Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): I'm absolutely delighted to be the last speaker in the second reading where we're not debating Supplementary Order Paper 187 this evening; we're talking about it as it is in the second reading coming back. I'm delighted because I had to have a wee laugh at my colleague here social worker No. 1473 when she said around people saying how social work is an easy job and can be easy work. I do sympathise with that because I have worked in my previous career very very closely with a number of social workers and I hold them in the highest regard. As a principal of a school I worked with social workers from Oranga Tamariki. I had our own Social Workers in Schools social worker who I thought was absolutely crucial to the running of the school. We also worked with a large number of social workers from different hauora. These people had the ability to and did change lives—constantly daily. I think they made lives so much better for the people that I worked with not just my children that I worked with but also their families; not just their immediate families but the wider families and the wider community—exceptional people absolutely amazing in the work that they do. So when people say that this work is easy work then I just absolutely laugh at that because I think they are just the most incredible people. Having said that and having worked with so many social workers over my career it wasn't until the last few years that I actually came to the realisation that they didn't have to be registered. I didn't know that. I thought that everyone that walked through the door of my school and presented as a social worker had to be registered. I think that that is wrong that it's taken so long to rectify that. That's why I'm excited about this bill as it stands at the moment and I really do commend the Minister for Social Development the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for the work that she has done and continues to do on this particular bill. I'm excited about where it's going. I think that I wouldn't be the only person. I think I heard the Minister in front of me say that it was a wee while before she had that realisation as well that this is so important and I presume that's why she put that up as a member's bill originally which got turned down by the previous Government. It's been 16 years since the Social Workers Registration Act was introduced. I don't think that that's good enough. I've been part of a profession where registration wasn't mandatory when it first came in and I remember going through the process of it becoming mandatory. It didn't take long. It was only a few years in that first instance. Since then the teaching profession also has had a number of iterations in the changes of registration. It's improved along the way. Not only has it helped the people that we work with because it gives them surety—and this will be the case for the social workers that it will give the most vulnerable people surety and the people like myself who worked with them surety in that registration process—but it will also show value in the profession and that's what I'm excited about. This is where we can actually say that these people are highly skilled and they are registered and we have the absolute surety around that. That has got to be good for the profession and I say profession" because that's exactly what it is. I'm really excited to see this bill come in in the process it is now. I'm not going to talk about the Supplementary Order Paper because this is not the time. However I am really looking forward to the committee of the whole House stage because I think that's where we will have the informed debate and hear why that Supplementary Order Paper is coming through. So it's been said here tonight—I don't need to add to it. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.Bill read a second time."