Wilkinson Kate: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17518] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I will take just a brief call during the Committee stage of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2). The explanatory note of the bill is quite clear that at present unions and employer organisations employ lawyers to provide legal services to their members and they have done so for some time. The Act provides explicitly that lawyers employed by unions and employers organisations will be guilty of misconduct if they provide such services and obviously the purpose of the bill is to allow lawyers employed by unions and employer organisations to continue to provide legal services to their members. 
I think it is important when we are amending a principal Act especially one that has not yet come into force to remind ourselves of the purposes of that principal Act. In this case those purposes are to maintain confidence in the provision of legal services and conveyancing services to protect the consumers of legal services and conveyancing services to recognise the status of the legal profession and to establish the new profession of conveyancing practitioners. Obviously the conveyancing aspect of the principal Act is not as relevant in terms of this amendment bill. 
When we look at the lawyers and conveyancers regime we cannot help but make comparisons with the proposed real estate agents regime. This justifies the relatively long lead-in period for a regime such as this when it is going to be changed. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Act of course had a lead-in period of some 2 years. At the moment the lead-in period for the Real Estate Agents Bill is suggested as being some 6 months. When we are changing the regime of a whole profession it is important to realise that sometimes these long lead-in periods give the practitioners and the participants in those professions and industries time to assimilate the proposed changes and time to sort out some of those issues and errors before the Act comes into force. There are certainly lessons to be learnt both in terms of that lead-in period but also in terms of the consultation that takes place. Throughout the progress of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act there was certainly considerable consultation. When I was a practising lawyer we thought that the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill would never happen. Again that is in stark contrast to the consultation and cooperation that seems to have occurred with the Real Estate Agents Bill. 
Supplementary Order Paper 216 limits the jurisdiction to legal services that are relevant to a person’s membership of that employer organisation or union. Again for the sake of the record it is prudent to specify what those legal services are. The explanatory note of the Supplementary Order Paper states that those services relate to “the member’s rights obligations or liabilities in his or her capacity as a member or as an employer or employee: any matter concerning or arising out of an employment relationship as defined in the Employment Relations Act 2000.”—as my colleague Dr Worth has already mentioned—“That term covers a number of relationships that are relevant in the context of employment law such as relationships between a union and an employer between unions bargaining for the same collective agreement or between employers bargaining for the same collective agreement:”. The cooperation that is seen in many fields between the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand is certainly a model that we can also take lessons from. 
Those legal services also relate to “any claim or action under an enactment specified in section 236 of the Employment Relations Act 2000. That section allows employers and employees to be represented by any person of their choice in claims and actions brought under a number of enactments listed in the section.” Obviously we certainly support that choice. The explanatory note continues: “The right to wider representation applies if the other party is the party’s employer or employee or if the action is taken in the Employment Relations Authority or the Employment Court.” The legal services also relate to “compliance with any enactment or other requirement governing the performance of duties of the member in the conduct of the member’s normal business or profession …”—for example the statutory duties—and “any question … concerning the member’s professional liability”. We support both the Supplementary Order Paper and the bill. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dail Jones be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
10Effect of practice rules of the New Zealand Law Society 
Section 107 (1) is amended by inserting after “members of the New Zealand Law Society” the words “and on all incorporated law firms and former incorporated law firms”. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 216 in the name of the Hon Annette King be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to.