Mapp Wayne: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1550] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 That certainly does give one pause for thought about the application of the law to one’s “one and only life”. Those people who believe in the Hindu religion feel of course that they have successive lives. 
I want to refer specifically to the structure of Part 7. It is in essence divided into two parts. The first part deals with the complaints of clients about the service they have received from lawyers and the second part deals with the disciplinary procedures conducted by the New Zealand Law Society that could result in the suspension or revocation of the practising certificate of a lawyer. As my learned colleague Dr Worth has indicated National members do not have a significant concern about the latter part. In fact we acknowledge that it has been strengthened because it has been moved from the district law societies as it exists at present through to the New Zealand Law Society and that will give a much greater sense that complaints are being dealt with at arm’s length and accordingly a much greater satisfaction or belief on the part of the community that there is not some kind of collusion—if I could put it that way—between the disciplinary authority and the person in question. I might add that that perception is in fact completely false. As with most professions the legal profession is most hard on its own transgressors for the self-evident reason that any transgressor taints the reputation and excellence of the rest of the profession. Certainly those people who go before district law society disciplinary tribunals would feel they get no easy ride. 
However it is really the first part that I am concerned about and in particular the issue that Dr Worth set out in the National minority report when he referred to our proposal to establish an ombudsman service which would be a much more robust and much stronger system that would give confidence to clients that the lawyer is treating them properly in terms of quality of service appropriateness of fees and those sorts of things. I have been a practising lawyer and since I have been a member of Parliament I have had a steady flow of complaints about the size of lawyers’ fees and it would be fair to say that not too many of them are saying the fees should be higher—quite the contrary. The normal advice I would give to such a person is to make a complaint to the district law society which has a cost revision committee that will deal adequately with the complaint. When one is looking at one’s constituent across the table there is a scepticism I guess on the constituent’s part that that process will be satisfactory. 
The advantage of having an ombudsman service is that it would provide an arm’s length approach for dealing with those kinds of issues. Certainly on the ethical questions there is broad acceptance that the disciplinary procedures are effective and I think there is a lot of proof around that. There is a good deal less satisfaction about things such as cost revision and that kind of thing does not ever get to the stage of formal disciplinary action. So we have the suggestion from my colleague of an ombudsman service which has a hugely advantageous precedent in this country. The first Ombudsman was established as an Officer of Parliament in 1962 and that concept has been picked up on a voluntary basis by the banking industry and indeed the insurance industry and has been very well accepted. People trust the Banking Ombudsman to hold banks to account. They know that it is on a voluntary basis they know that a Banking Ombudsman has limited power but they also know that the position is at arm’s length from the banks. That is where that sense of confidence lies—from the position being at arm’s length. 
I shall quote from the committee’s report: “… National is unpersuaded that the proposed structure is necessarily the best structure although it accepts that the proposal represents a significant improvement …”. The disciplinary tribunal is an improvement. That is widely acknowledged and I do not have a problem with it. It is the first part that I have a problem with—essentially the absence of an independent party of an ombudsman such as we propose. That would have been a very effective means to build further levels of confidence. It would have been a relatively modest change to the overall structure. It certainly would not have perturbed the overall objective of the profession and the district law societies to restructure themselves to be a more modern and effective profession for the 21st century. 
Of course that is why National is broadly supporting the bill. We recognise that notwithstanding the enormous complexity of the bill it is intended to simplify things. There is quite a tautology there I guess but that is the truth of it; we have a statute of literally hundreds of pages to replace what was a much slimmer statute in the past. Nevertheless putting aside the fact that modern drafting techniques seem to require every single thing to be copperplated bulletproof and appellate-proof—although in truth that is never actually achieved—rather than leaving a level of discretion to both the profession and indeed the courts we accept that the new system will be more effective for the future. 
But we say to the Government that we are disappointed with its response both at the level of the select committee and subsequently at the level of the Ministry of Justice to the sensible and prudent suggestions made by members on this side of the Chamber and based on their long experience in the legal profession. Dr Richard Worth was one of the managing partners of one of New Zealand’s largest law firms. He is on the Council of Legal Education and was vice-chair of the Auckland District Law Society many years past. Judith Collins was vice-president of the New Zealand Law Society. [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister in the chair Lianne Dalziel has never attained that level. She has never ever held a serious position in any part of the legal profession. I remind her that expertise in management of that profession does not exist on the Government benches. In this Chamber it exists almost entirely on this side. 
I have to raise—given that the Minister has now chosen to make an inopportune intervention—the matter of the complete politicisation of the appointment of silks in the last round. Outstanding candidates were presented to the Attorney-General at the time for consideration and he applied a political approach to it. That will be forever a blight on his name. I would not in this environment wish to name people but make only this observation: the previous Attorney-General is damaged politically. He almost single-handedly destroyed this Government through his Budget. He lost the confidence of the Prime Minister in his role as Attorney-General and was summarily dismissed from that role at the time of the reorganisation of Cabinet. She desperately searched around for someone who had a limited level of legal practice and alighted on David Parker—a man who lost his seat. 
National has not attempted to politicise this bill and I can only ask the Minister with her interventions to note the points that we make seriously when we mention that an ombudsman is the proper and correct way to deal with complaints from the public about the adequacy of service the quality of fees and so forth. So although this measure is an improvement it gets maybe a C-minus and a “could do a great deal better”. Maybe the Minister should be aspiring to a B-plus.