CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I will take a brief call, because I think everyone acknowledges there is a problem here that needs to be addressed, but, as so often happens, the devil is in the detail, and it behoves us to try to get right the formula of words.
That is a point I have made on a number of occasions in debates in this House, and of course the Government has ignored it every time, most recently in relation to the passage of the Electoral Finance Bill, when I said to several people on the Labour side that, even accepting that their prime aim with the legislation was to do in the National Party, there were numerous provisions in the bill where the words are not right. It was not that I was giving them advice on how to do us in, but I was saying there were issues of a general nature where the i’s were not dotted and the t’s not crossed, and they were ignored. Of course--
Hon Darren Hughes: Stop reading us the email.
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —that legislation is coming home to haunt them, and I am so delighted because it will hasten the demise of the MP for Otaki.
But let us go to the preliminary provisions of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2). I think Dr Worth described the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act as tortuous legislation. It is not particularly good legislation. It was in gestation for many years, it passed into law a couple of years ago, and it is all coming to a head because the Act itself comes into force on 1 August, in relation both to lawyers and to conveyancers. So it has had a fairly long transitional period, and this issue has emerged at the 11th hour, which is why the National Party supported the bill going to the Justice and Electoral Committee, and cooperated in the select committee.
As I said, there was an issue that needed to be looked at. The primary purpose of the legislation is to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal services and conveyancing services. We are not so worried about conveyancing services in the context of this bill. But we come immediately to section 9 as it was originally enacted. Subsection (1) states: “A lawyer is guilty of misconduct who, being an employee, provides regulated services to the public other than in the course of his or her employment—(a) by a lawyer;”, and then subsection (1) sets out the various categories: for example, the Legal Services Agency, the Public Trust, the Māori Trustee, and trustee companies.
It did appear that there was a gap, because over a period of time there had at least developed a practice—whether or not it was legal—where certain persons who were qualified lawyers within unions and organisations like Business New Zealand and the Nurses Organisation would, in the course of their work, provide advice to members. My understanding is that the advice offered was in the nature of advice relating to employment. It would be highly unlikely and very, very dangerous for, for example, the lawyer in the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union—whose name is Mr Wilton, I believe—to be giving advice on matters relating to mergers and takeovers, or the law relating to family protection, and so on. The most a person, in that instance, would do is refer the inquirer on to another lawyer who was qualified to give that advice.
So, recognising that this practice has grown up, recognising the constraints of section 9, and recognising that there was a problem in this legislation—which is soon to come into force—the National Party supported the bill going to the select committee. We listened very carefully to the submissions that were made on behalf of those organisations, and on behalf of the Nurses Organisation. But we made a comment in the report that although we supported the passage of the legislation, we may want to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee of the whole House stage if, after careful consideration of matters raised in oral submissions to the committee, we considered there were further matters to be addressed.
So I am very interested to hear that Mr Jones of New Zealand First is proposing a Supplementary Order Paper to deal with certain definitional issues. I will have a good look at that over the next few days. The Leader of the House said in the House this afternoon that this bill will go through its remaining stages next week, and I hope that all parties will in good faith take a look at the Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Jones proffers, to see whether it will address the concern on the one hand of the Law Society, while recognising the very legitimate concerns of those who made submissions to the select committee in favour of the bill.
I do not think the various parties are too far apart. It is a question of words, so I think it behoves us when it comes to the Committee stage of the bill to see whether it can be improved. I think that is everyone’s intention. I listened very carefully to what Dr Worth said about the history of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 and its passage into law. I can understand why we need to give urgent attention to this matter, and I will be very interested to look at the amendments that are being proffered by Mr Jones, to see whether there can be a meeting of the minds, because this is a very important issue.
