O'Rourke Denis: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 15 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6728. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 The Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill Part 1 is about elitism anti-competitive advantage and historical claptrap. It should in fact be entitled the “Lawyers and Conveyancers Elitist Purposes Bill” I think. It takes us back to the days when QCs were appointed by a mysterious non-transparent process. It re-establishes suspicion of inappropriate influences and political interference which is all too often in fact justified. New Zealand First therefore opposes the legislation at least as far as Part 1 is concerned—therefore the whole bill. We do not think it is good for the legal profession in practice and especially not for its reputation. It is not good for the community’s understanding of the profession. It is about the National Party’s philosophy and ideology and it is a giant leap back to the past. New Zealand would be moving backwards with this legislation when all comparable jurisdictions have moved on with modern and relevant approaches to the issue of acknowledging senior practitioners. You have only to look at Canada and most of the states of Australia to see that. 
It is questionable whether it is really even necessary at all to award either Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel. We do not see it done for the medical profession and we do not see it done for the teaching profession. We do not see it done for other professions. These days markets must be free of discriminatory and anti-competitive impositions and that includes the legal profession. For some reason lawyers think they should stand outside that principle. I do not see any reason for doing so. Strangely National usually supports that sort of approach so this is a bit of an aberration for it I think. National has simply got it wrong and it has got it wrong for the wrong reasons. It is wedded to the past and it is not future oriented. However if we are to persist with the ranking of legal practitioners in this way rather than to rely on reputation and the market as it should then it is an important matter to define those members of the profession who have achieved a level of experience and competence in an area of expertise that should be officially acknowledged on a fair and transparent basis. 
The current legislation actually goes a long way to achieve this and should not be undone by this retrograde bill. The acknowledgment of highly regarded and experienced practitioners with special expertise must not be about status or reward or cronyism in the way that it has all too often been in the past and it should not be seen in the same way as the awarding of knighthoods and honours. New Zealand is no longer a British colony with all of its traditions and peculiarities. We should not create commercial advantage by one practitioner over another in the way that this bill will do. The New Zealand system must fulfil our needs and be relevant useful fair in the selection process and transparent. This bill does not appear to be designed to do any of that; in fact it will have exactly the opposite effect. It appears to be designed to perpetuate elitism as distinct from meritism and by that I mean the recognition of status well earned instead of one simply awarded in the manner of some sort of honour or worse still as some sort of favour. 
Under Part 1 the term Queen’s Counsel would return to replace Senior Counsel and that is unwise. The public can more readily understand the term Senior Counsel but I do not think it has ever understood the term Queen’s Counsel and understandability is important for the reputation of the profession. People used to think that the term Queen’s Counsel meant a senior barrister who had some sort of function supporting the Attorney-General. Of course that has not been the case for a very very long time. The term Senior Counsel is more descriptive and does not have the connotations of an overhang from the old English system and our colonial past. New Zealand needs a thoroughly modern legal system and it needs to be seen as such. None of this is assisted by the term Queen’s Counsel and Senior Counsel is much better. Nor does the assertion that somehow the reversion to Queen’s Counsel for barristers sole will enhance the independence of the Bar have any merit at all. If independence means independence from the Crown it really in New Zealand means independence from the Government. This bill is more likely to do the opposite by restoring the old system under which the scope for political and other inappropriate influences is actually worse. 
Concerning eligibility it is not clear at all why only barristers sole are favoured to be eligible for appointment as QCs. It is not a good basis in principle or practice for this to happen. Other senior expert practitioners should not be excluded whether they practise in law firms or not and we should not exclude barristers and solicitors. When you consider the huge differences between how barristers and barristers and solicitors operate in New Zealand as compared with the UK it seems anachronistic that we should have this overhang from the UK in the New Zealand system. But the worst aspect I think of the bill is new section 119A(2) inserted by clause 6 which overrides the other clauses in the bill where the royal prerogative is to be reinstated. 
Charles Chauvel 
: The crony clause. 
DENIS O’ROURKE 
: This is comprehensive nonsense—and yes it is the cronyism clause. There is no substantive reason given for this huge leap backwards. It is exactly the kind of provision we should avoid. The royal prerogative really means the Government prerogative and all of the disadvantages mentioned earlier of unfairness discrimination and anti-competitive behaviour. The scope for cronyism and bad process will be entrenched by that particular provision. It is thoroughly objectionable. 
The need for transparency has also not been achieved in this bill. It is not what modern best practice requires. These days people rightly insist on a transparent selection process. This will still be a closeted Government process in which the public can have no confidence at all. New Zealand First therefore objects to the entire concept of this retrograde bill as set out in Part 1. It is misconceived it is a step back to the bad old ways it is a barrier to the development of a modern legal system it is devoid of proper process it is unnecessarily restrictive and it is based on discrimination for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. The object should be to define senior practitioners in specialist areas so that the public and other members of the profession are assisted in knowing to whom they may best go for specialist services. If that is not the objective then there is no reason at all for either QCs or Senior Counsel to be appointed. For all these reasons New Zealand First will definitely vote against this very bad bill because of the provisions that are set out in Part 1 for all the reasons that I have mentioned.