Ardern Jacinda: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11461. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill. I appreciate the engagement of the Minister of Broadcasting in recent weeks over this particular issue. It is fair to say that as the Minister has already pointed out Labour supports this bill and I will run through in the brief time that I have left available before the dinner break a bit of background about this bill—Hon Trevor Mallard: 5 minutes after it.JACINDA ARDERN: —and for the period afterwards of course.I did just want to say that although Labour supports this bill we have proactively engaged with the Minister to get to this point. We had some initial concerns that this might not have been the outcome and we were seeking this particular outcome for now. This process I think it is fair to say would have been smoother Minister if perhaps we were not debating this one in urgency. I know that that may not have been what you were necessarily seeking when you took it to your esteemed colleague the Leader of the House but given that we now have this in an urgency motion that will bring with it some complications just in terms of our continuing to make sure that we debate it in full as we are entitled to do with this process. But that does not lessen the degree to which we support the notion of what we are doing within this bill. A bit more time with the bill would have also been helpful and appreciated. Although as I have said we support the content we have not seen the content in writing till just now. I am literally just opening this bill as we speak but I take the Minister on his word that it is as discussed an extension of the Copyright Act 1994 to allow a temporary ban on parallel importing.Just to go back to the beginning in 2003 as I understand it Labour introduced a 5-year temporary ban that prohibited the commercial import of a film for a period of 9 months from the film first being made available to the public. There is a very explicit reason for this and it is very much based around the motion picture industry—in particular our small cinemas that many of us may have frequented over the years. I particularly want to highlight the ones in some of our smaller towns and provincial areas that really do rely on the ability to at least get a first foot in the door when itcomes to a release. The staging of releases is pretty important to remember: something that is released in the United States for instance that is timed around a school holiday period does not naturally coincide with that period within New Zealand. So having that little buffer period for that industry as it claims is the difference between 165 jobs existing or not. Let us be really clear on that. That is work that PricewaterhouseCoopers has done on behalf of the industry to demonstrate that a loss of that window would have that effect.Let us be clear though: the industry does have to move with the times. Things are changing and rapidly. So that is why as I understand this bill will put an expiry date of 2016. It also reduces the window from a period of 9 months which is what we currently have down to 5 months. That is a compromise that we feel very comfortable with. This is a message I guess to the industry that this is unlikely to be a tenable long-term way of maintaining its ability to stay in front of the game in a digital age. This is as it were extra time for the industry to try to develop where it goes next in the same way that the music industry is doing—and has started doing a very good job of it I must add. So too does this industry have to start looking at that and much more rapidly as well. This bill will allow it the time to do that. It will allow those jobs to be retained while the industry works on how it tries to ensure that it remains viable in the future.So that is the reason that Labour will be supporting this bill. We are pleased that the Minister has listened to the feedback of those who have an interest in it and we look forward to debating—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Debate interrupted.