Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1511] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 National supports the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill and has done so from the outset with some reservations that are contained in the report that forms part of the commentary reported back by the Justice and Electoral Committee. I want to indicate against the background of some 14 amendments that have been made by Supplementary Order Paper that National’s contribution to those amendments is in only three areas. 
The first area as members of the Committee will have heard in comments relating to those amendments in connection with Part 1 is all about the New Zealand Society of Conveyancers. The amendments seek to strike from this bill reference to that particular organisation. National members have seen that as a very principled response. Let me explain why. This bill is called the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. For our money it would only have been called—and should only have been called—the “Lawyers Bill”. But instead the Government has decided that there is to be brought into existence a new class of statutory creature—the New Zealand Society of Conveyancers. As members will have noted from the number of amendments to Part 1 the legislation reeks of reference to this New Zealand Society of Conveyancers. 
Well what is the planned stature of this organisation the New Zealand Society of Conveyancers? Not much I would say. The committee heard evidence from the New Zealand Law Society that there might be five or six such persons who would be qualified to join the society and the faint possibility that Australian conveyancers might seek to join the society. So the likelihood is that there would be in total seven or eight such people. If that is right—and that is what the New Zealand Law Society tells us—then that clearly raises the justification for a highly prescriptive statutory regime and the impossibility of funding a realistic fidelity fund for such a limited occupational grouping. 
Reference is made in other parts of the bill to the fidelity fund and I am not going to deal with that now. But it is an amazing circumstance that this bill which in its reported-back state runs to 346 pages has so much stuff on the New Zealand Society of Conveyancers when it is intended that there might be only seven or eight such people belonging to it. Why is that? Well it has an ideological history and it reflects the bias and determination of a former Minister of Justice when he was Labour’s spokesperson on justice. The Hon Phil Goff who was not “the Hon” then became absolutely convinced that the legal profession’s monopoly on conveyancing should be broken. He spared no effort to try to translate that plan into action. In fact he sought to introduce into the Parliament a member’s bill to end that statutory monopoly. He said at the time that it was a move that would bring down the costs for homebuyers and sellers. 
I shall quote what he said in that context. He said: “The privileged position enjoyed by lawyers in having the sole right to do conveyancing is imposed by law. Today when most other services have been opened up to competition there is no justification for continuing this protection. Lawyers have fought strenuously to preserve their monopoly power and undoubtedly will bitterly resist this change. In the end however the self-interest of lawyers cannot be allowed to prevail over the wider interests of ordinary New Zealanders who are consumers.” 
It is surprising that the New Zealand Law Society has not been bold enough to stand against the inclusion of conveyancers in this bill. Certainly some of its members would not wish to see conveyancers forming part of this legislation. The reality of course is that events have moved on. At the time when Mr Goff articulated those concerns there were scales of charges for types of conveyancing transactions. Those scales of charges have now been swept away and the reality is that conveyancing operates on very much a cut rate and a cutthroat basis. So if there were a so-called premium to be taken from carrying out conveyancing work that premium has now long gone. 
In fact in some ways the legal profession in its pursuit of competitive interest has so priced conveyancing that for many law firms it is simply not cost-effective to do that work. There also was underlying the stance taken by the Minister a naivety that conveyancing was no more than the simple transfer of property from one owner to another. But it is much more than that and although lawyers in the conveyancing context are involved in the selling of land from seller to buyer there is much subtlety in the conveyancing task. That subtlety and the work that is done in sophisticated leases easements and other interests of land was wholly overlooked. 
 That is why National has persisted apparently against the wish of the New Zealand Law Society to maintain this monopoly for lawyers—albeit many lawyers will not seek and will never seek in the future to carry out conveyancing work. But there it is. The New Zealand Society of Conveyancers established by this bill is to have pride of place alongside lawyers and the seven or eight people will be tasked by this—in my view—unknowing and unwise Government to set up a structure of control including a fidelity fund.