I come back to the purpose provisions set out in section 3 of the Act, the most important of which is to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal services. We have to make sure that if an opportunity is afforded to the lawyer employees of employer organisations or unions, they are able to carry out what they have traditionally done, but not range into areas that may be well beyond their areas of competence. I do not think they would intend to move beyond what has been the practice over many years, and that is why we need to pay careful attention to the words—to avoid the prospect of litigation once the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act comes into force. So I very much look forward to the Committee stage, and to the members of the Committee working together to see whether we can solve what appears to be a terminological problem.
Hon Darren Hughes: Stop reading us the email.
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —that legislation is coming home to haunt them, and I am so delighted because it will hasten the demise of the MP for Otaki.
But let us go to the preliminary provisions of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2). I think Dr Worth described the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act as tortuous legislation. It is not particularly good legislation. It was in gestation for many years, it passed into law a couple of years ago, and it is all coming to a head because the Act itself comes into force on 1 August, in relation both to lawyers and to conveyancers. So it has had a fairly long transitional period, and this issue has emerged at the 11th hour, which is why the National Party supported the bill going to the Justice and Electoral Committee, and cooperated in the select committee.
As I said, there was an issue that needed to be looked at. The primary purpose of the legislation is to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal services and conveyancing services. We are not so worried about conveyancing services in the context of this bill. But we come immediately to section 9 as it was originally enacted. Subsection (1) states: “A lawyer is guilty of misconduct who, being an employee, provides regulated services to the public other than in the course of his or her employment—(a) by a lawyer;”, and then subsection (1) sets out the various categories: for example, the Legal Services Agency, the Public Trust, the Māori Trustee, and trustee companies.
It did appear that there was a gap, because over a period of time there had at least developed a practice—whether or not it was legal—where certain persons who were qualified lawyers within unions and organisations like Business New Zealand and the Nurses Organisation would, in the course of their work, provide advice to members. My understanding is that the advice offered was in the nature of advice relating to employment. It would be highly unlikely and very, very dangerous for, for example, the lawyer in the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union—whose name is Mr Wilton, I believe—to be giving advice on matters relating to mergers and takeovers, or the law relating to family protection, and so on. The most a person, in that instance, would do is refer the inquirer on to another lawyer who was qualified to give that advice.
So, recognising that this practice has grown up, recognising the constraints of section 9, and recognising that there was a problem in this legislation—which is soon to come into force—the National Party supported the bill going to the select committee. We listened very carefully to the submissions that were made on behalf of those organisations, and on behalf of the Nurses Organisation. But we made a comment in the report that although we supported the passage of the legislation, we may want to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee of the whole House stage if, after careful consideration of matters raised in oral submissions to the committee, we considered there were further matters to be addressed.
So I am very interested to hear that Mr Jones of New Zealand First is proposing a Supplementary Order Paper to deal with certain definitional issues. I will have a good look at that over the next few days. The Leader of the House said in the House this afternoon that this bill will go through its remaining stages next week, and I hope that all parties will in good faith take a look at the Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Jones proffers, to see whether it will address the concern on the one hand of the Law Society, while recognising the very legitimate concerns of those who made submissions to the select committee in favour of the bill.
I do not think the various parties are too far apart. It is a question of words, so I think it behoves us when it comes to the Committee stage of the bill to see whether it can be improved. I think that is everyone’s intention. I listened very carefully to what Dr Worth said about the history of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 and its passage into law. I can understand why we need to give urgent attention to this matter, and I will be very interested to look at the amendments that are being proffered by Mr Jones, to see whether there can be a meeting of the minds, because this is a very important issue.
I come back to the purpose provisions set out in section 3 of the Act, the most important of which is to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal services. We have to make sure that if an opportunity is afforded to the lawyer employees of employer organisations or unions, they are able to carry out what they have traditionally done, but not range into areas that may be well beyond their areas of competence. I do not think they would intend to move beyond what has been the practice over many years, and that is why we need to pay careful attention to the words—to avoid the prospect of litigation once the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act comes into force. So I very much look forward to the Committee stage, and to the members of the Committee working together to see whether we can solve what appears to be a terminological problem.
