Ngaro Alfred: Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7237. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on this first reading of the Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill. First of all I just want to acknowledge the member whose bill this is Carmel Sepuloni. I think for those of us who are new to the House in the sense of coming through it is always an honour to be able to have your member’s bill drawn. In fact it is sometimes not only an honour; sometimes it is the luck of the draw. I know members who have been in this House for quite some time who have never had a member’s bill drawn so to have your bill drawn and then to have it read with the intent of being able to pursue that through the course and the institution of the House is an honour. So I do want to acknowledge the member for that.I also want to acknowledge the fact that the intent of this bill is something that I would support in a number of different ways. Actually this bill goes all the way back to 2003 when the Hon Steve Maharey was the Minister of Social Services and Employment. In fact at that time—I want to declare a conflict of interest—I was actually part of an advisory committee that was putting together a blueprint and part of that was informed by the Judge Mick Brown report which talked about the state of current social services being delivered to our communities and the need for there to be some form of regulation and registration. Hence there was the bill that was put forward which was the Social Workers Registration Bill then Act of 2003. This was put through the House as part of one of those recommendations from that report.I just want to acknowledge that during that time—and I have actually pulled out the Hansard that talks about some of the speeches from the first and second readings the Committee stage and the third reading of that bill when it came through. There were 37 submissions that were put through on that bill in 2003; 30 of those were in support of the intent of the bill. As the Minister at that time Steve Maharey was contending with some contentious issues and one issue was the issue of voluntary to mandatory. In fact what happened and what came out of that was that a number of the institutions of social work practice actually asked that the process be a mandatory process of registration rather than voluntary. I read from the Hansard where he spoke in his speech on the second reading and he said this: “Mandatory registration is not consistent with other forms of occupational regulation. Voluntary regulation regimes are the most common form of regulating other professions. For example they are used for accountants. As a result of considering that issue the select committee has recommended that as part of its regular review of the legislation the Social Workers Registration Board should specifically consider the extent to which the system of voluntary registration is achieving the purposes of the legislation.”So I think at that time the intent was to be able to consider the aspect of whether voluntary to mandatory was the appropriate process but it was to take time with that too. I think that also too inside of the bill that is currently before us in this House it talks about the time frame of a year. In fact what the Minister actually initiated here in this Hansard was that he talked about a time limit for provisional registration of 6 to 8 years and then also allowing for a qualifying period of 5 years. So the time frames are quite a lot longer. He realised that it takes time to be fully registered and for those to be accommodated for that as well. So the debate there was quite interesting because it was a similar debate.Su’a William Sio: Do you support it?ALFRED NGARO: Well if you listened Mr Sio you will hear this. That is what you do. You sit in debates and you listen to the speeches. Otherwise your speeches would be quite short I would imagine—“Yes” or “No”. But this is important because this is providing the basis for the context of what we are talking about—from voluntary to mandatory. He actually talked about the fact that the time frame—which your bill talks about as 1 year—is 6 to 8 years. That was what he was talking about. So that becomes really important.So I think the fact is that what this is also telling us is of the important fact that the challenges that they faced then are also the challenges that we face now. The reason why I want to quote from those speeches—and Mr Sio will find this important—is the fact that when we talk about that time frame Minister Tolley has actually said that she has already commissioned a review with the Social Workers Registration Board to actually look at these critical issues. So here are some of the critical issues to inform my colleague over there Mr Sio. The Social Workers Registration Board is currently reviewing the Social Workers Registration Act and will provide a draft report to the Minister by the end of the year. Here are the important factors: the definition of identification—Su’a William Sio: I am going to go now.ALFRED NGARO: Well that is OK. Your contribution is not always valid. The factors are the definition of identification of social workers and social work practice for carers and the implications of moving to a mandatory registration system for the social worker the social service workforce and the public. So that tells us this: this Government does take the intent of the member and her bill to heart but it also says that these things are already in play; these things are already in place.The Minister is initiating this; there is already a review. Out of that review again we will be able to take one of the next steps to it. As part of this work we have requested that the board consider what a social worker looks like and the specific training that needs to be requested as well. I think those things are really important. The Minister has asked the board to provide a clear explanation as to how many dedicated people there are who have been working in the sector as social workers for many years without social work degrees but with significant knowledge and experience. So those are factors. As the member has talked about there are a number of those who are working as social workers. They may not be qualified they may not be registered but their practice may be valid and may be an important contribution as well. So with these things in mind the Minister has initiated this review as well and we think that is important.So we—and I myself—applaud the intent of this bill; however we cannot support this bill as it is currently drafted. We believe that there is some work that has already been initiated and has already been reviewed so that this bill OK will not actually fulfil the purposes but the review that has been taken with the Social Workers Registration Board is already in place and we think that is important as well. There was some comment that was made about the current situation for social workers in practice and so what I do know is and the facts are that on 30 June 2015 the Child Youth and Family Service had 1377 registered social workers although not all of these are front-line staff. We know that that is a commitment that has been made as well to ensure that we do have those who are qualified and those who are able to provide this important service for our most vulnerable and those in need as well.When we talk about the time frame—I want to just comment on that because I think that is important. The member in her bill talks about a 1-year time period to move to mandatory registration which we believe is not sufficient to implement the significant changes. As I said when I quoted from the Hansard of 2003 it was acknowledged even by the Hon Steve Maharey that a transition period of 6 to 8 years was absolutely needed in order to move people from a non-registration process to a registration process. We know that further work is needed to understand the supply of social workers. I was privileged to be able to hand out the graduation certificates to social workers for the Diploma in Whānau Ora at the Waipareira Trust in west Auckland. I know that the training that was needed there was quite significant. It was specific to those in the Māori community working with whānau and so that is another good example of the fact that social work practice is not just what we expect it is. It actually has a variety of complex needs and expertise that is needed as well to fulfil those roles.So in summarising my comments on the first reading of this bill I again want to acknowledge the member for her bill being drawn and the intent that she has which is to work towards a form of mandatory registration. The fact is however that we do not support this bill because the intent of what has already been initiated—a review by the Minister to ensure that the Social Workers Registration Board comes back with other details—we believe fulfils the areas of need there. So we do not support the bill but we support the work that is already taking place to meet these needs. I commend my speech but I do not support the bill.