Rurawhe AdrianSCREEN INDUSTRY WORKERS BILLSecond ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Screen Industry Workers Bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and may be found on the Parliament website.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move That the Screen Industry Workers Bill be now read a second time. I'm very pleased to bring this bill back to the House about two years since the select committee concluded its considerations of the original piece of legislation. That time of course has been somewhat extended by the exigencies of COVID-19 and various disruptions to the proceedings of the House and the energies of officials. But I am pleased to bring the bill back today and also to report that the additional time has enabled us to make further refinements to the bill to ensure that it can be as effectively implemented as possible. I note that I will be the third Minister to oversee this bill and in particular I do want to acknowledge the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway who was the Minister who introduced this piece of legislation to the House and set up the work of the Film Industry Working Group who designed the principles that sit in behind this piece of legislation. I also wish to thank the select committee from the previous Parliament who considered this bill. They heard I think about 200 submissions and I think it produced a very useful report back for the House to consider at this time.Finally in terms of recognition and thanks I do wish to thank and acknowledge members of the Film Industry Working Group who sat back in 2018 to design a new structure after what had been a very divisive period in the sector. So if I can thank all the groups that participated in the process including Business New Zealand the Directors and Editors Guild of Aotearoa New Zealand Equity New Zealand Film in Auckland and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) the New Zealand Writers Guild Ngā Aho Whakaari Regional Film Offices in NZ the Screen Industry Guild of Aotearoa New Zealand the Screen Production and Development Association the Stunt Guild and Weta Digital.New Zealand's screen sector is one that we can be really proud of. It's one that has grown significantly over recent decades which is a significant contributor to jobs and economic development and which also helps to present New Zealand to the world. It's a sector that we all want to see succeed and successive Governments in different ways have provided support to ensure that happens. But in my view and the view of the Government there is one real blot on the sector in recent years—not one of the sector's making but one of the previous Government's making. That was the changes made in 2010 by the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Act sometimes commonly referred to as the Hobbit law" but I don't want to besmirch the reputation of hobbits by associating them with that in my speech.That piece of legislation was rammed through the House by the previous Government in urgency. I note some considerable irony at the moment in that I've just had a number of months in which accusations that the Government's fair pay agreement programme which supports greater collective bargaining somehow breaches International Labour Organization (ILO) rights—something that the ILO categorically did not agree with when it heard that complaint. Yet here we have a piece of legislation put in place by the previous Government which through urgency removed the fundamental rights of workers in the screen sector to be able to collectively bargain. That piece of legislation explicitly targeted this group of workers and removed their ability to be considered employees under the Act. Furthermore it removed their ability to seek relief through the Employment Relations Authority or the courts to test the status of their employment. That was a Draconian and unjustified piece of legislation that was divisive and it is most certainly a matter of concern to the International Labour Organization who have consistently raised their concerns about that with me and with New Zealand's officials over the years. That's a bit of a history and a bit about why we're here.So what did our Government do when it came into office and picked up this issue? The approach that our Government took under the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway was to try and work constructively with the range of different interests in the sector to positively overcome the problem through a good process good relationships and a focus on fundamentally solving the problem. That was the genesis of the 2018 Film Industry Working Group that was established in the previous term of our Government. It basically was set up under two core principles. The first was: how can we find a way within the system to enable collective bargaining to occur in a way that is consistent with the rights of workers in virtually any other sector while at the same time ensuring that production companies had the level of certainty that they felt they needed to be able to pursue their projects? That Film Industry Working Group was set up to have a very collaborative and inclusive process. I understand the discussions were often robust but they were always very very respectful.There were four key principles that the group agreed upon early on: that all parties in the sector need to act in good faith and not mislead or deceive each other; that there should be protection from bullying discrimination and harassment in the sector—and we have seen real examples of that illustrated over the years—that the engagement of workers in the sector must be fair and reasonable and particularly that must apply if and when contracts are terminated; and that there should be fair rates of pay and conditions that can be determined via collective bargaining as well. What is most impressive about this process is that—and I read out the members of the group before which ranged from Business New Zealand the CTU the producers the unions and the guilds—not only did they constructively work through these issues together but they unanimously recommended back to the Government a way through that would restore collective bargaining rights to workers in the sector. That is why I take my hat off to that group—because they demonstrated what a high-quality tripartite process can be where employers unions and the Government sit down in good faith and solve problems in a way that is consistent with everyone's rights and everyone's aspirations. In this case they did it and I think that's excellent.The legislation that's before us provides for workers' terms and conditions to be covered by occupational-level collective bargaining by enterprise-level collective bargaining and by individual agreements. There will still be capacity within the system for individual agreements to be reached provided they do not fall below the levels that are established by occupational-level collective bargaining or enterprise-level collective bargaining respectfully. Effectively within the legislation there is something of a grand bargain in which workers will end up retaining the contractor status which is in the current framework but collective bargaining will be enabled to ensure that those workers can have a real voice and to ensure that there can be fair pay and conditions and redress built into the system and that is what has been recommended to us.As I said those recommendations were made in late 2018—so some time ago now—and a subgroup of the Film Industry Working Group have continued to work with officials from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to develop the legislation as it's gone through drafting to deal with a range of smaller issues that have emerged as the legislation has been considered further and I really really want to thank them for that work.The Government has primarily picked up on all of the recommendations in a slightly narrower way so the bill will apply in particular to productions that have an international component to them. The select committee has reported back a very good report back and does have a range of improvements to the bill including stronger protections around freedom of association which are more closely aligned with the Employment Relations Act; stronger provisions around workers getting advice on their contracts and working them through in good faith; and some clarification around where it is appropriate and where it is not appropriate for bargaining fees to apply in respect of collective bargaining that occurs under the Act.I do also signal to the House that when the bill comes through the committee stage I will be bringing forward a Supplementary Order Paper that will mainly deal with a range of small changes to the bill to ensure its workability and these reflect a range of issues and discussions that have occurred with the Film Industry Working Group subgroup over the past year or two. One more substantive change that I will be proposing at that point is that the commencement period will be extended from one month to three months and that is simply to give all the parties involved a little bit more time to set themselves up for what will be quite a different formal way of working together and establishing employment terms and conditions.We've heard from the Opposition previously that they won't be supporting this piece of legislation and I think that's a shame. This bill is as I say a bargain between the producers and the workers working together to try and get a collaborative system in place that moves us on from that very very divisive period we had previously where fundamental rights were stripped away from workers. It is absolutely supported by the screen industry itself who have been engaged in this process in the same way that it is supported by unions and guilds who are involved. It preserves flexibility but it ensures that workers have the right to have their voice heard as well.This is a great piece of legislation. It is consistent with our Government's ambition to have workplaces that are fair safe and productive and it is the tripartite process at its best. I commend the bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."