Centrist: Janet Dickson ruling shows New Zealand’s regulator reforms fall short

Janet Dickson faces losing her licence over a compulsory tikanga course, while Alberta limits regulators’ power to impose ideological training.

Professional bodies are supposed to regulate professions, not politics

The Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal has upheld the registrar’s refusal to exempt Janet Dickson from Te Kākano, a compulsory 90-minute course covering Māori language and development, the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori land.

The Real Estate Authority had already signalled that it intended to cancel her licence. Dickson now appears likely to lose the right to work in real estate after 30 years. There is no allegation that she acted incompetently or dishonestly in a property transaction, or harmed a client.

Dickson argued that the course was largely irrelevant to her work, politically biased and in conflict with her Christian beliefs.

The Authority said its purpose was to increase agents’ awareness and understanding of the perspectives Māori consumers might bring to transactions involving land.

The tribunal found that Dickson was not being required to renounce her beliefs or accept the course material as true. She was being required to listen to the culture, language and customs of another ethnic group and decide for herself what to make of it.

That answers whether the course formally required agreement. It does not answer the larger question raised by her case. When should a professional regulator be able to make attendance at culturally or politically contested instruction a condition of earning a living?

Reasonable people may consider Te Kākano useful. That is not the same as concluding that every real estate agent must complete it or risk losing their licence.

The point is not just that the penalty is excessive. It is that professional regulators should not have this kind of power at all.

Alberta has drawn a firmer line

At almost the same moment as the Dickson ruling, Alberta’s Regulated Professions Neutrality Act came into force for most regulated professions, including real estate brokers. Implementation is scheduled for later dates in some sectors.

The law addresses two related but distinct uses of regulatory power.

First, it prevents regulators from disciplining professionals for expressive conduct occurring outside their work, subject to narrow exceptions.

Those exceptions include threats of violence, misconduct involving professional boundaries, misuse of professional status with the intention of harming an identifiable person, certain sexual misconduct and conduct resulting in a criminal conviction.

Second, it limits compulsory education and training to matters of professional competence and ethics. It expressly prevents regulators from making cultural competency, unconscious bias or diversity, equity and inclusion training mandatory.

Alberta has not abolished professional discipline. Regulators retain their authority over incompetence, dishonesty, unethical conduct and behaviour occurring within professional practice.

What the province has done is draw a legal boundary around the use of licensing power to regulate private expression or compel participation in contested ideological instruction.

New Zealand changed the penalty, not the power

New Zealand has passed a considerably weaker reform.

The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Act 2026 received Royal assent in July. Its relevant real estate provisions take effect on 9 March 2027 and are not retrospective.

The amendment removes the mandatory five-year standdown that follows the cancellation of a licence for failure to complete continuing professional development (CPD).

It does not make CPD optional or prevent the Authority from cancelling a licence. The Real Estate Authority says cancellation will remain required, although agents will be able to reapply once they have completed their outstanding requirements.

For Dickson, the law does not protect her from the cancellation process now under way. Nor does it restrict what the Authority may include in compulsory professional development.

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has separately told the Authority that CPD requirements should be relevant to the work of real estate agents. She said publicly that Te Kākano did not meet that expectation. But a ministerial expectation is not a legal limit on regulatory power.

Another part of the 2026 legislation broadens the definition of unsatisfactory conduct beyond behaviour connected to a specific real estate transaction. That does not necessarily authorise punishment for private political speech, but it further demonstrates that the legislation was not designed as a professional-neutrality law.

Removing the standdown does not resolve the principle

Dickson challenged the compulsory course through the Authority and the High Court before seeking a review by the disciplinary tribunal.

The High Court found that the Authority had acted lawfully in making the course mandatory. The tribunal has now found that the registrar lawfully refused her application for an exemption.

A professional regulator’s proper role should be to protect clients and the public from incompetence, dishonesty, exploitation and genuine professional misconduct. It should not be able to transform disagreement with a cultural or political course into a threat to someone’s livelihood.

You do not have to share Dickson’s objections to recognise the danger. If regulators may determine which contested ideas professionals must engage with, the boundaries will depend on who controls the regulator and which ideas are currently in favour with the decision makers.

The concern extends beyond compulsory training

In New Zealand, ACT has adopted a policy intended to stop professional regulators from policing private beliefs.

The Free Speech Union and Hobson’s Pledge are supporting a proposed Regulated Professions Neutrality Bill based partly on cases involving Dickson and former MP and lawyer Stephen Franks.

A Law Society standards committee found that Franks had engaged in unsatisfactory conduct after he sent a letter on behalf of a client group to health practitioners involved in puberty blocker prescribing. That finding was later overturned.

The circumstances were different, but the underlying concern was similar.

Once professional complaints systems can be activated in response to lawful advocacy, the process itself sends a warning to others. A professional does not have to lose a licence for speech to be chilled. Investigation, legal expense, adverse publicity and career risk can be sufficient.

Regulators should stay in their lane

A New Zealand neutrality law should preserve discipline for actual professional misconduct.

It should not protect discrimination in service delivery, breaches of confidentiality, unsafe practice, dishonesty or the exploitation of professional authority.

It should require a genuine connection between the conduct being regulated and professional competence, ethics, clients or public safety.

The question is not whether Dickson could have sat through 90 minutes. It is whether a regulator should be able to put someone's decades-long career at risk to make them do so.

The Centrist is an online news platform that strives to provide a balance to the public debate - where this article was sourced.