Jones Dail: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Dail: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19023] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The previous speaker from the Labour Party spoke with a great deal of sincerity and a great deal of knowledge about the criminal law side of a lawyer’s work—a side he is very familiar with and very well qualified in. Unfortunately however when he started to drift into conveyancing especially modern-day conveyancing perhaps in Queen Street or on Lambton Quay he was totally off the mark. Those big shiny law firms with their lawyers in their dark suits and shiny shoes would not know a mortgage from a search of a title but they could tell us all about bank debentures and the like. 
In 1963 when I started off as a law clerk law firms in Auckland did everything. The senior partner did the conveyancing and the big finance deals. Today that does not happen. Those who work in big law firms today and are members of the conveyancing team are never ever able to match the amount of fees earned by those who are part of the corporate banking team. The people on the conveyancing side struggle to do about one-fifth of the fees earned by the people on the corporate banking or other side. All that those people in those big shiny offices ever do—if they do any conveyancing at all—is to provide a service to existing clients and such like. They are not there to make money because at Queen Street prices there is no money to be made in conveyancing. That is why people are moving out into the suburbs. That is the only way they can afford to do conveyancing. Lawyers will tell us that they have no problem in competing with conveyancers because conveyancing fees from lawyers are so low already that if anyone else can do it for a lower fee and still pay all the costs lawyers have to pay in the way of fidelity fund professional fees and such like then “Good on them—let’s have the competition.” 
At least that is where this bill provides a level playing field. If we are to have conveyancers then bring them on. But as any lawyer would say they must have a fidelity fund as well because if lawyers have to have a fidelity fund then so should conveyancers. The problem for conveyancers of course will be that if they have only five eight 10 or even 20 members then that is too few in number to fund a fidelity fund adequately. As Mr Worth pointed out at the moment it is a struggle with all the insurance and other things involved to keep a fidelity fund going when there are 1000 members. 
If the honourable Minister Phil Goff and Mr Russell Fairbrother think that conveyancers can get under way with a fidelity fund when they have only seven or eight members then as far as this is concerned they are trying to hoodwink the public. In that sense this bill is an entire sham. To put lawyers and conveyancers into the one piece of legislation is to take the medical profession as an example like putting obstetricians and midwives into the one piece of legislation. My experience with obstetricians and midwives is that they have no time for each other at all and up until now lawyers and conveyancers have had very little time for each other as well. This bill will change that and as I said lawyers have no problem with that whatsoever. 
As far as the bill is concerned New Zealand First will support it. We have a couple of issues to raise one of which relates to Queen’s Counsel and the inclusion of a new thing called senior counsel by way of statute. As mentioned by the Minister there is a change to the provisions in clause 276 that means that banks will now have to run those accounts at a loss. They will pass on the costs to the lawyers who will of course then pass them on to their clients. As a result this bill will have the effect of making conveyancing and legal services even more expensive. I will come to that in a moment. 
As far as introducing senior counsel is concerned we already have senior counsel in the court system. Often a judge will refer to someone as senior counsel rather than as Queen’s Counsel which is a title that is awarded. We currently have a system of senior counsel and those senior counsel are usually lawyers who appear before the court. We are now to have a senior counsel system that will effectively remove the title of Queen’s Counsel. The senior counsel system will apply to those who might be working in an office in a high-flying law firm or perhaps in a firm out in the suburbs based on their experience and such like. Many lawyers will be confused for a long time as to what is meant by the term “senior counsel” as we already have that term in practice. Some other name might have been used. It is not only the title of Queen’s Counsel that we are getting rid of but also the special role that Queen’s Counsel have. If called upon Queen’s Counsel must appear for the Crown and assist it in a case. We are to get rid of that situation and the Crown will then appoint certain people to assist it—I will not say “cronies” because the trouble with appointing lawyers who we think might be cronies is that because of their traditions experiences and such like they often disagree with one straight away. It is very hard to get lawyers to do what any particular client may want. It goes against their whole training and experience. 
Getting rid of Queen’s Counsel is a sad day for New Zealand. As Mr Worth pointed out it is just another example of this Labour Government’s republican attitude. It got rid of the Privy Council and it now has a select committee on the constitution whose chairman Peter Dunne has already shown his republican sympathies by suggesting he is looking forward to the day that New Zealand ceases to be any part of a monarchy and becomes a republican state. That is the way the Labour Party is going supported by United Future and Peter Dunne. There is no reason to get rid of Queen’s Counsel. 
I have never aspired or felt inclined to be in that position but I have the greatest admiration for those who have the brain who have the ability who work hard and who aspire to doing something day in and day out at the highest possible level of the profession. That is what being Queen’s Counsel is all about. It shows up the people who are the very very best of the profession. Senior counsel will not do that because they will be hidden away in law firms and never appear before a court. We will never know who those people are. It will just be x y and z senior counsel who are very good at the Northern Club the Wellington Club and perhaps the Wellesley Club—“So and so is senior counsel now whatever that means.” Queen’s Counsel have to prove themselves before judges and before the whole country and that is a very important role. It is sad that the level of attainment we insist upon for the All Blacks—the top 30 who play out there on the field—because we want to see the best in sport is not the same as for the law with its tradition going back about 700 or 800 years. This Labour Government wants to get rid of that tradition because somehow or other it is linked to the monarchy. 
My other point which I have lodged by way of a Supplementary Order Paper relates to clause 276 and the reduction in the amount available to the banks. At the select committee Lianne Dalziel made the point quite clearly as we discussed the matter around the table—I seem to recall that the point was raised and she was discussing it too—that if we reduce the amount available to the banks below cost then the banks if they are making loss must pass that on. The information that has been made available to us all is that on the figures now at 40 percent the banks will make a loss. 
Murray Smith 
: No they won’t! 
DAIL JONES 
: Mr Smith can make his comments if he likes. I have the information from the banks. Mr Goff has been misinformed if he says the select committee discussed it fully. The banks will make a loss and the costs will be passed on. The clients of lawyers will have to pay. Time will tell whether I am correct but the banks told us they will make a loss. I have the information and I will table it further at the Committee stage. If the Labour Party wants to see the banking system make a loss then that is up to the Labour Party. But of course the costs will be passed on to lawyers’ clients when doing conveyancing transactions. They will be shown in disbursements. The lawyers will just pass them on. At the end of the day they will probably even have GST added on to them as well. 
This is a sad state of affairs—and so far as community law firms are concerned that is great. If I look back at say 1984 when I was out of Parliament and starting up a law practice if there had been a community law centre in Kumeu I probably could not have started a practice. But there was not one and I went ahead and formed my own practice myself. I did not need any support from the State. Nowadays one disadvantage of the community law centres—which I set up in the 1982 legislation; that is where they were all started—is that with so many of them they now hinder the establishment of law practices. Greater consideration must be given to the way in which they operate.