PHOTO: Janet Dickson. FILE

A 90-minute professional development course has become a three-year legal battle. At some point, this stops being about tikanga and starts being about whether a licensed professional gets to choose which compulsory rules apply to them.

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There will be plenty of people prepared to defend real estate agent Janet Dickson.

Some will see her as standing up for freedom of conscience. Others will argue the Real Estate Authority went too far by making Te Kākano, a Māori tikanga course, compulsory professional development.

Those arguments deserve to be heard.

But Property Noise takes a different view.

Why the High Court Dismissed Janet Dickson’s Challenge to Mandatory Māori Course

She should lose her licence.

Not because she is Christian.

Not because she disagrees with aspects of Māori tikanga.

Not because she has expressed an unpopular opinion.

And certainly not because someone should be punished for questioning a regulator.

She should lose it for a much simpler reason:

Real estate is a regulated profession. The regulator imposed a lawful professional-development requirement. Dickson refused to complete it, challenged it through the legal system, lost, and still hasn’t complied.

At what point does personal disagreement stop trumping professional obligation?

Facebook goes NUTS over a kiwi real estate agent losing his license

This Was a 90-Minute Course

The controversy centres on Te Kākano (The Seed), introduced by the Real Estate Authority in 2023 as mandatory continuing professional development.

According to the NZ Herald/Open Justice report, the course lasted 90 minutes and contained three modules covering Māori language and development, the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori land.

Dickson sought an exemption.

She argued the course was largely irrelevant to real estate, politically biased, conflicted with her ethical and religious convictions and was delivered in a way she considered condescending.

The REA refused.

Dickson then took the fight further.

And further.

And further.

TV star/real estate agent loses licence for not completing Māori course

Three Years Fighting 90 Minutes

This wasn’t a situation where an agent received a demand on Friday and had her livelihood removed on Monday.

The dispute has dragged on for almost three years, passing through the Real Estate Authority, High Court and Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal.

Dickson sought judicial review in the High Court.

That challenge was dismissed.

She considered going to the Court of Appeal but ultimately abandoned that appeal.

Then came the exemption battle before the Tribunal.

She lost that too.

At some stage, a regulated profession has to be able to enforce its rules.

Otherwise, what exactly is the point of having a regulator?

You Don’t Have to Believe It

This is perhaps the most important distinction in the entire case.

Dickson’s lawyer argued that her rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act had not been properly considered.

That’s a serious argument.

But the REA’s position was that the course didn’t require Dickson to believe in Māori culture, adopt Māori beliefs or renounce Christianity.

Its lawyer told the Tribunal the purpose was to ensure agents understood perspectives Māori consumers might bring to transactions involving land.

And the Tribunal agreed.

Its conclusion was remarkably straightforward:

“She was not being required to renounce her beliefs.”

Instead, Dickson was being required to listen and learn about another group’s culture, language and customs. What she personally concluded from that learning remained up to her.

That distinction matters enormously.

Education isn’t indoctrination simply because you disagree with what’s being taught.

And Māori Land Is Hardly Irrelevant to NZ Real Estate

This is where the argument that the course had little relevance to real estate becomes particularly difficult to swallow.

We’re talking about selling land in New Zealand.

Māori land exists.

The Treaty of Waitangi exists.

Māori buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants and property owners exist.

An agent doesn’t need to agree with every interpretation of New Zealand history to understand that cultural awareness can be relevant when dealing with consumers and property.

Real estate agents undertake CPD because their job isn’t simply unlocking doors and putting signs on lawns.

They’re licensed professionals handling transactions involving people’s homes, land and enormous amounts of money.

If the regulator lawfully determines that a particular piece of knowledge forms part of professional development, an individual agent doesn’t ordinarily get to substitute:

“I don’t think that’s important.”

Imagine If Every Agent Could Do This

This case becomes much easier to understand if you remove Te Kākano from the equation.

Imagine compulsory CPD on:

Anti-money-laundering obligations.

An agent decides it’s unnecessary.

Disclosure.

Another agent considers the course biased.

Fair trading and advertising.

