Faafoi Kris: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13652. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is my pleasure to take the final call I think on the Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill to consolidate the thoughts of my colleagues on this bill. I will start with the bill because that is what you probably want me to do. As my colleague David Clark mentioned it is a very thin bill and the main part of it is in clause 4 which amends section 35 of the parent legislation. For those at home who might be watching because they are very interested in this debate the bill does change the amount of time after which a film can be first made available from 9 months to 5 months and it also makes sure that the legislation which expires on 31 October 2013 is extended to 31 October 2016. So that is in essence what is within this bill.It is a bill that has finely balanced support from the Labour Party members because although we disagree with some of the arguments made by the Government and the industry we have some concerns around the viability of smaller independent cinemas in areas outside of the main centres and also in rural areas. My colleague Clare Curran was earlier on rattling off a number of cinemas in areas around the country and she failed to mention one that is in my electorate which is the Light House Cinema atPāuatahanui. It is a lovely spot. If Mr Macindoe would like to visit some time I would quite happily take him to the movies.Tim Macindoe: I’d love to. If you’re paying I’ll be there.KRIS FAAFOI: You can take that up if you like. But the cinema is in a rural area of my electorate and it is one of these—Tim Macindoe: I haven’t seenMr Pip yet. Is it on?KRIS FAAFOI: I am not sure whetherMr Pip is on there. It is one of those independent cinemas that probably show morearthouse movies but from time to time it shows popular movies that we would see in some of the bigger chains like—does Hoyts still exist; it has been a long time since I have been to the movies—or the Reading Cinemas that you might see in central Wellington. It is what you would call a “destination cinema”; you go there because it is a bit different. There was concern from a number of these independent cinemas around the country and that is why we on this side of the Chamber—I think Clare Curran used the word “grudgingly”—have agreed to support this legislation to ensure that there is a period of grace for those smaller independent cinemas to be able to make the transition to using more digital technology and also be able to change their business model. I think that is also the case for some of the larger cinema operators.As I think Grant Robertson mentioned we do have some concerns that although this bill does address some issues around this industry does it really take a bigger-picture look at the copyright issues that we are faced with because of the rapid development of technology that we have at the moment? The Government did I think commit to a review of copyright and instead of doing that and following through with it it has decided to I guess you could say meet the requests of the larger cinema operators just to push the extension date out to 31 October 2016 and make sure that there is still a grace period even though it is changing from 9 months to 5 months. We do as I say have finely balanced support for this bill on those two points but it is very very guarded because we do think that it is the last chance for the cinema industry to make the changes it needs to make to the business model and to make sure that it is adapting to the digital technology that currently exists.We also had some concerns around this because of the way that the cinema industry is operating. We thought there was a degree of protectionism here because it wants a delay in the release on DVD of some movies. We believe that that was causing some cinemas to charge what we call—I think David Clark was talking about it—unreasonable prices to go to the movies. That was making it much more costly for Kiwi families to have an outing to the cinema and if the public was not able to legally obtain the material after it had been released elsewhere in the world they would get hold of it in some other illegal manner through the internet. That was another concern that we had on this side of the Chamber.We think that the time frame given to cinemas to change which at the moment is to the end of October 2016 is a little lenient. We believe that maybe to 2015 is plenty of time for them to make the innovative changes that they need to make in terms of technology. We hope that maybe some cinema operators will not take the full 3 years and may be able to make the transition to fully digital and also change their business models well before that. But as we say we think that 2 years is certainly enough time for them to change their ways.This bill and the need for more urgency around it have come about because of the changing technology. Back in the days when we watched our first movies—Grant Robertson has talked about being kicked out of a cinema for rollingjaffas and I understand that David Clark’s first movie was the second in theStar WarsseriesThe Empire Strikes Back and he has spoken about that at length in his contributions—when a movie was released it took years to get to New Zealand. But with the way that the internet operates at the moment you can almost instantly get a movie when it is released somewhere else. That makes it a bit of a farce we believe on this side of the Chamber that there is a delay in movies being shown at cinemas when they are released somewhere else in the world for I guess you could say their world premieres. We do not believe that the movie industry here has adapted enough to be able to move fast enough. It still needs protection for that first 5 months in this bill—it was that first 9 months in the previous Act—before those movies can be shown or sold on DVD here in New Zealand. Times have changed and that is why we believe that this legislation should change to meet the technology changes and the rapid increases in technology.As I say we do give this finely balanced support qualified support. We want to make sure that the big chains more or less move faster to adapt to the changes in technology and as I say—I will make this point again—to make sure that they change their technology and change their business model to one that works more fairly for consumers. But our support for this legislation is to protect the smaller operators in rural areas like the Light House Cinema inPāuatahanui Porirua and those outside the main areas. It is those cinema operators that stand to lose either quite a lot of money or their whole operation because they simply would not have the time or the wherewithal to beable to respond to the changes in the legislation. So we do support the bill in a qualified way. We understand that this will keep some of those smaller independent operators above water.Clause 1 agreed to.Clause 2 agreed to.Clause 3 agreed to.Clause 4 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.