Moroney Sue: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6514. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a privilege to rise and speak to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. I have a question at the outset of my contribution to this debate and my question to the Government is simply this: is this the brighter future? Is this what National members meant when they campaigned on that slogan of a brighter future—taking us backwards with archaic references to privilege? That is what this bill in fact does and I am proud to stand up and say that Labour opposes this bill. We oppose being dragged backwards to an area of privilege and archaic protection. That is all I can see in this bill and I do not think it represents at all that idea that the Government was trying to convince the country of which I think it is finding it harder and harder to maintain these days which was that somehow it had a vision of this modern this new future a vision going forward when in fact here it is once again bringing in—and wasting the time of this Parliament with—a piece of legislation that actually takes us backwards. 
It takes us backwards in a direction that I know that the Labour Party does not stand for. It takes us back into an area of snobbery—that is the best word I can use to describe this actually. It uses Parliament’s time to change back to an old title and I have yet to hear any Government member give us the evil that we are trying to fix here. What is the wrong that this bill is trying to fix? I have not heard one example yet from a Government member opposite about what the problem is—the practical problem the really practical problem that everyday New Zealanders come across that is going to be fixed by changing the title Senior Counsel back to Queen’s Counsel. What is it what is the evil what is the wrong what is the problem that this is trying to fix because I cannot see it. 
It was interesting to see that one of the few Government members who has taken a call on this bill was Tim Macindoe from Hamilton. I am really surprised to hear Tim Macindoe get up and make an impassioned speech on this. I do not think that this is what the people of Hamilton West sent him down to Parliament week after week to do—to get up and argue for privilege as this bill does and for snobbery and for $40000 a day because we heard from my colleague Andrew Little that this title of Queen’s Counsel apparently allows people to charge up to $40000 a day for ordinary New Zealanders to use their services if they have this title after their name. Well that is not the vision that I have for the future of this country. But it is now showing quite a trend from this Government because just a few weeks ago it was protecting privilege by spending taxpayer money to bail out Wanganui Collegiate School. It was doing that just days after it had cut funding for special education schools—close down special education schools but put taxpayer money into protecting privilege through taxpayer money to keep Wanganui Collegiate School going. This bill reflects exactly that same situation that same snobbery that comes from the National benches opposite. 
And here we are in the lead-up to the final weeks before Parliament rises before Christmas. What is it in the justice portfolio that the Government thinks is most important to spend its time on? Well today it is changing a title. It is changing a title for legal representation and in changing that title it is spending time—taking up Parliament’s time—to do something that is unnecessary. If we kept the title as Senior Counsel there is a particular part of this bill that we would not even need any longer. The title Senior Counsel does not actually reflect gender and—this is unusual for me—I am going to argue here that we are doing a disservice by reflecting gender in this piece of legislation. By changing back from Senior Counsel which does not have any gender connotation to it to Queen’s Counsel we have to draft up and spend this country’s money on actually changing a part of this law because if suddenly we did not have a queen but we had a king we would have to have a new section. We have to have a provision in here to take account of that change in gender of a ruler in a distant land.