Menéndez March Ricardo; O'Connor GregRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge that the select committee stage of this bill was in the last term and I want to pay tribute to the former members of the committee—particularly those who are not joining us in this term—for the mahi that they did in getting us to this stage.As has been canvassed by previous speakers the experience pathways have been really really important in diversifying our workforce and getting a broader range of experiences as well as indigenous models of practices. That can only be a good thing because it has been acknowledged again by many—including in the select committee stage—that we do have a shortage of social workers and that we're living in an equality crisis and we're living in a climate crisis where the type of work that social workers do is desperately needed. There's also a recognition that there needs to be continuous improvements to the training and education pathways of social workers to ensure that they're equipped with the tools to meet the diverse range of needs across our communities. I say this as somebody who prior to being an MP used to be a field educator for social workers. It was really clear how people coming into Auckland Action Against Poverty which was my previous place of work would be social workers who for example didn't have experience navigating the ins and outs of Work and Income and they didn't come equipped via those education pathways to actually understand how to support people to get those basic legal entitlements yet we had people with either lived experience of advocacy or lived experience of living on a benefit and doing all the types of social work - like work who would have those skills. Those skills and that knowledge should actually be recognised and I think if anything the institutions that we have that help formally train our social workers through those more traditional pathways should be thinking how we can have fit for purpose traditional pathways in those four years that this bill is aiming to propose to continue enabling the experience pathways. So with that I want to pay again an acknowledgment and a tribute to iwi front-line services NGO services Pasifika-led services our migrant community - led services and disabled people's services for the work they do in enhancing social work altogether because having a social worker doesn't have to be just a one-way street. I think social workers can play a role in embedding competent solidarity for example in the people that they walk alongside with. It's not just about the social workers holding the knowledge of how to navigate institutions for themselves but rather imparting it as well to the people that they work with and I've been quite intentional in not using the word clients" for example in the language that I've used because I think we also need to move away from that. So what this bill will do and what we canvassed in the select committee were the pros and cons against the four-year extension. I want to acknowledge that there are tensions around the concerns that exist around the quality of the profession should we continue extending this pathway. But I think those concerns can only be met if the Government of the day is actually resourcing the institutions that help train those social workers because we cannot put concerns on the table particularly from the Government side relating to the quality of social workers that we're training without acknowledging that without adequately resourcing our tertiary education institutions and by not also for example bridging the gap of unpaid labour that many social workers who are training do and acknowledging that the expectations on them to provide unpaid labour have an impact on the types of social workers we then have through those traditional pathways—actually the experience pathway provides a really really important bridging tool for those people for whom because of those socio-economic barriers the traditional pathways may not be accessible. That was something I noticed as a field educator: how those coming through the tertiary education institutions actually would have to balance the needs of having to fulfil their placements with their having to potentially work multiple jobs to make ends meet. So if the Government is eager to address current workforce demands in diversifying the workforce and in having level incomes for all—but I think one of the places we can start is with the social workers that we're training—it would be a really really good and useful place to start to address those concerns and then not just have these concerns being put in this place without other sources of action. I am interested in the Minister's comments around the proposal to modify the four-year extension and perhaps looking at a different model around that. I think if the deadline is going to be changed once again our expectations would be—and we also look forward to scrutinising the Minister in the select committee about what other plans she's got in relationship to supporting those traditional pathways and boosting those. I think we do need to allow that unpacking to happen in the committee of the whole House stage as this bill—it doesn't exist in isolation right? It's a bill that ultimately is connected to other institutions and to other policy levers that ultimately affect the type of people that go in to do social work. With that I'd like to finish by thinking of all the people whose lives were literally saved by social workers. I know the previous speaker mentioned the recent floods but I think that for many people being able to have a social worker in a time of crisis would have been the difference in accessing legal entitlements such as the civil defence payment. For people facing violence having a social worker is often the key to navigating really really complex support services. So I urge all of us to think carefully of how we move forward as this experience pathway will inevitably come to a close whether it's by the four years proposed in the bill as it stands or via a reduction of that time so that our communities have the support they deserve.I think finally it's worth acknowledging that much of the reason why social workers are in such high demand is because of the systems that we've built to create that demand. So if we don't address poverty-level wages high rents and difficult-to-navigate institutions the demand for social workers will only continue to be needed and these experience pathways will continue to unfortunately be critical because the systems we created are failing our communities.Laura Trask: Thank you Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Are you seeking the call?Laura Trask: I am indeed. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Laura Trask—just stand and seek the call. That's the way we do it. Thank you."