Jones Dail: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — First Reading 
Jones Dail: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7385] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support this bill going to a select committee but will be strongly opposing the creation of the new rank of Senior Counsel. It is New Zealand First policy that the office of Queen’s Counsel should be retained and on New Zealand First coming into Government after the next election we will make sure that the office of Queen’s Counsel is reinstated in the New Zealand way of life and in the New Zealand legal way of life. Of course in so far as this legislation is concerned it may be that if New Zealand First can get the support of other parties in this House—and it seems that there might be considerable support—we might be able to prevent the office of Queen’s Counsel from being removed from the bill. I will be interested to hear the National Party’s views on that. United Future which has close links with the Government has said that it is a contentious issue. The Greens being almost a coalition partner I would be interested to hear their view on Queen’s Counsel to see whether they want it retained and I would be interested to hear the ACT view as well. 
New Zealand First has said for example on the Supreme Court Bill that it supports excellence in New Zealand excellence in the law and excellence in having a Privy Council still hearing our cases. For much the same reason we support the continuation of the office of Queen’s Counsel. I started my legal career in 1961 as a clerk in the then Magistrate’s Court. 
Simon Power 
: That can’t be right. The member looks far too young. 
DAIL JONES 
: I was 16 at the time. That tells members how old I am. I have had more than 40 years experience in the law for which I am eternally grateful. I have never aspired to be a Queen’s Counsel. It is a bit too lofty for me perhaps a bit too academic for me and perhaps a bit beyond my capabilities. However just because I do not want to be a Queen’s Counsel or am not capable of being a Queen’s Counsel is not a reason to remove the office of Queen’s Counsel. 
I suspect that Labour’s view on this bill is that it has a dumbing-down approach as it has to so many areas in New Zealand. It is dumbing down the education system and our superior court system and it wants to dumb down the way in which the legal system operates as well. Not many people become a Queen’s Counsel or even want to become a Queen’s Counsel. It is a title that is earned. It is not a title that is given to one as a matter of course. It is something that is earned. We could have the new title of Senior Counsel in addition to that of Queen’s Counsel but the title of Senior Counsel is very general. It is very broad-based and it does not reflect the superior intelligence superior work and ambitious nature perhaps of those who want to leave their mark on the law at the highest possible level. 
New Zealand First will work hard to ensure that when this bill comes back from the select committee of which I am a member the office of Queen’s Counsel remains and any regulations to replace the office of Queen’s Counsel are not passed; or if we are to have Senior Counsel that it is in addition to Queen’s Counsel and I can see no problem with that situation. The Government has tried to create a South Pacific legal backwater with the Supreme Court Bill and now once again it is trying to create a South Pacific backwater in the quality of the representation to which people will be entitled in our courts. 
Of course people are strange; they want to pay for Queen’s Counsel. Time and time again big firms small firms and ordinary citizens seem to want to have someone at the top someone with the rank of Queen’s Counsel representing them. As members may know in view of the trans-Tasman legal links Australian Queen’s Counsel can practise in New Zealand as Queen’s Counsel. Big banks big commercial concerns and people who can afford it will employ Australian Queen’s Counsel to represent them in the New Zealand courts. That is inevitable. It is just a fact of human nature. People like to have a big name representing them. If they have the money they want to big note in the pub or the club or wherever and say that they have X Queen’s Counsel representing them. It sounds so much better than X Senior Counsel whatever that means. We will find more and more Australian Queen’s Counsel working in the New Zealand courts taking over the role that New Zealand Queen’s Counsel used to have and thereby depriving New Zealand lawyers of work. This Labour Government takes the view that it wants New Zealanders to have more access to the law. The way in which it is running the Supreme Court Bill and this bill will result in less work being available to New Zealanders and lawyers from other jurisdictions coming into New Zealand due to the reciprocal way in which we practise these days. I make that strong point. New Zealand First opposes that aspect of the bill. 
It is good to see that law firms can now be incorporated. That is long overdue. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why? 
DAIL JONES 
: I support the concept of an incorporated law firm. It is an option if one wants to have it. I say to those people who will be making submissions on the bill that I would be interested to know their views on multidisciplinary firms as well. The bill seems to have left out that concept. I would be interested in submissions being put to the Justice and Electoral Committee on the concept of multidisciplinary firms. I went to a seminar on this in about 1986. It has been around for a long time; it is not a new concept. I think the people out there who want to make submissions should not be disbarred or prevented from making submissions on matters that are not in the bill at the moment. If they do have good ideas on multidisciplinary practices those views should be expressed to the select committee. 
Previous members have made comments about conveyancing and suchlike. Most of my work was involved in conveyancing. I did a fair amount of criminal law and civil law but generally it was conveyancing. 
 I see no problem with any degree of competition from licensed conveyancers and suchlike. If they can do the work for the type of rate for which a lawyer does that work today good on them. There is competition between lawyers already and I have the feeling—I have had it since early last year—that those licensed conveyancers who were out there in practice last year were feeling the pinch and that life was not as simple as they had thought it might be. Those who had set up in the inner city of Auckland were finding it rather difficult compared with those lawyers who practise out in the suburbs because of the better availability of parking and the lower rents as the National member Judith Collins was saying. 
I have to express a concern I have having been a lawyer for many years. I am concerned that there is now too great reliance on legal aid and that the more lawyers rely on legal aid the more they come within the possible control of a Government. If the Government is paying lawyers legal aid to the extent of tens of millions—if not hundreds of millions—of dollars it can start to call the tune on the legal profession. I am slightly concerned that we have allowed ourselves as a legal profession to become tied to the financial strings of the Government in the legal aid area. Although many lawyers try time and time again to extend the field of legal aid one sometimes gets the impression that as the Government tries to cut back here and cut back there at the same time it is trying to cut back on the standards that apply in areas where legal aid is being obtained and granted. I feel looking back on the whole situation that there used to be greater independence; lawyers in general practice were more independent more likely to take a Government on and more likely to disagree with a Government than they are today when they are so dependent on legal aid. So many law firms today would go out of business if legal aid were not paid to them. That on its own must give us concern about the independence of the legal profession. 
I say that also of the New Zealand Law Society. The Law Society knows that many hundreds of lawyers out there are dependent on legal aid. If the Government says to them that it might be cutting back on legal aid if such-and-such does not happen the Law Society has to try to balance the needs of the profession as a whole with the society’s own requirement to stand up for all New Zealanders big or small. That is the ultimate role of a lawyer. If someone goes to a lawyer and has a good case the lawyer has a responsibility to present that case regardless of who might be on the other side and regardless of whom the lawyer might be taking on. I trust that the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill which will be repealing a bill that in 1982-83 went through a select committee of which I was the chairman will have that as its main standard.