The University of Otago, supported by the New Zealand Law Foundation, organised a two-day colloquium on ‘40 Years of the Property (Relationships) Act: Reflection and Reform‘ in Auckland, New Zealand on 8 and 9 December 2016. Speakers included the leading academics and practitioners of New Zealand as well as three foreign experts: Miles, Scherpe and Patrick Parkinson (University of Sydney). Miles delivered two papers (‘Should the regime be discretionary or rule-based?’ and ‘Equality v. equity’), and Scherpe one (‘Contracting out of the default relationship property regime – comparative observations’). The colloquium was most timely, given that the NZ Law Commission (whose members attended the colloquium) is currently undertaking a major review of this area of law.
The papers of the symposium can be accessed at http://www.otago.ac.nz/law/conferences/pra_colloquium.html.
After the colloquium, Miles and Scherpe spoke as part of a panel at a public event at the Auckland University of technology (AUT) on ‘Reviewing the Property (Relationships) Act 1976: the major issues’, engaging with the public on their view for the need of law reform.