well done. At present, the people who do this kind of work are well undervalued in our remuneration. If we continue along that line, then I think we will see patchy care. So my challenge to this House is—yes, we’re all in agreement here, but it is time for us to really consider whether we need to review the way that we work and the way we structure the pay that we pay people who do this work.

I would like to extend my thanks to the social workers who are doing a good job in very difficult circumstances. As I’ve said, I just do not think it’s a very easy job; I think it’s become quite a risky job to do, so I would like to thank them for doing it.

But I’d also like to go full circle to talk just for a moment about the stakes that we’ve got and return to the issue of children. We’ve had the report into abuse in care. We know that that is the tip of the iceberg, and it was a lot of volume. We know that it’s not over. We know that it’s very likely that that behaviour continues to happen, and that happens under our watch. While the Children’s Commissioner is right to say that “The State should be the model parent.”, that actually means us—we’ve got to be supplying the model parent. We have to make sure that the people that we are supplying into the system, our social workers and those caregivers, are actually being supported by us in a way that makes that work, work that is done well and done to the standards that we would expect for our own children. So I thank you for listening to me tonight, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be invited to speak on the second reading of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill, and it’s also really kind of you, Madam Speaker—well, before you, Madam Speaker Maureen Pugh; happy birthday, Madam Speaker Barbara Kuriger—for allowing Willie’s Wine Bar to go on and on about things unrelated to the bill, but it must be part of your good nature on your birthday. But you’re always good natured.

As I learnt, the Social Services and Community Committee received five submissions on this bill, and one of them was from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. I really was heartened to read that they said, “we strongly support legislation which achieves the purposes set out in section 3”. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Substantive amendments