Kanongata'a-Suisuiki AnahilaANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Good evening tēnā koe Madam Chair. It's a privilege to contribute to tonight's committee of the whole House on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill—anyway I go on. Last night I spoke about my experience as a registered social worker; so I think that tonight it's only appropriate that I go through that process because it then demonstrates why this makes sense why the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 makes sense. Registration is only as good as the integrity of the process—only as good as the integrity of the process.In 2007 I was a youth justice manager. I didn't have social work on my title—job description—at Child Youth and Family but I wanted to be a good example as a leader to go through the process so that I was able to show a good example to my staff. So in 2007 I went through the robust process of becoming a registered social worker. What I like about Part 1 is that it actually says what a social worker is. A social worker is referred to here as a practising social worker in new section 5A in terms of scopes of practice.So in 2007 I received my registration. Five years later I needed to renew my competency certificate. I've gone through managing a whole group of people who were practitioners who were practice leaders who were supervising social workers and who were social workers. So I've gone through managing and leading that side but what had happened was that five years later in 2012 I needed to renew my competency certificate. So what that meant was that I had to demonstrate that I'd been practising as a social worker for the last five years and had gone through that process. I tried many times with the Social Workers Registration Board to say I am now no longer practising as a social worker and can I come off the registration list as a non-practising registered social worker?" That took two years of to-ing and fro-ing from the Social Workers Registration Board. Then in 2014 I lost the battle. I went through the whole process just so I could get my competency certificate because the Social Workers Registration Board was going to take me to court because I wasn't complying.So in allowing the board to set the scope of practice actually it takes—and my process in terms of the two years it's taken for me to say "I am a non-practising social worker" to actually having to sit my competency assessment again; a whole lot of people were involved in that process. It took up a lot of the time of the Social Workers Registration Board to come to-ing and fro-ing to me to make sure that I sat my competency certificate. All the managers on top of me said "You need to do this this and that."So what this does is it actually takes that away—takes that away. It describes what a social worker is and what you need to do to become a social worker. As stated by the Minister Carmel Sepuloni last night and today it allows the Social Workers Registration Board to set the scope of practice. That way when you do say—I say to people that I'm a registered social worker and some academics just roll their eyes. They just roll their eyes because I go back to the integrity of the process. People didn't believe that waiting five years to re-sit your competency was enough for you to say that you are fit and proper to practise.This Part 1 actually gives the board the power to be able to move with the times to be able to provide appropriate training as time goes by to social workers. And I've noticed that we've mentioned 16 years 5 years—I've mentioned two years and whatnot. In 100 years' time when we've all gone and I'll become compost somewhere what would be the value of our social work practice? What would that look like in 100 years' time? Let's not talk 16 years; let's talk 100 years because that is really what this is. It's about setting standards allowing the Social Workers Registration Board to set the scope of practice because from my experience it was two years of wasting people's time. I think I'll end it there in terms of my contribution to Part 1. Thank you."