Wall Louisa: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wall Louisa: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 15 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6733. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 Kia ora. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute in this debate the third reading of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. From the outset I want to say that Labour opposes this bill. I also oppose the bill for a very specific reason. I want to focus specifically on Part 1 of the bill in this the third reading debate. It is about the restoration of Queen’s Counsel. 
I want to particularly make reference to a colleague of mine in the Maori Affairs Committee Te Ururoa Flavell and his bill which was the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. That bill was not supported by this House. In particular it was not supported by the National Government. The rationale for the non-support of that bill was quite clear. The National Government said that the Maori Party had put the cart before the horse. The appropriate place for a conversation around national identity is with each and every New Zealander and that is a conversation we are having within the constitutional review. That is where this bill belongs within the context of the constitutional review. 
I would like to take this opportunity to outline why I believe it should be discussed and debated within the context of the constitutional review. New Zealand has a constitution that consists of a collection of statutes which are Acts of Parliamentit consists of treaties it consists of Orders in Council it consists of letters patent it consists of decisions of the courts and it consists of unwritten constitutional conventions. So as with the UK there is no one supreme document in Aotearoa New Zealand. 
In August 2011 the Government undertook a constitutional review. We have 12 New Zealanders who are trying to gauge public opinion on New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements and they have free rein to test views on whether for example we should move towards becoming a republic. This is really relevant because— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! On a third reading speech you must confine your comments to—[ 
Interruption 
] So you need to come back and mention what is actually in the bill with a third reading speech. 
LOUISA WALL 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sorry if I am taking a while to get to my point. 
So who are Queen’s Counsel? Who are King’s Counsel? Well Queen’s Counsel are lawyers appointed by letters patent which was actually my point. It is actually part of the constitutional convention of New Zealand society that Queen’s Counsel are appointed by letters patent. So that is the relevance of the constitutional review and that is why in my opening remarks I was really clear that I wanted to talk about Part 1 of the bill which is about the restoration of the title Queen’s Counsel. 
I just wanted to actually note that in 2008 when New Zealand made the decision to change Queen’s Counsel to Senior Counsel it was really about changing a name to one without connotations of monarchy. We made this decision I think within the context of the thinking around the constitutional review. It was really about our national identity—issues to do with the place of the Treaty for example but also issues to do with titles like this which historically have been bestowed on us because we are a colony. We were colonised by the British so we inherited a lot of titles such as Queen’s Counsel. So for me this is actually all about us becoming an independent sovereign nation within the context of being a modern democratic society. 
I want to highlight that this issue about maturing as nations within the Commonwealth is really relevant because a number of other Commonwealth countries actually have disestablished the title of Queen’s Counsel. I just want to list them because they are places like Hong Kong the Republic of Ireland South Africa Kenya Malawi Singapore and Guyana. My colleagues Charles Chauvel and the Hon Phil Goff have both talked about the changes within both Canada and Australia countries with which we would see we have some synergies. They have also disestablished the Queen’s Counsel title in Nigeria India and Bangladesh. So in fact when New Zealand in 2008 decided to disestablish that title it was linked to I believe a greater conversation about who we are in today’s world and possibly where we were going in the future. So I think it is incredibly relevant to link the discussions that we are having today in the House with the constitutional review. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for allowing me to get to where I eventually got to—there was some logic to it. 
So I just put on the table that the National Government was very quick to not support Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill based on a principle and the National Government has been very quick to not use that same principle within the context of the discussions we are having about this particular piece of legislation. That is really what I wanted to contribute to the debate. So I thank you very much and I thank the leadership within the discussions we have had of Charles Chauvel. Thank you very much. Kia ora.