Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:16959] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 The Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) a short little bill of nine clauses that National supports sending to a select committee is actually quite complex. The complexity arises because of the very complex drafting in the principal Act the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act. The proposed amendments to it that are before the House tonight are capable of causing confusion and uncertainty. 
I have just looked back at the report by the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill—which is now law; this amendment proposes to change that Act—where National in a minority view stated this about the reserved areas of work which is the area we are talking about: “National would seek rewriting of the provisions to make their intent more clear and to permit for example taxation lawyers to practise in accounting firms.” 
If we look at this bill we see in summary it proposes that a lawyer employed by an employer group or a union can provide what are called legal services but not regulated services to his or her employer and its members. A distinction is being drawn between legal services and regulated services. Legal services basically means legal work as defined in section 6 of the Act; regulated services are much wider than that in scope. 
The situation that this bill sets out to address is not new and it was not created by the passage of the principal Act despite the comments of the previous speaker. Under the Law Practitioners Act which was the predecessor legislation it was not lawful for non-lawyers to provide legal services to the public or the non-lawyers’ members by employing lawyers to provide that service so one can legitimately be concerned about the provisions in this bill on the basis that first of all it allows non-lawyers to provide legal services through the intermediary of employed lawyers. That is a very significant issue of principle. There is also the point that tinkering at the edge of the principle is likely to create as many problems as it solves. I do not wish to pre-empt the position the select committee might take but tenable and acceptable options to that are available. 
The commentary on—or more precisely the explanatory note of—the bill is quite misleading. The third sentence in the first paragraph talks about “the delivery of an integrated prevention and advice service”—and I now underscore this—“connected with employment matters.” But in fact the way that this bill is drafted is far far wider than that. The bill as drafted would allow lawyers employed by unions and by employer organisations to provide all legal services not just employment law services. That is quite contrary to what is stated in the explanatory note. The note is misleading. I would also say that the proposed definition of “employer organisation” in clause 5 of the bill is unacceptably wide. 
I think I have said enough in connection with this bill to indicate that although National supports it being sent to a select committee it does so with a degree of reservation being conscious of the clear need to make major changes to ill-thought-out legislation.