Chauvel Charles: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:16958] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow the previous two speakers and take a short call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2). Ensuring that all participants in the labour market understand and can meet their obligations is vital to create a well-functioning labour market. I am very proud to have begun my career by working for a union. My first full-time job was working for a union the Northern Hotel Workers’ Union as its legal officer back in the late 1980s. That time marked the period when both unions and employers associations first began to feel the need to employ in-house legal counsel. 
There had been a practice for some time of lay advocates appearing in what was previously the Labour Court or the Arbitration Court to represent members of unions or employers associations when an employment case had to be taken to one of those institutions. A right of lay audience existed in those forums but with the increasing legalisation of the employment law regime in New Zealand particularly after the Employment Contracts Act 1991 it became virtually standard practice for every large union particularly as the unions consolidated and for many employers organisations to employ legally qualified staff to minimise the cost of providing advice and representation to their members. 
This was a position that was regarded under the legislation that predated the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act as quite acceptable and was condoned by the regulatory authorities including the district law societies and the New Zealand Law Society. But as the Minister said the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 scheduled to come into force very shortly on 1 August will prevent that status quo ante from continuing. It will stop unions and employers organisations from continuing the practice I have described. That would be a retrograde step as the Minister has said. It has the potential to deprive employees particularly low-income employees of a good expert and low-cost source of representation. It also has the potential to stop employers particularly small businesses from getting such representation from their employers associations. That would be highly undesirable in any view so it is good to hear that at least as far as this reading is concerned there is bipartisan and hopefully multi-partisan support for the measure and I hope that that will continue. 
It is interesting to note that until the amendment is passed unions and employers organisations are having to give consideration to developing temporary arrangements in order to meet the risk that we will not get this legislation through in time for the passage of the Act. I had one— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Cheap advice from Minter Ellison. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Oh well there would no doubt have been excellent advice from my former firm—and hopefully from the shadow Attorney-General’s former firm as well although in the latter case probably more expensive. 
But some organisations are tying themselves in knots now. For example one employers association contacted me today to advise me that its plans to incorporate a law firm were advanced. It was having to get its in-house lawyers to set up a law firm in order to get around the problem of this legislation. That is a crazy cumbersome and silly way of dealing with the problem when indeed what we should do—as this amendment bill signals we should do—is to simply restore the previous situation. 
As I have said the legislation will ensure the maintenance of the longstanding convention of unions and employers organisations being able to provide legal services to their members. That is a very sensible thing to do. Along with my excellent Labour colleagues Lynne Pillay and Louisa Wall I look forward to hearing the submissions on the legislation at the select committee. As Mr Power has acknowledged there may be some definitional issues around the scope of the legal services that ought to be provided by counsel working for unions or employers associations. But it is not as simple as simply saying that it is employment advocacy in the employment institutions and nothing more. Employment law is a lot more complicated these days. There are intellectual property claims in the High Court and all sorts of other associated actions that really must be incorporated within the embrace of this legislation to ensure that the spirit—that is the restoration of the previous situation—is maintained. 
I look forward to hearing the evidence in the select committee from a small number of interested parties who will be able to assist us to make sure that the legislation we pass is the best possible legislation. I commend the amendment bill to the House.