Loheni AgnesAGNES LOHENI (National): It is my pleasure to address this House. It's been a week of many firsts for me: last night with my maiden speech and here now taking my first call on a piece of legislation the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill in its third reading. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the people who this bill is for: the social workers and the community that they serve. I guess one of the key themes that I spoke about last night in my maiden speech was compassion. This is a value that's really critical to the profession of social work and the work that they do with the most vulnerable in our community. It's also a high-trust environment. So I'm really pleased and feel privileged actually to be taking this call on this very important bill and I think it's momentous for this House.So essentially the key thrust of the bill was to elevate the status of the professionalism of social workers by ensuring social workers are competent and fit to practise. Supporting and dealing with our most critical vulnerable New Zealanders is a critical profession and mandatory registration ensures that our social workers are well equipped in this space. As a result those people can be assured that the social workers who are supporting them have been vetted by the police are subject to professional ethics and undertake annual development as a condition of their practice—again just emphasising the high-trust relationship.I'm honoured to be sitting on the Social Services and Community Committee. Actually at my very first select committee I had the Social Workers Registration Board in front of us and they gave a very moving presentation to the committee. They were clearly passionate for the profession that they work in. That was very evident. And again the compassion was very evident in terms of one of the values for them in their line of work. So that was great I thought that I had the opportunity for my first meeting to have them in front of us.So it's been noted it's fair to say our strong reservations on this side with regards to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 which effectively amends the Act to include a scopes of practice model. As I mentioned earlier the purpose of this bill was to ensure vulnerable New Zealanders could have faith and trust in the social workers responsible for their care. So it was disappointing I guess that that faith and trust was not extended in the process to allow submitters to fully address some of their concerns through the committee stage process.One of the concerns about the SOP was its restrictive and binding nature. I'd just like to highlight one example of an oral submission that was raised by Kieran O'Donoghue Associate Professor and head of the School of Social Work at Massey University where he stated that defining the scope of social work practice that the bill will achieve is critical to protecting the public. In his submission Mr O'Donoghue states that a scope of practice sets the boundaries of what is social work practice and what is not. It makes clear where the boundaries are for social workers … [and] would enable the development of a pasifika scope of practice derived from Pacific Social Work Theory and research that [one of his colleagues] Dr Tracie Mafile'o is doing."Ultimately I would echo the sentiments of previous members that this is a positive day and it's an important day and I commend the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni for her work in getting it to this point and pay particular acknowledgment to the Hon Anne Tolley for her work in getting this bill to the House as well. Thank you."