Senior Lawyer, Policy and Legislation - Wellington, Auckland or Christchurch

Location: Wellington, NZ

The Policy and Legislation team works collaboratively across MSD to advise on operational, policy and legislative matters, in a way which achieves the Ministry’s regulatory stewardship obligations.

As part of the Policy and Legislation team you will get the opportunity to work with talented colleagues that will support you to develop your skills as a Senior Lawyer while contributing to work that has a meaningful impact on the lives of New Zealanders.

Permanent full time positions available - Preferred location is Wellington but will consider Auckland and Christchurch for the right candidate.

As a Senior Lawyer in the Policy and Legislation Legal Team, you will play a key role in delivering high quality legal advice across MSD’s policy, legislative, and operational work.

Key responsibilities include:

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• Providing legal advice on a broad range of operational and public law matters
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• Supporting policy development and regulatory reform
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• Drafting secondary legislation, and working directly with the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office on the drafting of primary legislation
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• Identifying and managing legal risk across complex and politically sensitive matters
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• Ensuring MSD meets its legal and compliance obligations
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• Mentoring and supporting colleagues in MSD Legal
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This role will require you to work collaboratively with colleagues from across the Ministry as well as with Lawyers, Senior Lawyers and Principal Counsel within MSD Legal.

We are recruiting Senior Lawyers to contribute to MSD’s services for the future work programme, as well as a Senior Lawyer to contribute to the general work of the team.

MSD – services for the future is a multi-year programme to transform how MSD operates so we can deliver for New Zealanders and focus our resources and investment on the people who need it.

The programme will make significant changes to our underlying systems and introduce redesigned services that put people first. We’ll create better tools and processes for supporting people into employment, modernise our payment system and enable better ways of working with our social sector partners.

Our ideal candidate will have:

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• An understanding of legal, policy, and practice issues relevant to the Ministry’s business including the legislation MSD administers and works with.
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• Experience supporting policy and legislation development in the public service.
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• Proven ability to provide high-quality legal services within a complex political and regulatory environment.
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• The ability to work collaboratively with excellent relationship building skills.
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