Sepuloni Carmel: Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7234. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I move That the Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. Firstly let me start by acknowledging the incredibly hard work that social workers do. Social workers are professionals and need to be recognised as being just that. The work is too important not to have the checks and balances in place to ensure that our most vulnerable people are being cared for by qualified registered social workers who are equipped to deal with the ever-increasing complexity of issues that children and families are presenting with.This bill implements recommendations made to the Minister for Social Development by the Social Workers Registration Board. “The recommendations are that the current voluntary system of registration for practising social workers become a mandatory system; registered social workers have practising certificates that must be renewed annually; the title ‘social worker’ be protected in order to prevent its use by people who are not registered as social workers and people who have been deregistered as social workers; the public be able to complain to the Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal when they receive unsafe social work services from those who are unregistered or deregistered.”Now that I have clarified what is in this bill I want to share a story that illustrates clearly why this Parliament must move quickly to implement the recommendations in legislation. This story is not a heart-warming one but in the context of this bill it is one that needs to be told. Earlier this year a man who was working in the role of a social worker for a west Auckland social service was sentenced to intensive supervision after he walked into a public library sat opposite a teenage girl placed a small mirror between his legs and pretended to read a book while positioning the mirror to look up that young woman’s skirt. That same person had been charged with a similar offence more than 30 years ago.Although this story is rather alarming so far the worst is yet to come. There is nothing in the current law preventing him from continuing to practise under the title of social worker and to continue working with vulnerable New Zealanders in that capacity. No one in this House would argue for this man to be allowed to continue in that role.Under the existing framework the registration of social workers is completely voluntary. This means that those who do not want to be registered or worse those who are unqualified or unsuitable to be registered can still continue to practise as social workers. Unregistered social workers are not required to undertake ongoing professional development receive supervision or complete any performance reviews of any kind. This bill will work to amend that legislation and make it mandatory for all social workers to be both qualified and registered. It will professionalise the workforce aiming to protect the status of social workers hold social workers to account protect the work they do and protect the public at large.We have a lot of great hard-working and dedicated people doing social work in this country. Some of them are currently unqualified and unregistered. The majority are doing a fair and reasonable job but we cannot continue to leave this to chance. The Social Workers Registration Board has had to deregister social workers for theft violence drug and alcohol offences indecent assault rape and even attempted murder yet there is nothing stopping these people from continuing to practise.As far as I am concerned it is dangerous and unacceptable that social workers can operate in schools in health and in care and protection without qualifications or police clearance. Although 99 percent of the time the outcomes of social work are invaluable for that 1 percent of the time where it goes wrong we must ensure that we have got appropriate mechanisms for accountability in place and that we do not allow completely inadequate behaviour to go unpenalised.I have no doubt that the general public would share my concern that approximately 500 Child Youth and Family social workers remain unregistered despite the fact that the Government committed to having all Child Youth and Family social workers registered in 2015. The general public would also share my concern that the Ministry of Social Development keeps no record of how many of the Ministry of Social Development - contracted social workers in schools are actually registered social workers. In fact after finding this out I asked the Ministry of Education whether it knew how many of the Ministry of Social Development - funded social workers in its schools were registered. Its response was: “Ask the Ministry of Social Development.” The fact that this crucial information is not being collected is as negligent as the fact that we have such an important workforce left unregulated with only voluntary registration required.Alongside the issues of conduct/misconduct and the insufficient data collection and monitoring by the Ministry of Social Development there is also the very important issue of capacity. Both the White Paper for Vulnerable Children and the Children’s Commissioner’s recent report on Child Youth and Family recognise that social workers need much better support than they currently receive. Many social workers have to deal with nigh-impossible workloads while working in situations so challenging that most of us could not even imagine them. It requires intensive training and regular supervision to work in the context of problems with mental health addictions and violence. Putting unqualified and inexperienced staff in such a position endangers both the people in need of support and the social workers themselves.To return to the story that I told you right at the start it is in no way an isolated case. A search through the media archives over the past 10 years showed up several cases of misconduct by social workers the vast majority of whom were unregistered. Worryingly the possibilities for this to go wrong are much larger still. In the 2013 census more than 18000 people identified themselves as social workers yet there are fewer than 5000 social workers actually registered making the scope of this issue frighteningly large.Many prominent and well-respected New Zealanders are exasperated by the lethargy of the current legislation. In fact one well-known New Zealander a certain Anne Tolley called it “outrageous and disappointing”. She was referring to the voluntary registration of social workers. It is clearly a common-sense and bipartisan view that we as a society owe it to the most vulnerable within our communities to ensure their well-being by requiring all social workers to be registered. In fact when I met with the Minister Anne Tolley to discuss this matter she confided in me that there was nothing at all in this bill that she disagreed with. The timing of the bill on the other hand seemed to be of concern to the Government but tell me this: is delaying this conversation only to reintroduce the exact same bill in the future really worth the cost?We have here in front of us the opportunity to prevent our children victims of abuse and other vulnerable members of society from being put at further risk. This is undoubtedly a tough conversation to have as a society but it is one that we must have if we wish to address and prevent further suffering and what better time to have it than now? My plea now is that parliamentary colleagues across the House support this bill to select committee.Let me just reiterate: the recommendation for changing to a mandatory registration system did not start with me. It was recommended by the Social Workers Registration Board and the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. It was recommended in the White Paper for Vulnerable Children which went to Cabinet but was ignored and the issues that this bill seeks to resolve were highlighted in the Children’s Commissioner’s State of Care 2015: What we learnt from monitoring Child Youth and Family report on Child Youth and Family with recommendation 4 being all about addressing the “capacity and capability issues across the CYF workforce;”.Before I end this speech I just want to acknowledge all of the social workers and organisations across the country that have come out in support of this member’s bill. I particularly want to acknowledge the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers and the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association. I want to acknowledge the fact that for the majority of organisations and social workers I have spoken to despite the fact that they do support the bill there are some issues that they do have that they want resolved but that does not overshadow their support for this bill. They still want it to go to select committee and they want the opportunity to have that discussion. So with all of that in mind I commend this bill to the House.