O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It's Thursday afternoon—kind of obvious. The parliamentary cycle of our House has me sitting in this House on a Thursday afternoon and it's a good time to sit because some significant legislation some significant events in New Zealand have taken place at this time. It's usually Treaty of Waitangi settlement bills and there's a lot of emotion. This is a time when we address issues that should have been addressed a long time ago and today this Thursday afternoon we're in the same place.I acknowledge members of the Social Workers Registration Board and social workers sitting in the balcony: Mr Shayne Walker—and we'll make sure we get your name right on this side of the House Mr Walker. It must be a great time to be moving on as chair when something that should have been addressed so long ago is being addressed with an understanding that a profession that you represent and others in the House at the moment have toiled away tirelessly often in dangerous circumstances. In my own profession I've often worked in the same sort of areas that social workers do. Social workers work with people who often don't get to trust many people in their lives. Often the people they deal with are the only people who actually are on their side. Often they can be surrounded—it's pretty much a dog-eat-dog world where there are nice people around there are people who want to help but actually there are not many people they can actually totally rely on and so often that person in their life is the social worker. And so for those people who go into some very dangerous situations in places that most New Zealanders won't go where angels fear to tread you might say but day after day social workers are in those areas in that part of town that many towns and cities have but people prefer to just ignore—That's what happens over there; the things we read about in the paper happen over there."—but that's where social workers go.The people that they deal with are people that really do need trust they do need someone that helps them to be able to actually facilitate working in mainstream society—often this is the only person. So today is so significant because of the recognition that this is a profession—a recognition of just what this profession offers not only to those they deal with but to New Zealand.We've got things that need healing in this country as we have often discussed. And part of that healing is going to be to ensure that those that are alienated those that actually don't think they're part of mainstream New Zealand can actually walk in the same street walk high in the place that the majority of us are lucky enough to do and it's the social workers those in those professions that are going to be part of doing that. So I acknowledge what they do and I certainly see now that once again on a Thursday we're addressing something that should have been addressed some time ago.I come to this House from having been a police officer for many years and I've sat on a board with my Australian colleagues where we were actually trying to do the same thing with police officers to actually get registration and to get the necessary recognition of the same sort of work.I understand just how defining a profession is important because what it means is that if you don't define a profession properly anybody can call themselves whatever they like. Certainly in the case of social workers I've talked about the necessity for people that are dealing with social workers to know that they're dealing with someone that has the training that has the expertise necessary to do just that. And that's what this bill does: it ensures that nobody can wander in because again for that very situation—that very reason that I talked about: ensuring that you can trust the advice you get—it's extremely important that you understand that the person who is giving you that advice is who they say they are.This brings me on to that scope of practice and really often scope of practice—that's a sort of a bit of a technical term. What does that mean? It simply means that when one is dealing with a social worker one knows what that person has been trained to do. Otherwise—without anyone owning that expression that scope of practice that understanding or the competencies that are brought into making that practice—anyone can actually call themselves a social worker. So again it brings us back today to the significance of this bill that we are going to be passing at the end of the day.Again I bring it back to actually the definition of a social worker—the scope of practice. There's been some discussion about the scope of practice and the way it has actually been brought to this House. I point to where the work was done. Where the work was done was with the Social Work Alliance. Now the Social Work Alliance—how did we come to that? Social Work Alliance it's been mentioned several times; it's important people know who that group are. It's a cross-sector representative body of social workers. Well you'd think they would know what exactly social work is about. And they are the people that do know and understand what social work is about. They're made up of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers Careerforce Council for Social Work Education Aotearoa New Zealand the District Health Boards' health social work leaders' councils Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for Children New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services Social Service Providers Aotearoa Social Workers Registration Board Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association and the New Zealand Public Service Association—a pretty comprehensive group I think anyone listening would have to agree.So when they have set down and designed the scope of practice you would have to agree that they are a group that would understand exactly what social workers do. So when the scope of practice was being compiled that was the group who were being consulted. That was the group who made sure that the scope of practice that the understanding we will now have of what social workers do was actually as accurate as it could possibly be.So I've spoken about social work and the social work that we understand. Social work generally common practice is those that deal with the unfortunates in our society and those that need a hand up; those that really need assistance to make sure—whether temporarily or long term—they can actually be part of the mainstream. But of course social workers do so much more work. Many will have had experience of social work.I know I mentioned previously I had a personal experience with social work that made me understand just what the role is and how important that advice is. I mentioned that I had a son who was actually dying and the advice that I got from a social worker was incredibly important at the time. It was something that no one else could really possibly have given. It was someone who was slightly removed from the situation we were in. More importantly that person had the qualifications they had the understanding and I have to say myself and my family benefited greatly from the advice that we got on that situation.So social work is not just something that perhaps is performed in the traditional roles—perhaps understood by the number of people who are identified as social workers in the census being about 8000. Now what we do have to be careful of is also that that number doesn't very quickly go down to 3000 because it would be so easy for some of those jobs that are carried out now—some of those positions some of those tasks and the people who are working in those positions—all of a sudden for those jobs to be redefined. So in establishing the scope of practice it is also important that if the work that is being carried out by the individual is social work it is carried out by a social worker. So while at the same time it's important that the individual themselves has those qualifications it's also incredibly important that the work that they are carrying out—if it is defined if it is social work and it requires those skills—is indeed being done by a social worker.So this bill—by covering the bases to ensure that it's not just about the social work it's not just about the profession it's not just about those who receive the advice. It's a matter of ensuring that we get that balance right. Having been part of the progress of this legislation I stand here today happy to commend this bill to the House believing that we have achieved necessary balance to make sure that this bill achieves what it set out to do. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."