An agent says they’ve worked in real estate for 30 years and already know enough.

Professional conduct.

Someone objects to the philosophy behind the rules.

Do we simply exempt everyone?

Of course not.

A licensing system only functions when minimum standards are actually minimum standards.

Compulsory cannot mean compulsory only when you agree with it.

But Here’s Where Dickson Does Have a Point

There is an uncomfortable twist to this story.

The Government itself has subsequently questioned the regime.

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee said in February that Te Kākano did not meet her expectations that CPD should be relevant to the real estate profession.

Even more significantly, the Government has changed the legislation.

The previous five-year prohibition on obtaining another licence for people who failed to complete compulsory professional development has been removed.

But the change isn’t retrospective and doesn’t take effect until next year, meaning it doesn’t rescue Dickson.

That creates an undeniably strange situation.

The Government has effectively decided the regulatory framework needed changing.

Yet Dickson remains caught under the old rules.

Her supporters will understandably call that unfair.

And there’s a legitimate debate to be had about whether regulators should be able to impose CPD requirements that stray too far from the practical business they regulate.

Property Noise thinks that debate should happen.

But it is separate from whether Dickson complied with the rules that lawfully applied to her licence.

Thirty Years in Real Estate Doesn’t Give You a Veto

Dickson says she has poured her heart into real estate for more than 30 years.

The prospect of losing a career after that long is undeniably significant.

She has also spoken about the immense personal toll of the proceedings and the recent death of her husband.

Nobody should take pleasure in that.

But length of service cannot create a different licensing standard.

If anything, experienced agents should understand better than anyone that the privilege of holding a professional licence comes with obligations.

You don’t own your licence.

You maintain the right to hold it by meeting its requirements.

This Has Become Bigger Than Te Kākano

The great irony is that this dispute could have been over in 90 minutes.

Dickson could have completed the course.

She didn’t have to like it.

She didn’t have to endorse it.

She didn’t have to change her religion.

She could even have completed it and then publicly campaigned to have it removed from the CPD programme.

Instead, a 90-minute course became a three-year battle involving lawyers, regulators, the High Court, the Tribunal, politicians and potentially the end of a 30-year career.

That’s her right.

Challenging government power through the courts is an important part of democracy.

But exercising your right to challenge a regulation doesn’t guarantee you the right to win.

Dickson challenged it.

The High Court rejected her judicial review.

The Tribunal has now upheld the registrar’s decision not to grant her an exemption.

Property Noise: Cancel the Licence

The Real Estate Authority reportedly wrote to Dickson last month signalling its intention to cancel her licence.

Our view?

Do it.

Not vindictively.

Not as punishment for her beliefs.

And not because disagreement with Māori tikanga should somehow disqualify somebody from selling real estate.

Cancel it because professional licensing means something.

You cannot have thousands of agents complying with compulsory professional development while another agent simply refuses and expects an individual exemption because she fundamentally disagrees with the content.

If Dickson ultimately succeeds through a further appeal, then the regulator must abide by that decision.

That’s how the system works.

Until then, the existing decisions stand.

There Is a Bigger Question for the REA Too

The REA shouldn’t emerge from this without scrutiny either.

If the Government has now changed the consequences of failing CPD and its own Associate Justice Minister has questioned whether the course was sufficiently relevant to real estate, then the industry deserves a serious conversation about how much power professional regulators should have over compulsory education.

Regulators should regulate.

They shouldn’t become political organisations.

CPD should have demonstrable relevance to protecting consumers and improving professional standards.

That’s a perfectly legitimate debate.

But there’s an equally important principle on the other side:

Agents don’t get to individually decide which lawful licensing requirements apply to them.

Otherwise, professional regulation becomes optional.

And if holding a real estate licence ultimately means:

“I’ll follow the rules I agree with,”

then perhaps you shouldn’t hold the licence at all.

What do YOU think?

Should Janet Dickson lose her real estate licence for refusing to complete compulsory professional development?

Or has the REA gone far too far over a 90-minute course that the Government itself subsequently questioned?

🔥 This one will divide the industry. Have your say.