Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. There are a number of things that we of course do agree on with the Minister Carmel Sepuloni who has just resumed her seat but there are also areas that we disagree on. I want to start by commending Madam Deputy Speaker in her former role as the Minister for Social Development for introducing this important legislation. I'm sure it might feel a little while ago because it was of course in August 2017 and it was legislation that was unanimously supported in the first reading which I think is important to have on record. The voluntary regime had been in place for quite some time and there was general agreement that moving to mandatory registration was important for a couple of reasons. One of those was to help improve the status and professionalism of social workers. I think that for a lot of people who are listening to this debate they will have very personal experience of the work that social workers have done with them and their families. They do incredibly important work with some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders and I want to commend them for the work they do. There will be others though who aren't sure what social workers do and perhaps won't understand actually why it is so critical for us as a country to ensure that we recognise the skills and capabilities of those who are working in social work but also that we attract the next generation of people into social work. So when I talk about the status and professionalism of social workers that is really critical. But it's also about those people who are interacting with social workers—the clients the customers; you know I'm sure we've got different names for the people they work with—and one of the things that they want to be assured of is that the social worker who's in front of them in some of their most vulnerable times is someone that's been vetted by the police and is someone who is subject to professional ethics and who undertakes professional development as a condition of their practice. One of the things that we heard through the submission process was that for some people that's a given—it's assumed—but actually for others it's not taking place right now and for a client or a customer who's dealing with a social worker we actually want to have that level of quality. We want to have that level of assurance for them when they are dealing with a social worker. One of the really significant challenges with this piece of legislation which kind of does make this reasonably flat for me is that this was an incredibly rushed process in the select committee. I want to just kind of talk through the time frame because it will be a point that National members make in this debate and in subsequent debates. One of the roles of Parliament is to scrutinise legislation and to ensure that as the Parliament we have the ability to produce the best law possible with as much scrutiny as we are able. In the select committee process the scopes of practice were raised on multiple occasions and despite the National members requesting on more than one occasion for an extension to the report-back time frame—which was only two months from the close of submissions—the Labour members declined that request. So there was quite a lot of frustration in the select committee process that members couldn't explore all of the issues and concerns that were raised by submitters and actually that's the job of a select committee. So it is pretty unfortunate that the time frame for the Social Services and Community Committee report back was reduced particularly when you consider that the report back was in April 2018. What's interesting to note is that the revised regulatory impact statement (RIS) that is of course produced for the Minister was produced back in July 2018. There was plenty of time for this to go back to the select committee for consideration and for further work. There was plenty of time—no urgency. I'm not sure why Labour members refused the request at the time to allow the select committee to do its work fully and properly. Actually this is a bit of a bad habit that I think the Minister is slipping into and I would seriously urge her to stop dropping large Supplementary Order Papers so that members of the public don't have the ability to scrutinise the legislation. I accept that she's talked about the fact that she's worked with the Social Workers Alliance—that's great. But actually there are others affected by this legislation and the select committee is the proper place for scrutiny of legislation and for the select committee members to ensure they hear the voice of the submitters and they explore any unintended consequences. So I do have grave concerns about this legislation and the direction that the Minister's outlined it's taken. I know Madam Deputy Speaker you have said that that's not a matter for the second reading but the issue that the Minister raised about the scopes of practice was an issue in the select committee and the select committee was not given the opportunity to deal with it fully and thoroughly which is good practice. It's actually more than good practice—it's best practice. That's how the Parliament is meant to work. So my message clearly to the Minister is that it's not good enough. It is not good enough to ignore the select committee process. It is absolutely an abuse of power and an abuse of responsibility. What we are dealing with here as I said in my opening comments is that social workers work with the most vulnerable New Zealanders and the Minister should think about that when she is considering legislation instead of ramming it through. Actually it's not being rammed through because it was seven months from when the RIS was drafted to now so there's been plenty of time. The select committee could have had a lot more time with submitters. We could have done another round and we could have got more advice and that's interesting because in the departmental report which is from the Minister's advisers—it is the Ministry of Social Development and in this case the Social Workers Registration Board were also an important part—they didn't make that recommendation. So one of the questions that we'll be wanting to explore fully in the committee stage is: what changed? What changed in terms of the officials recommending no change to the scopes of practice to now? So that sounds like a Minister that absolutely ignores the select committee process makes her own mind up and then goes off on a tangent and it completely ignores the parliamentary process. I don't want to take away from the importance of this legislation—it is important. We have a committee stage next in which we will absolutely explore Supplementary Order Paper 187 and we will do that in a huge amount of detail. The Minister sort of nods her head in a fairly patronising manner but the Minister has not given the opportunity to the public to have scrutiny of the significant changes that she's proposing which I find quite appalling. This is a critical piece of legislation. As I said it was unanimously supported at the first reading. It will be supported in the second reading and we'll see what happens from there. I hope that it is a full discussion and a full debate and that the Minister engages in that process rather than just abusing the processes of Parliament. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: You're just abusing the time of the House. Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I've said this is an important piece of legislation. It was introduced by the National Government. I have the same ability as that member to contribute in this House and in this debate and to put important things on record in terms of the process that has happened to date the comments from the select committee and the concerns that were raised that weren't addressed and it wasn't recommended that they be addressed. I want to come back to something that's been raised as an issue with this particularly in the area of scopes of practice because it is a challenging area. In the submissions that we heard there were a range of views in terms of this being a very full and very tight licensing regime—which is one end of the spectrum—and other areas where it doesn't actually change much in practice. So there's a wide range of views around scopes of practice that do need to be explored which is why I wanted to make sure our concerns were on record. National will support this bill in the second reading. We want to ensure that social workers are supported with mandatory registration and—equally as important—that the vulnerable New Zealanders that they serve are also protected.