Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party will not be supporting this legislation and will continue to oppose it. We're at the third reading of the Screen Industry Workers Bill—I suppose just another example of a Government that never seems to be interested in thinking about our international competitiveness and how we make a living in this country. Here we are at a time we look around the world—a dangerous time geopolitically but also very treacherous conditions economically seeing dollars plunging and falling slow growth high inflation cost of living pressures. Under all that the general conclusion that most sensible people would come to is that this is a time when we need to be concentrating on building our economic strength as a country looking for new ways to succeed internationally and globally focusing on our international competitiveness and on our productivity so that we're fit to fight so that we can foot it with the best in the world.But instead of doing that what we see time and time again from this Government is an obsession or a focus on helping out their friends in the union and adding costs and complications wherever you go. We're in the middle of the fair pay agreements crisis situation which is going to introduce an enormous amount of rigidity and complications to our labour market relations at a time when we need to be more flexible and agile and responsive than ever and this legislation dealing with a specific area in the screen industry is of the same ilk.Let's just go back—it's slapdash legislation in the whole approach to it because it was introduced by Iain Lees-Galloway. I don't know if people can remember Iain Lees-Galloway; he was an interesting rooster. The former Minister came in introduced this in a flurry in early 2017—no was it 2020; 2020 I think it was—and then we rushed off to a select committee in a shortened period of the select committee so we didn't hear from everybody as long as we would've liked because this was a great urgent thing that Mr Iain Lees-Galloway was going to introduce and do even though there was no great problem that they were trying to fix. The legislative arrangement that the previous National Government had come to in 2010 to keep the Hobbit films happening in New Zealand which most people enjoyed—it was great entertainment; we loved it. The industry's working pretty well. But this manufactured crisis a little bit like this kind of manufactured crisis that we have in why we need to merge Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and TVNZ—nobody can quite understand why; it's not obvious to anybody why we need to be doing this why this is a big focus. But anyway that's $370 million - odd they'll just do that; why not? This legislation again you know—what's the great crisis that they're needing to deal with? Nothing really other than that the unions want it.So Iain Lees-Galloway he brought it in rushed through the select committee stage and then suddenly woomph—it just fell into the freezer and they forgot about it for three years. It was during the period of Kris Faafoi's long snooze when nothing much happened. He was resting. He was recuperating and focusing on other things. Nothing happened. Lost interest lost his way—a bit like how they lost their way on law and order and a whole bunch of things. Everything just sort of slid for a little while.And then what happens is we have the re-emergence of an ideologue of the left—Michael Wood. He took up the role and he of course is very determined to push through everything he possibly can. He came over the horizon there ready to defend and protect and strengthen union rights at every step. So we've got the fair pay agreement ripping through the House—again a solution looking for a problem adding costs adding rigidity making it more difficult particularly actually for small businesses. Great for the big businesses that get to construct all this sort of stuff; very difficult for the small businesses. So he's pushing all that through and at the same time this piece of legislation is coming through.And it comes at a difficult time for the industry of course because they've been through like everybody else extraordinary difficulties around the COVID restrictions which have seen us lose a number of productions; big difficulties around the lack of immigration or the difficult immigration system that we've got—this Government's determined to make it difficult for people to get in. So like every industry they're struggling to get people to turn up and to be the workers. So that's complicated.They're also trying to figure out what this TVNZ-RNZ merger means for them and their industry. So there's a lot of complication around that. And they're also struggling with overall costs like every—you know whether it's the fuel that they need to get the buses and trucks to the production site whether it's the chicken sandwiches; everything's more expensive. So they're dealing with all that and they're also trying to navigate their way in a highly internationally competitive industry. So when all that is going on what is the last thing they need? The last thing they need is a completely different new industrial relations process which introduces collective bargaining to an industry that has never had that before and has to set up a whole lot of new procedures. The poor old Screen Production and Development Association of NZ has to get into negotiating around collective agreements. There's all sorts of additional work complication difficulty and opportunities for tension and discord within the industry—a return potentially to the real discord that we had back in 2010 when a bunch of Australian unionists came over and stirred things up. So that is the real risk.So many people are asking What on earth are we doing this for?" and the only obvious answer is that Michael Wood being an ideologue being very keen to do everything he can to strengthen the power of the unions is determined to do this. So we don't support it. We don't think it will help. We don't see the burning platform here. All we see is it's just another example of a Government that does not seem to recognise the relationship between adding costs regulatory uncertainty and confusion and extra layers of complication—how that flows through to the cost structure of our society which feeds through ultimately to cost of living pressures but also a lack of international competitiveness for our country.And you know you can roll your eyes on the other side of the House you can be dismissive of it but ultimately as a small trading nation our international competitiveness matters because we're a long way away from the rest of the world. If you're looking at it from the point of view of Hollywood or somewhere else—"Where are we going to invest our money? Are we going to do it here or there or elsewhere?"—New Zealand is not the easiest option. We're a long way away. We're a long way—yes we do have pretty mountains. We're not the only country in the world that has pretty mountains I'm bound to point out. We're not the only country in the world that has nice forests and lakes. There are other places that have nice forests and lakes as well and they have snowy mountains there. We seem to be somewhat complacent about how we operate in the world that we operate. It is a highly competitive world and we need to be doing everything we can to ensure our industries are agile and able to respond.Now we've had a pretty successful industry in that sense and this bill won't help—in fact it'll make it harder. I don't think the purpose of Government should be to make things more difficult for industries in New Zealand who are trying to foot it with the best in the world and to provide opportunities for New Zealanders and of course who work hard to provide the entertainment that we all look forward to in an industry that gives New Zealanders the thrills that they have and the stories that they like to celebrate and everything that is positive about the screen industry.So you know we here on this side of the House stand behind the industry. We want them to succeed; we want them to do well. We want them to be internationally competitive and we want them to succeed and continue to entertain and to delight us. What we don't want to do is make life more difficult for them and this bill will do precisely that."