Collins Fa'anānā EfesoFA'ANĀNĀ EFESO COLLINS (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to reiterate the words of our co-leader Marama Davidson—we will be supporting this bill—and I will speak to part of the disappointment that was expressed earlier in her words. We support this bill because we know that we need more social workers. We've got as the Minister has already outlined 700 social workers that we're short of in the workforce and as my parliamentary colleague here from Te Pāti Māori has mentioned we've got to have a social worker workforce that's culturally competent. We talk more in the academy now about coming to workplaces culturally humble or with cultural humility and that's the understanding of the particular frameworks in which you're dealing with certain people. I think that that's the kind of cultural competence and cultural humility that we're after and we support this piece of legislation because we know that the writings the words and the letter that we have received from the Māori social work group said that we want to embed te ao Māori in the practice of our social workers. In order for this to happen we're going to need to encourage people who are coming and who are going to use the experience pathway to be able to use it. The disappointment that we have in the Greens is that we've gone from what could have been four years and have reduced it to two years and by rushing this process but not just rushing this process but by rushing people through a process for this qualification. It's important that people are given the opportunity through the experience pathway—which is why we call it I'm guessing the experience pathway—because they are coming with these experiences having worked in these communities for a long time to be able to bring that knowledge and that expertise to be qualified for social work. That's an important consideration we need to make and so it is disappointing from this side of the House that we've gone from what could have been four years to what's now two years. I come from a social work family. In fact in the old days we used to call it Child Youth and Family Service and a lot of our social workers went through there. But I think for Māori and Pasifika communities in particular and for migrant communities the service ethos is in our DNA. We're a people who want to serve and who want to give back to our communities and this is what this is going to allow. It's going to allow people who come with these experiences having worked with these particular communities—whether it's in churches in schools or in youth organisations—to bring that rich experience to what they are doing. So this pathway is really important. It's important that we've got qualified social workers who are working out in our communities but also people who bring this rich diversity of experience because they're the ones who really know how to work with many of the communities that we're dealing with. I know that we've got social workers in school. As someone who's worked in schools for a long time I know the difference that having a social worker in a school makes because they're able to connect with them. They're able to communicate with many of our young people in a way that perhaps some of us might not know the lingo or the language. In the Greens I'm often told What's the vibe?" and sometimes that gets me because I'm not sure what they mean by "What's the vibe?" But it's that kind of language and those words—that vernacular; that young person vernacular—that social workers understand really well and I've made commentary before I believe that social workers are as important as police officers because they're the ones who are working and walking alongside our communities. So we support this bill. What we would have supported even more though and with greater strength was if we pushed it out to the four years that was originally being spoken of in the beginning because that's only going to help this process so that we can fill or start to fill the unfilled number of social workers which is needed which is 700. So yeah we commend this to the House and I did like the point that was raised earlier about it being that the lived experience is key. These people bring this lived experience to the profession and it's a profession that we desperately need. We need more social workers and we need to provide the necessary avenues for them to be qualified so that they can be in the community with these qualifications serving our people. They play a really pivotal part in the healing and the restoration of so many families and so many people who need someone to stand alongside them. So I'm glad to support it; I think this is really important. I just want to close by thanking the social workers that we have because they're doing such pivotal meaningful work in the community today and we need them. The Greens stand in favour of this bill. Thanks."