2007 was another busy and productive year for the Committee.

The Committee hosted Steve Camage and Bevan Miles from PricewaterhouseCoopers. They provided interesting comments on practical issues relating to the independent contractor or employee legal status issue. The subjects of tax implications related to settlement/ exit payments and of Kiwisaver were also addressed.

The Committee also hosted a meeting with James Wilson, the Employment Relations Authority’s Chief, and three other authority members, Maria Urlich, Dzintra King and Robin Arther to discuss a range of issues about the Authority’s current practice and procedures.

The Committee is grateful to those Authority members for attending and the interesting discussions held.

We organised a Burning Issues forum in July which was well attended. The speakers included Chief Judge Colgan, Employment Relations Authority member Leon Robinson and Daniel Erickson. The Committee is grateful for the very informative addresses given by these speakers. The committee also helped to organise the ADLS employment law conference held mid-year.

In October the Committee held a bar dinner for employment law practitioners which was a very well attended and entertaining event.

Colleen Hicks, Practice Leader from Mediation Services addressed the committee on a variety of current issues Mediation Services has been working on, including development of a new departmental policy concerning the circumstances when mediators may decline to sign off of settlement agreements, new developments for an 0800 contact centre and mediation training workshops for mediators. A report of this was published in LawNews in December.