Bidois DanDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to speak in the second reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill—in support I should say of the bill in the second reading. Before we get into the actual specifics of the bill I just want to say that I'm seeing a theme in the speeches from the Government side today and the theme is around how we on this side do the mahi but the Government takes the credit. We're seeing it with the economy. We are seeing it with things like trade in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and now we are seeing it with social services and in particular with this bill. Let's be clear: this is not something that's been going on for the past year; this is something that was started by you Madam Deputy Speaker in your role as Minister—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't bring me into the debate.DAN BIDOIS: —for Social Development and this Government has continued that on. So I want to make clear to the public that is listening at home that this was a process started by the National-led Government and then led by the National-dominated Social Services and Community Committee and that has been continued on to this second reading which we are grateful for. We acknowledge it on this side of the House when the Government picks up our legislation and continues it on but we would appreciate that this side of the House is acknowledged for the contribution that we have made to bringing this legislation to the House today. But most importantly let's now get to the purpose of this bill because it is a very important bill. It's about the importance of social workers to the functioning of our society and we can all agree in the House on the importance of the social worker profession in terms of protecting our most vulnerable and at-risk citizens in New Zealand and on the value that these workers do in order to change people's lives to steer them in the right direction and hopefully to lead them to a better and happier life. At the last census we had on record roughly about 8000 or so social workers in existence. About 6000 of those are in fact registered and there are about a quarter or 2000 that aren't but that doesn't include the vast array and thousands of people out there that are fulfilling the tasks of social workers but that are not necessarily in the role of social workers. So I do want to put a special thanks out and acknowledge the contribution that social workers make to the fabric of our society and the hard work. This bill is about essentially improving the professionalism of the social worker profession but also making sure that the public have certainty and assurance over the quality of these social workers because we know that the issues that these social workers deal with are very complex. This bill seeks to essentially make sure that we've got the very best people dealing with these complex issues for the benefit of New Zealanders. So about this bill which was supported by National in the first reading and will be supported in the second reading as well—it provides for a number of provisions. Firstly it enables that essentially an unregistered social worker cannot claim to be a social worker. So there will be a process in place where you need to be essentially certified before you can go out and call yourself a social worker and that is for several reasons. One is so that the public of New Zealand and these vulnerable people that these social workers are dealing with have a sense of security that these social workers have the qualifications to deal with these complex issues but also too do the employers that take them on to help encourage and grow the profession even more. It also defines the practice of what a social worker" is and makes sure that that is enshrined in legislation and that it is used throughout the profession. It also sets professional regulations for social workers in the areas of being certified to say that you must have a qualification and it also provides an array of processes in place for employers to in fact come to the Social Workers Registration Board with complaints over social workers' conduct. Finally in terms of the legislative changes this is an omnibus bill so it does impact several other pieces of legislation and my colleague Maureen Pugh has already gone into details about some of those Acts. But as I said essentially it professionalises the profession and provides a process for employers to take disputes or issues with social workers to the Social Workers Registration Board. So I just want to talk a little bit about the select committee process. My colleagues have already outlined that we have concerns about the way in which Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 on which I will not go into details—you've already traversed the reasoning for why that is the case Madam Deputy Speaker. But I do want to express my dissatisfaction that we weren't given an opportunity as a select committee—which I now sit on—to actually review that SOP which is about 37 pages long. The Minister for Social Development actually had the time in order to go through the select committee but instead the Minister has dropped this SOP at the last minute. Again it's a recurrence with this Minister of making changes at the last minute and not bringing the parties or the people in the House along with this. So I do have serious reservations and we would have loved to have debated the SOP in the select committee had we had the time to do so. But we will support this bill in its second reading. We will support it because we believe in the impact and the value of social workers in New Zealand. We believe in creating a professionalised workforce partly to encourage and attract more social workers into the profession but also to retain existing social workers and make sure that they feel valued and they feel that what they are doing is a professional aspect of society and we feel that this bill will in fact go along those lines. So this bill essentially provides better outcomes for social workers and we believe better outcomes for the people who are being dealt with by these social workers—and we all know social workers in New Zealand. I've got social workers in my own family. I've got next-door neighbours that are social workers and they work very very hard and often without the valued respect that they deserve. So the changes that have been outlined in this bill that result from an inquiry that the previous select committee recommended are changes that we will support on this side of the House. So that is in a nutshell my position on the bill and our position. I do want to acknowledge the former Minister for Social Development—your contribution Madam Deputy Speaker—in bringing this to the House. I do want to acknowledge also Minister Carmel Sepuloni for continuing this piece of work that is really really important and for bringing this to the House. Again we would have loved to have had the constructive dialogue on the Minister's SOP in the select committee but we understand that this is a behavioural trait that we're coming to terms with with this Minister of dumping SOPs at the last minute. So I just want to say on behalf of the National Party that I must strongly commend this bill to the House."