A real estate agent facing a five-year ban after refusing to complete a compulsory short course on Māori culture and tikanga - a move she says led to her being fired - is back at work.
Janet Dickson is again working for Harcourts Landed Howick after her lawyers successfully asked for an interim court order maintaining her practising licence until the outcome of a judicial review into the Real Estate Authority’s continuing education rules.
The authority supported the request, given Dickson’s licence would’ve been cancelled on March 31 and the earliest a judicial review could be heard in the High Court was June, Dickson’s lawyer Brigitte Morten said.
“Those interim orders have been in place since mid-March I think, and her employment has been reinstated for quite some time as well.”
It was “completely unknown” how long it’d take for the judicial review finding to come out, Morten said.
“But until that’s determined, she maintains the ability to act as a real estate agent.”
Dickson, whose objection to the course made headlines in February after she called it “woke nonsense” in a Facebook post and said she was going to fight for her rights “to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else”, referred the Herald to Morten when contacted.
However, on Wednesday she told Sean Plunket on The Platform that she was back at work.
“I was fired and then the lawyers had a chat and it’s all back together and … I’m reinstated. Working mainly from home but … everything all good.”
The licensee at Harcourts Landed Howick couldn’t be contacted for comment.
Dickson’s refusal to do the course was based on concerns an industry body could force its members to complete training “on a subject that is only peripherally connected to their job under threat of losing their right to work”, she said in February.
As well as hiring lawyers Franks Ogilvie in Wellington, the realtor is backed by Hobson’s Pledge, which is headed by former National Party leader Don Brash and has previously asked for donations to help pay Dickson’s legal fees.
The lobby group, formed in 2016, campaigns against preferential treatment given to people based on ethnicity, with a particular focus on Māori.
There’d been a “massive” nationwide response to her situation via a Hobson’s Pledge tip line, Dickson told The Platform.
“As of last night, we’ve had over 140 messages of people who’ve been likewise affected. Teachers, engineers, accountants, lawyers, business brokers, doctors, nurses, surgeons, midwives, acupuncturists, mental health and addiction, chiropractors, physios, police, Fire and Emergency, universities, training institutions … that’s who’s said, ‘We are over being told what to say and think’.”
The Real Estate Authority is the Crown entity responsible for the regulation of New Zealand’s real estate industry. Dickson’s legal action is over the authority’s continuing education rules under the Real Estate Agents Act 2008.
With administrative decisions like the one being challenged by Dickson, it was possible to ask the courts to review how the decision was made, Morten said.
“There’s a few different grounds. One is … that the rules putting in place this mandatory course were inappropriate and were not procedurally followed … [a] second ground is that by putting this course in place, it was an unjustifiable limit on her freedom of expression and freedom to hold religious beliefs.
“And thirdly [is] a quite technical one about … how the [associate justice] minister approved a particular topic. And so the rules themselves, we think are improperly made - the whole rules, not just the one around this particular course.”
The course Dickson objected to is a one-and-a-half-hour compulsory professional development course called Te Kākano (The Seed).
It gives licensees a chance to develop or deepen their understanding of Māori culture, language and custom, “particularly with respect to land, and an understanding of the historical context of Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, an excerpt from the course outline reads.
“During each module you will move from a theoretical understanding to examples of the practical application of this programme into your workplace.
“You will have gained some background knowledge when the need arises to engage with Māori, local iwi (tribes) and hapū (sub-tribes), Māori land, sacred sites, and how this could relate to real estate transactions.”
Enlisted real estate agents must complete 10 hours of compulsory training as well as 10 hours of training from a list of elective topics each year to retain their licence.
Te Kākano was one of the two compulsory topics for 2023 but has since moved into the elective category for 2024 - meaning it’s not compulsory for new real estate agents.