Rurawhe Adrian; Upston LouiseIn CommitteeClause 2 Commencement (recommitted)CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members the House is in committee for the consideration of Supplementary Order Paper 191 to the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill.Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): It was only yesterday that we were in this House debating a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Minister had dumped on this House at short notice. Here we are less than 24 hours later correcting a mistake. It's a lesson to the Minister to make sure that she uses the time available in the select committee. The Social Services and Community Committee report-back was back in April—10 months ago—and there was plenty of time for the work to be done to ensure that the legislation before the House had full scrutiny allowing the chance to report it refer it back to the Social Services and Community Committee for the scrutiny it deserved. So—no instead we have a sloppy sloppy set of circumstances that mean that the legislation is back in the committee stage. Actually I think this is the first time in my coming up to 11 years in Parliament that I've seen this happen. So for those that are watching it it's not a regular occurrence. This is an example where the Minister decided after the select committee reported back and after the departmental report that didn't recommend changes in key areas that actually she wanted changes herself. The problem with that is the lack of scrutiny in terms of the detail of those changes. We've raised multiple issues around key areas like the qualifications like the scopes of practice. If it wasn't for this SOP 191 now today—so another SOP—guess what? Those very complex and disputed components of SOP 187 which the Minister introduced at short notice and dumped in this House without the regulatory impact statement I might add—there was a May 2017 regulatory impact statement that was in this House for the committee of the whole House stage—and the Minister expected a robust debate that she then actually mocked. So what it would mean is the scopes of practice and the education components—instead of coming in in two years' time they would have been coming in the day after Royal assent. That would have absolutely gutted and destroyed 8000 social workers who do critical work in New Zealand. Minister it's not good enough. That is sloppy. That was rushed at the final hurdle when it should have been addressed and it should have been referred back to the Social Services and Community Committee so that it could have had the scrutiny involved. So I want to look at a couple of particular issues in terms of the commencement because SOP 191 relates to the change in the commencement. One of these areas that we're talking about—just so the committee is clear—is around what social workers will be able to do or not able to do under their scopes of practice. New section 6AAB(1)(b) in clause 8 imposes a new restriction on social workers which is that they practise within"—within—"the terms of their individual scope of practice". If this mistake hadn't been picked up at more than the eleventh hour that would have meant that scopes of practice would have had to be written this week. If the Royal assent was this week or next week they would have had to be written in a rush or otherwise every single social worker would be working not within the bounds of their own legislation. What an appalling situation that the Minister for Social Development the Hon Carmel Sepuloni would have put an incredibly hard-working dedicated sector of social workers in. It was an appalling position that the Minister would have put them in and the poor Social Workers Registration Board would have had to deal with this nightmare of no making of their own. It's just unbelievable. The irony of this yesterday when National members were trying to improve this particular area—so new section 6AAB(1)(b) absolutely restricts the work that social workers do. Make no mistake about it—it restricts their ability so that they have to work within a scope of practice. That would be a huge limitation and a huge issue on them. What the National members were trying to constructively do was to make improvements to that and the Minister said that because National members had used the word "remove" instead of "delete" we hadn't done our work on SOPs. Guess what Minister—guess what? The Minister in charge of this legislation is responsible for the detail and the detail needs to be right. It is unacceptable—it is unacceptable. The report back was in April and members of the select committee on the National side had asked for more time to explore the issues of scopes of practice and qualifications that have been raised in the committee of the whole House stage. If the amendment on SOP 191 is not agreed to those significant changes dumped by the Minister by an SOP will come into effect the day after Royal assent—the day after Royal assent—not in two years' time. There's actually quite a bit of difference in that and I know that for the Ministers sitting opposite who are listening to this debate and who are pretending not to it is probably a good lesson. There's a big difference between the day after the Royal assent and two years but that's what happens. That's what happens when you remove the select committee process when actually it didn't need to be removed. National members had asked for an extension to the report back and the Labour members on the select committee refused that request. We thought that maybe it was urgent and that maybe the Minister wanted to pass this by May or by June. Where are we now? February 2018—10 months later. In February—this month last week—a big SOP dropped on the Table that the Minister is now actually expecting to have the support of this House for. Well it's shoddy. It's absolutely shoddy. Taxpayers and actually the sector—the sector deserves better. The sector deserves better than to have a situation like this which is clearly irresponsible. Actually attention to detail is what matters. When you're dealing with legislation it matters. This side of the House over the week or 10 days that we've had the SOP have worked furiously trying to come up with tabled amendments in the committee stage to improve the bill because the scope of practice will make it illegal for a social worker to undertake a task that is categorised as forming part of other scopes of practice. So the social workers who are our front-line heroes in our social services would potentially be breaking the law. But National members tried to ensure the Minister was aware of the impact of some of the changes in that SOP that was tabled which was close to 70 pages long. But no she didn't engage she didn't consider it and here we are wasting the House's time fixing up one of her mistakes. Oh and when we talk about wasting the House's time it was really interesting to hear the Minister say in the committee stage—which we have returned to today—when we were in it yesterday that National members were wasting the House's time. Well when there is no scrutiny and when the select committee doesn't have the opportunity and the public don't have the opportunity to scrutinise legislation and to ensure it is fit for purpose which as of 10 o'clock yesterday this bill clearly wasn't—I wonder what time it was that they discovered the mistake. I wonder what time it was because literally at five minutes to 10 last night—not even 24 hours ago—this bill in the committee of the whole House stage was being voted on. So it would be really interesting to know what time it was that the mistake was found. I'm asking the Minister what time the mistake was found who found it and does the Minister understand the impact if this mistake hadn't been picked up? Has Cabinet approved this change by the way? It would be interesting to know whether it has been approved. So I've talked about social workers being limited to work within their scope of practice and not beyond it but let's have a look at the other point which also would have come into effect a day after the Royal assent. It's a very significant repeal in the removal for social workers of the recognised New Zealand qualifications. Instead it will be prescribed qualifications. Would we have had them? Would we have had them a day after the Royal assent? Good luck with that—good luck with that. I want the Minister to understand the impact of her failure to deliver accurate legislation to this House her failure to allow the select committee to carry out its work and her failure for social workers up and down New Zealand if this mistake hadn't been found."