Bills

Social Workers Registration Bill

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 10 passed.

New clauses 10A and 10B.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: I move:

Amendment No 1 [ChildPro–1]—

Page 8, after line 6—Insert:

10A—Delegation

(1) The Board may delegate a function or power under this Act (other than a prescribed function or power)—

(a) to a member of the Board; or

(b) to a committee established by the Board; or

(c) to a specified body or person (including a person for the time being holding or acting in a specified office or position).

(2) A delegation under this section—

(a) must be by instrument in writing; and

(b) may be absolute or conditional; and

(c) does not derogate from the ability of the Board to act in any matter; and

(d) is revocable at will.

(3) A function or power delegated under this section may, if the instrument of delegation so provides, be further delegated.

10B—Committees

(1) The Board may establish committees—

(a) to advise the Board; or

(b) to carry out functions on behalf of the Board.

(2) The membership of a committee will be determined by the Board and include at least 1 member of the Board.

(3) The Board will determine who will be the presiding member of a committee.

(4) The procedures to be observed in relation to the conduct of the business of a committee will be—

(a) as determined by the Board; and

(b) insofar as a procedure is not determined under paragraph (a)—as determined by the committee.

Ms COOK: I have a brief comment on the amendment. The original amendment, in the form that it was tabled, at this point would have meant that these committees were formed with any people. This is why we did not agree to it in the other place. It had no prescriptive in terms of ensuring that there were registered social workers or someone representing the board on those committees.

With the work that has been done behind the scenes, again I thank the Hon. Tammy Franks and her staff member, Malwina Wyra, for ensuring that the Australian Association of Social Workers has a bill that is actually workable, because this amendment now stipulates there must be somebody from the board represented on those committees. So I thank those people for ensuring that this is in fact a workable clause.

Ms HILDYARD: Minister, could you explain exactly the intent of your amendment?

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: The intent of the amendment is that every time there is work to be done, the entire committee does not have to come together, and to bring this into line with the national standards of other very similar committees, so a subcommittee can be made.

Ms HILDYARD: Supplementary: when you speak of work to be done, what sort of work would you envisage that particular subcommittee or committee would undertake?

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: This was to standardise it because, as we know, we are all in agreement that we want a national scheme. In order to have a national scheme, why not have best practice in your standard bill, which could be your exemplar bill? We have brought this into line with other committees.

They could investigate whatever they wanted, but what it would be is they do not have to have a quorum and bring the whole committee together every time they want to do a different side project. It is really just to bring it into line.

Ms COOK: I am sorry, I now do want some clarity as to what this subcommittee or these committees can actually do. What powers will they have?

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: I can read out the amendment if you like:

(1) The Board may delegate a function or power under this Act (other than a prescribed function or power)—

(a) to a member of the Board; or

(b) to a committee established by the Board; or

(c) to a specified body or person (including a person for the time being holding or acting in a specified office or position).

(2) A delegation under this section—

(a) must be by instrument in writing; and

(b) may be absolute or conditional; and

(c) does not derogate from the ability of the Board to act in any matter; and

(d) is revocable at will.

(3) A function or power delegated under this section may, if the instrument of delegation so provides, be further delegated.

I can continue reading, but really it is self-explanatory and it just brings it into line and it is to make it national.

Ms HILDYARD: I have a similar question to one I asked before. I just want to understand what the minister understands such a committee that is delegated to perform a particular function—I think you spoke about it as a special project. What sorts of things do you, as the Minister for Child Protection, envisage that this committee might look at? What side projects, as you spoke about them, what sorts of things would this subcommittee or this person, what functions would they undertake?

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: As it clearly states here in 10B—Committees:

(1) The Board may establish committees—

(a) to advise the Board; or

(b) to carry out functions on behalf of the Board.

(2) The membership of a committee will be determined by the Board and include at least 1 member of the Board.

(3) The Board will determine who will be the presiding member of a committee.

(4) The procedures to be observed in relation to the conduct of the business of a committee will be—

(a) as determined by the Board; and

(b) insofar as a procedure is not determined under paragraph (a)—as determined by the committee.

We were, of course, doing this in the fastest way possible. I even tabled my own speech because we have the members of the AASW here, so I wish that we could get this through.

Ms COOK: Absolutely. It is only 20 past six—it is not really like we are up until midnight. The questions are pertaining to the work of the committee so that we can be confident we are passing an amendment into this bill that is workable and doing something and making sense.

If I can be helpful, I would think that potentially the board may decide that they want to increase the scope of training or professional development, or there might be some thin markets and they might want to target some education. That is what I was expecting you might come up with in terms of a reason for you wanting this within the bill. I do not have a problem with it, but I was hoping to get some further examples, that is all.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: If I had read out the 16 minutes left of my speech, I would have actually said all these answers. In the timeliness, I chose not to because we know we have got people here and this is an important bill that we all wanted to get through, I thought. However, if you are not agreeing to the amendment, I am happy to extinguish it.

The amendments that were made to the bill that was tabled as a result of the committee that the member for Hurtle Vale and myself were both on that the Hon. Tammy Franks tabled in parliament were amendments made not on a political basis but by my department in order to make this an exemplar piece of legislation so that, if we are able to negotiate and help convince all of the other states' ministers—which, I might say, I have tried several times. There was zero interest from all the DCP ministers.

However, for two decades the AASW has been working hard on this and I am hopeful that they will work hard to convince the health ministers. The health ministers have been a bit busy for the last two years managing a pandemic, so I have been trying to lobby for this and advocate for this at my CSM meetings, of which we have had many because of COVID.

There have been lots of ministerial meetings and I have raised this on several occasions. There are three new ministers, so I had hoped that in the new year, should I win the election and be honoured again to be the minister, I would pursue this again in government. In order to do that, I want a national scheme.

We have tried to adjust this, not for any political reasons. I am not wedded to this. If you have a problem with it, let's drop it. This was something that my department came up with. They looked at it and they wanted to standardise it. They had the agreement of the AASW. They had the agreement, we thought, of Labor. We had the agreement of the Greens. I am not sure why you are needing to ask so many questions.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): Members, we have had three contributions from the member for Hurtle Vale and the member for Reynell on the amendments.

Ms COOK: I just point out that we are agreeing with it. It is not that we do not agree with it.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): I think that will become very evident very quickly, potentially in the next 10 seconds.

New clauses inserted.

Remaining clauses (11 to 67) and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (18:27): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Thank you to members for participating in the debate and, again, to the committee members who have brought this forward, and to the Hon. Tammy Franks for presenting the bill and for being so persistent in getting this done. Thank you for government time so that we can make sure that we do this before parliament ends so it does not sit at No. 5,323 on the Private Members, Bills, and languish into nothing.

It is a very important piece of legislation. I look forward to reading the detail in your tabled speech in regard to the work of the committees that have been generated out of the amendments, as you have indicated is in there. Without further ado, I commend the bill.

Bill read a third time and passed.