Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair and I thank the Minister for responding to some of the questions that were raised in the previous session of the committee of the whole House. We do have a large number of other questions. Some of them have just arisen in the last couple of days as we've had feedback from people who were watching or listening to the committee of the whole House and raising concerns with us about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 in particular. So I did want to just bring the attention and the focus of this part of my contribution around Part 1 clause 5A where section 4 was amended particularly starting off with the repeal of the definition of the recognised New Zealand qualification. Looking at the primary legislation that means a New Zealand education qualification for the time being recognised by the Board as appropriate for social workers working in New Zealand". Minister we're keen to know exactly what is the rationale what is the reasoning behind the removal of the recognition of a New Zealand qualification and instead the very clear wording in the bill of "prescribed qualifications"—exactly what that means and what the difference is. Speaking to a social work educator today there was real concern about what that means. Why are the New Zealand qualifications not being recognised? Why are they not being included? Why is it that this "prescribed qualification" is being included?My colleague has a couple of tabled amendments on this question and some of them I know will look at the impact on tertiary providers because currently the questions—again speaking to this education provider given that they didn't have the opportunity in a select committee process and this has been jammed through the House as a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—why? Why is there the removal of the definition of a New Zealand qualification and why is it now being referred to as a "prescribed qualification"? Does that mean that there's a whole plan of work around a change to the qualifications? Where is that at in terms of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority? Who is ready to deliver this training? My understanding is that as a country we will need to build the social work workforce. That was an issue that was raised by submitters on a number of occasions. So anything that has an impact on the workforce on the workforce planning—this is a particular one around qualifications—I would like the Minister to provide greater details about what's intended there.I want to just refer to the Cabinet paper and ask another question—gosh I'm running out of time—about whether there's a wider plan that as you mention in paragraph 23 of your Cabinet paper there should be ancillary roles for less formally qualified people. I thought the intention of this legislation was to ensure mandatory registration and therefore higher quality better trained professionally developed social workers working at our front line. So I want to know what the endgame is. Are the "prescribed qualifications" part of this plan which we've had no visibility of in terms of having lower levels of social workers who can't be called social workers if they're to be registered but perhaps have a requirement for this prescribed qualification which up until this point hasn't really been described to us?I want to just go through—again feeding back comments of a person who didn't have the chance to submit because it hasn't gone to the select committee—about the impact or questions around the requirement for prescribed qualifications. Does it mean difficulties in changing scopes or finding work within their scope for the registered social workers themselves? That will potentially mean they'll bear the costs of obtaining additional qualifications to achieve the scope of practice for the new role they've gone for. And what does that mean for education providers for employers and also for the public who the social workers are serving?So the Opposition does have some serious concerns and want detailed answers around this issue of qualifications. It was obviously a conscious decision in the drafting of the SOP which doesn't have sufficient clarity. The ramifications particularly for social workers having to retrain or train again for a new scope of practice are deeply concerning."