Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I'll start by saying that we do support the bill. There's nothing in our minds that is controversial about this bill.Every five years the Social Workers Registration Board reviews the relevant legislation and works with the Ministry of Social Development to streamline update or otherwise improve the legislation and to see whether or not it's working. The last review took place in 2020 under a Labour Government. It's good to see that the changes in this bill reflect the findings of that review and that there are no surprises aside from that.The Social Workers Registration Board initially put forward 13 suggestions to the Ministry of Social Development for consideration. This bill makes 16 minor policy and technical amendments to the 2003 Act. The amendments seek to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the operation of the 2003 Act. This includes six amendments that require a minor policy adjustment to reduce delays in processes under the 2003 Act; protect the public from harm and clarify functions that were provided for under the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Act 2019. The remaining 10 amendments are technical and address inconsistencies created by the 2019 amendment Act streamline the operations of the 2003 Act and update language used in the 2003 Act.Some of the changes—not all mentioned by the Minister—are that it replaces the reference to different ethnic and cultural groups" with a reference to "various ethnic and cultural groups" in various clauses; broaden the relevant sections to suspend a social worker if they are or are about to be under investigation for either a breach of the main Act the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994 or a crime; reinstate the ability of the Minister to appoint more than one deputy chairperson which was inadvertently removed by amendments to the principal Act in 2019; provide the Minister with a flexibility to appoint at least five social workers to enable the tribunal to be constituted instead of requiring five social workers to be appointed; transfer the power to obtain the information under section 147A of the power to obtain information to investigate offences from the chief executive to the board; also interestingly—which I thought might be controversial for some of the members on the other side of the House and which interestingly wasn't mentioned by the Minister when she spoke to the bill—replace terms with "he" or "she" with gender-neutral terminology which we of course are supportive of on this side of the House and I find it interesting that the Minister didn't mention that.We do agree that social workers play an absolute critical role. In recent years we have had to call on them more and more because of the different crises that we have faced because of the many challenges that whānau have encountered whether it be the cost of living whether it be because they've been impacted by weather events whether it be because they experienced hardship or difficulties due to the pandemic. I do want to acknowledge all of our social workers.This bill is straightforward. We do have lots of other social worker - related questions for the Minister like "What is happening to that pay equity settlement for social workers?" and "What will be the likely impact of Oranga Tamariki cuts to front-line social workers?" and "How is the Minister working to ensure we have the social worker workforce that we need given that we do not have enough currently?" and "How is it she could continue with the repeal of section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act when social workers have strongly opposed it?" However those questions might be slightly out of scope in relation to this particular bill and perhaps we'll save that for another opportunity to ask the Minister those questions.We support this bill and we absolutely support our hard-working social workers and the work that the Social Workers Registration Board undertakes as well."