Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15042] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 The very first thing I want to say is that the Labour Party is thrilled that at the end of all this the 
 Hobbit 
 film will be made in New Zealand. When we left Government it was a firm expectation of the country that the 
 Hobbit  
film would be made and it would be made in New Zealand. 
Two members who are very close to me represent electorates with a high level of interest in the film being made here. I am sure they are both very pleased. Both the member for Waikato and the member for Rongotai have pushed very very strongly for it. I think it is fair to say that the member with the most technical knowledge in this area going back quite a long time is the member for Wellington Central who was actively involved in making sure that the film industry and broadcasting generally thrived in New Zealand well before he was a member of Parliament. So members here are very very pleased that a solution has been found. 
But we are still very unhappy about this approach and the fact that the situation had to come to a crisis for it to be sorted. If one looks at a  
Dominion Post 
 of July of 2009 one sees an article by Greer McDonald indicating that the industry was in a fragile state. Then in December last year Peter Jackson was warning of the loss of blockbuster films being made here unless the incentives scheme was adjusted to make it appropriate for modern times. The Government has known ever since it came in—it knew from the briefing papers it received—that there needed to be a more or less annual look at the arrangements. It is not always about more money; sometimes it is about looking at money being spent in different ways at different times or on different areas. And that is what the Labour Government did. 
I thought we got in to a pretty virtuous cycle where we would regularly have consultations in New Zealand with New Zealand film makers. Often New Zealand film makers would have discussions with film industry people in the United States while they were over there they would come back to New Zealand we would have some more discussions and then we would either do nothing or do something. Most years we made some sort of change in order to stay up with modern times. We would look at what had happened internationally not in order to be driven by it but to find out whether we were getting good value for money and whether some small tweaks—often tweaks that did not cost anything—could make a difference. Sometimes they were around incentives and sometimes they were around immigration. On occasion that was important. Some of it was around timing entry requirements and things like that. And in December 2009 Peter Jackson—he was not a Sir at the time—made it very very clear that the Government needed to catch up in order to get this sorted. 
All of us will be looking at the details. I want to put on record that I am very sorry that the Government has announced X million dollars in particular incentives but has not detailed what those incentives are or the method for their allocation which means that other people cannot apply. That is not a good approach to decision making. It is not a good approach to having an even playing field for Kiwi film makers as well as film makers from the United States. It is clearly a result of the panicked approach that the Government has taken. 
I think this legislation and this approach to Government from National exemplify the chaotic approach to Cabinet decision-making that John Key leads and the fact that a number of his Ministers are not on top of the job. Mr Brownlee clearly did not stay in touch with the US film industry in the way that was necessary. Mr English the Minister of Finance as recently as 10 days ago ruled out any more money or any law changes in order to satisfy Warner Bros. We had Mr Brownlee indicate in an answer to my friend and colleague Keith Locke that this legislation is not being introduced at the behest of Warner Bros yet we had Mr Joyce indicate that Warner Bros dictated it. I do not know which one of them is telling the truth but they cannot all be because the stories are 180 degrees diametrically opposed to each other and are inconsistent. Again I think that is a result of the Government’s decision-making methods. 
I now want to focus on an area that I as a former Minister of Labour am very very concerned about. When I was in that position I had responsibility for the department in the oversight of small parts of two of our free-trade arrangements. There was P4 which is the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement involving Brunei Singapore Chile and New Zealand and the China free-trade agreement. There has been a lot more focus on the latter one over time but they are both important. The language in both are similar although I want to make it clear to the House that to be fair the language in the Chinese arrangement is stronger from a New Zealand perspective. It is similar but stronger. In the China - New Zealand free-trade agreement the memorandum of understanding on labour cooperation is described as a side document. It was signed before the free-trade agreement was signed. Both the environment one and the labour one were my responsibilities and they were signed hours as it happened before the main documents were signed in China. We signed these ones off here and as people are aware the Prime Minister and others went to China to sign the free-trade agreement. 
I am one of the people who take contractual undertakings seriously and that memorandum of understanding is a contractual undertaking. It says that the parties—in this case New Zealand and China; in the other case it is New Zealand Chile Brunei and Singapore—recognise that it is “inappropriate to encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic labour laws regulations policies and practices.” I want to say that in my opinion we have breached that. I am absolutely certain that the AFL-CIO or the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations which Tim Groser has been working with along with the New Zealand labour movement in order to get them onside for a free-trade agreement with the US will say that this legislation weakens labour laws in order to get investment in the form of  
The Hobbit 
 being made here. And they will be right. I think the Government has taken its eye off the ball. It has panicked it has been shaken down and this legislation is an unnecessary result of that. 
I want to make a few comments in conclusion. I think the whole episode has been unfortunate. As a number of my colleagues have said I previously had a role in this kind of matter and during this process I gave advice to my colleagues basically to shut up. I said that if I was a Minister involved in this sort of negotiation and debate I would appreciate a “New Zealand Incorporated” response from Parliament at least. That is the approach we took. We gave the Government the chance to get it sorted. We were not critical during that process; we were reserving for now our views. The labour problem was resolved on 14 October and on 18 October US time there was an email from Warner Bros to show that that was the case. It is available; I think the Leader of the House has seen it as have a number of other people. So this problem was sorted 2 weeks ago. We are left with a sour taste in our mouth. The Council of Trade Unions has done a good job. In my opinion it is the role of Sir Peter Jackson now to take some leadership to sort this out and to rebuild relationships.