Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of the third reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. I would like to offer my congratulations to the Minister Carmel Sepuloni on this day. It is a really significant moment in the history of social work in this country and the implications of this legislation are profound for the profession and we hope will have a real impact on the sense of confidence from the public in the social work profession.The House first passed legislation I think in 2003 establishing a framework for social workers in the Social Workers Registration Board. In the hearing of that legislation there were calls for there to be mandatory registration and indeed the Green Party suggested that a time frame be put in place for doing that to enable time for social workers to become qualified and for organisations to be able to afford to support them through that process. And here we are 15 to 16 years later actually finally getting to the point where we could've been back then. So it is very significant and I hope the Social Workers Registration Board will be celebrating tonight the fact that they will no longer have to come to Parliament and sit in front of a select committee and say there needs to be mandatory registration because every single time I've seen them in Parliament in front of the committee that's been the message that they've given us and finally today we are as a House resolving that issue.The purpose of this legislation is to make the registration system compulsory for all social workers so that the public can have confidence that somebody who calls themselves a social worker whom they may be seeking help from or working alongside are actually appropriately qualified and that there would be a mechanism for them to address any concerns they might have about their practice so that we can have confidence in that support system which is so essential because our social workers work in many many different places across the country—through the health system within our community organisations for Government—and the work that they do is I believe some of the hardest work there is. There is no simple equation for how to support somebody through a crisis for how to help somebody to work through trauma how to help somebody get a roof over their head while dealing with family violence while dealing with somebody else's alcohol and drug issues while dealing with you know a child who might be suicidal. There are no simple answers to the complexity of the social issues facing people. What there is is really knowledge around how to build a relationship and work alongside somebody and that's about what a good social work practice is. It's really important that people doing that work are qualified to be able to make those fine judgment calls because actually people's lives can be at stake if they get it wrong.So this bill initially—and again I want to congratulate and mark out the Minister Carmel Sepuloni for having initiated the parliamentary scrutiny last term of this issue by bringing a member's bill to the House. Sadly that was voted down by the then National Government but it kicked off the conversation that then prompted that Government to initiate an inquiry which really did just feel a bit like stalling because people had been telling us we needed just to get on and do it and there had been that opportunity. Then in the last days of the last Government they introduced this bill. The submissions were heard on this and the feedback from the social work profession who have been asking for registration for so long was actually quite profoundly negative. They asked for it to be pulled in fact at one stage because they had a concern that without a scope of practice of defining what it is to be a social worker what they were seeing already happening in the community was that some employers were restructuring and taking social worker" out of their staffs' job titles so that they wouldn't have to support them through a process of registration and the cost of that or provide external supervision.So they were clearly signalling and seeing an unintended consequence from that initial legislation of de-professionalising the support services in our community and they raised the alarm. It was great to see the Minister respond to that and set up a process where a social work alliance which represents a grouping of the main kind of bodies of social workers in New Zealand and a range of them from Christian Social Services to the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association—I can't remember the exact title—the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers and the Public Service Association the union to work together to solve that problem which is this piece of legislation that we are passing today that establishes the ability for the Social Workers Registration Board to define what it is to be a social worker so that it can't be up to employers to be able to avoid the issue and undermine the profession. As I think the Association for Social Workers said in their media release at the time earlier or later last year when they were congratulating the new Government on being able to work through this issue—they were saying that it's always been of the highest importance to them that social workers are able to claim their professional identity on terms that are not defined by employers and that the public can be reassured that those who operate under the title of "social worker" are appropriately qualified and that is what this legislation does.There certainly has been a bit of debate through the committee stages about the scopes of practice and the required qualifications for that. The legislation doesn't define what the scope of practice is doesn't define what it is to be a social worker; it hands that over to the profession and certainly people that have contacted me who haven't been involved in the discussion so far who are concerned—I really encourage them to get involved in that process of defining the scope of practice that provides the opportunity to own this for the future of social work in this country.And people if there are concerns as that moves forward then do come to us as members of Parliament because the Social Workers Registration Board who will be overseeing that process are accountable to Parliament so we will be able to ask questions and be a check to make sure that it is going in the best interests of the welfare of our community.So finally in the last minute I do just want to re-emphasise the important role that social workers play in our country of supporting individuals and whānau and challenging us in Government to make sure that we get the policies right to give individuals and whānau and families the best chance possible to thrive in this country. Social work has never been a profession that is just responsive; it is founded in principles of social justice and that to my mind is completely compatible with the vision of this Government. I really look forward to working closely with the profession to realise a safe and free and vibrant future for everyone in this country. So again the Greens are happy to mark this significant date."