Real estate agent’s registration revoked after she refused to take te ao Māori CPD course
New Zealand’s Court of Appeal has refused permission to intervene in a real estate agent’s appeal arising from her registration’s cancellation after she declined to undergo a te ao Māori course as part of her continuing professional development (CPD).
In Dickson v Real Estate Agents Authority, [2025] NZCA 404, the appellant was a licenced real estate agent who refused to take the 90-minute CPD course called “Te Kākano.” The Real Estate Agents Authority (REAA) decided to cancel her licence.
The appellant applied for judicial review of this decision. She claimed that the following were invalid:
New Zealand’s High Court dismissed the appellant’s judicial review application.
On appeal, she alleged that the High Court made errors in seeing no infringement of her rights to free expression, thought, conscience, and religion in ss 13 and 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA) and finding any infringement justified.
The Free Speech Union (New Zealand) Inc applied for leave to intervene under r 48(1)(a)(ii) of the Court of Appeal (Civil) Rules 2005. It argued that:
The Court of Appeal of New Zealand dismissed the application seeking leave to intervene and made no cost order, as agreed. The appeal court had four reasons to deny the application.
First, the appeal court ruled that the senior counsel acting for the appellant, the REAA, and the registrar could capably address the interaction between the facts of this case and the appellant’s NZBORA rights to the extent that the arguments went beyond the particular facts.
The appeal court noted that this appeal revolved around the primary issue of statutory interpretation.
Second, the appeal court held that the union’s summary of its intended submission largely overlapped with the appellant’s submission in the High Court and would not likely add anything that the parties would not thoroughly canvass.
Third, the appeal court determined that the union inappropriately relied on jurisprudence abroad to support its intervention application, given that New Zealand’s well-established intervention criteria required no expansion.
Fourth, the appeal court saw nothing suggesting that the union had exceptional experience permitting it to provide assistance to the court beyond the parties’ capabilities.
