Smith Nick: Social Workers Registration Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Social Workers Registration Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4862] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 It is good news that we have legislation that will provide a framework for increasing the professional standards of social workers. That is good. But what that member and Labour have failed to do is to provide legislation that will actually work and do the job. 
I commend my colleagues Katherine Rich and Paul Hutchison who in the second reading debate put a clear argument regarding some of the bill’s major deficiencies. I want to speak to those. First of all I want to put on the record just how important social workers in our community are. When we read of the tragedies that occur with children we see that it is social workers in practice who are making the decisions—life and death decisions—that affect the children of this country. That is why this National Party stands for high standards in that profession. 
I have a number of questions I would like the Minister in charge of this legislation to answer in respect of the detail that none of the other Labour members want to talk about. The first one relates to the gross inconsistency of this Government to occupational regulation and why it does not trust social workers. The bill is about State control of the profession and that is an oxymoron. State control of the profession will not deliver high professional standards. It is by giving control to a profession and trusting a profession that we get the very best from it. None of those characteristics are in this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I ask the Clayton’s member opposite why it is for instance when it comes to my own profession the engineering profession that the Government says the members of the board will be appointed by the profession itself. The Government supported that. But when we come to this bill it says that every member of the Social Workers Registration Board will be a Government appointee. Why the inconsistency? Can Ms Pettis the member opposite who is giving me a dirty look answer? Why does the Government trust the professions of nursing engineering electricians lawyers and accountants but does not trust the profession of social workers? The silence is deafening. People on this side of the House expect some consistency around occupational regulation. Mr Maharey needs to get his head clear and come up with something constructive. The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers is a perfectly good professional organisation that has set up a set of professional standards. It has set a benchmark. There are hundreds of social workers out there in New Zealand including my wife who have gone through all the work to get registered with the association and are now being told they have to go back to base one. Is that going to make sense? Is that a sensible way in which to manage the profession of social workers? I suggest that it is not. 
Then we see the level of prescription. The bill has more than 200 clauses that monitor all manner of things and go into all sorts of detail that I think is grossly unnecessary. Why do we not trust the profession to develop sensible rules regarding the level of qualification a person should have to be able to be registered? What are the professional standards associated with the conduct and the ethics of a profession? We trust every other profession to do that. Why is it when we come to this profession we do not? The Government’s most recent legislation that dealt with the registration of a profession was the Teachers Council legislation. It said that it would allow members of the profession to sit on the council and make the decisions. What is it about social workers? Why is it that we do not trust them? Why is it that we have a separate and different set of rules when it comes to that particular profession? I simply do not understand. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: It wouldn’t be the first time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Would Mr Clayton Cosgrove explain to me why we trust the teaching profession to be involved in setting standards and appointing members to the Teachers Council but do not trust the social workers profession to appoint— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Read the bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I have read the bill. If the member reads the schedule he will see that the Minister will appoint all the members of the Social Workers Registration Board. Why is that? 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Read the bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I have read the bill. That member is the sort of flunky member we have on the Labour side. Those members cannot answer the substantive questions. The substantive question here is: why is it when it comes to accountants doctors engineers plumbers and electricians we trust those professions to develop the rules and to run their own professional body but when it comes to social workers we do not? Again we have absolutely no explanation at all from Government members and that is an issue I will be pursuing in the Committee stage. 
The second great contradiction is that when it comes to the early childhood sector this Government has passed regulations that completely ignore experience. I know of people who have worked in the early childhood sector for 35 years. They are excellent teachers. This Government has come along and cut them off. It said that no it does not trust them and it is not going to allow them after 2005 to continue to work in early childhood centres. Yet this bill says that we are to respect those people that have experience in the sector. Well both sectors deal with children. The bulk of the issues managed by social workers in New Zealand are to do with children so why is it that we say experience does not count when it comes to early childhood workers but when it comes to social workers it does? I would have thought one would come to some sort of consistent approach. We on this side of the House think that experience matters. We are prepared to accept both early childhood workers and social workers who can show they have the experience to set high professional standards. Why does the Government not do that? Why does it have a different view? We have no explanation at all in that regard. It is a double standard and it is not good enough. 
Further why does it take 200 finicky clauses to regulate the social work profession yet most other professions are being regulated by a fraction of that number? For instance if we take engineers—of which there are over 15000 in New Zealand—only 40 clauses regulate them. Only a fifth of the number are required. This bill is far too prescriptive. It sets out all sorts of little details. For goodness’ sake! The people involved should be able to sort those details out for themselves. 
John Carter 
: It almost sets out what they have to have for lunch. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The bill is almost as bad as that—it may as well set that out. If members look at the clauses and the schedules and at the level of detail they will see they go way beyond what is reasonable. Basically it is because the Government does not trust the profession. The Government wants to prescribe and over-regulate every single aspect. My worry is that this will add a whole lot of cost when far more sensible regulation would not have required it. Why do we have to prescribe for an annual practising certificate every year? The engineers do one every 5 years— 
John Carter 
: They just make the decisions. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: They just make the decisions. Mr Maharey believes it is best. This bill has quite draconian powers. The Minister of Social Services and Employment can with no reason at all sack any member of the Social Workers Registration Board. Does that apply in respect of any other profession? Is a Minister able to sack a person who regulates engineers accountants or electricians? No he is not able to. No we do not have that sort of thing. The reason is that this Minister runs such a mess of a social policy ministry—and the Child Youth and Family Services—that he does not want the Social Workers Registration Board to send any missiles the Government’s way. If the Social Workers Registration Board has some hard things to say about the Government it will get fired. No reasons have to be given—its members will just be sacked. This is not much better than the sort of thought police we have in other areas. 
The strength of an independent body is its independence from the Government. The professional people—whether doctors engineers or accountants—should be able to express their free will without the axe that hangs over professional boards like the Social Workers Registration Board. This bill should have provided for legislative backing for the term “registered social worker” and allowed that to be transferred to the perfectly competent Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers that we are proud to have in this country. 
Amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority agreed to. 
Bill read a second time.