Curran Clare: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Curran Clare: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14993] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 This is the first opportunity that I have had to take a call on this bill the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill. I will talk about the title clause which as a number of my colleagues have said is very misleading. 
First of all I say that I love  
The Hobbit 
. Everyone loves  
The Hobbit 
. I have read it at least twice. I ask those members who have not read  
The Hobbit 
 to put up their hands. Ah there are a few members who have not read  
The Hobbit 
. Of course not only have I read  
The Hobbit 
 but also most of us who have children would have read  
The Hobbit 
 to our children. My children liked  
The Hobbit 
 so much that in January they applied to be extras on  
The Hobbit 
. They have not heard back yet. I would have applied to be an extra on  
The Hobbit 
 too except I cannot quite picture myself as a hobbit; I am more of an elf. There are quite a few people in this Chamber who look like hobbits or goblins trolls dark lords and all those sorts of things—not on this side of the Chamber though. 
I would like to talk about a number of alternative titles tonight. Because everyone wanted  
The Hobbit 
 to be made in New Zealand a good title for this bill is “Everyone Does Want  
The Hobbit  
To Be Made in New Zealand Bill” and that is not the issue. But what it has resulted in is the “Rushed Botched and Unnecessary Legislation Bill” which is another alternative title for the bill. This bill as we know will remove protections for many workers in the film industry. It is bad law. It is resulting in uncertainty so it is the “Resulting in Uncertainty in the Film Industry Bill”. 
I have another alternative title. I refer to the former Australian Prime Minister and Treasurer Paul Keating. He famously warned in May 1986 that if Australia did not get manufacturing going again and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy it would end up being a third-rate economy—a banana republic. I know that a number of my colleagues have referred to a banana republic tonight and again that is an alternative title for the bill: “The Banana Republic Bill”. 
Paul Keating said that Australia needed strong and coherent economic policy which is what we do not have in this country right now. We do not need knee-jerk reactions and kowtowing to foreign capital. What kind of a country are we becoming where the rights of groups of workers are being sold off to satisfy the whim of big corporate interests? Maybe that is an alternative title: “The Rights of Groups of Workers Being Sold Off to Satisfy the Whims of Big Corporate Interests Bill” or as my colleague Parekura Horomia said “The Break Down in Relationships between Workers and Employers Bill” could be an alternative title for the bill. 
I will mention that reporting from overseas is already exclaiming at the power that a big corporate can wield over a small nation. There has been some interesting international coverage and I will read a quote from  
The 
Hollywood Reporter 
 that stated a few days ago: “However the question on the minds of observers is whether this studio will also seek and extract from the government higher production incentives than the existing 15% Large Budget Screen Production Grant. If so the result would be a dramatic demonstration of the power a mediate conglomerate can assert over a small nation desperate to retain a $500 million production. One measure of the gravity of the situation is the contention by currency analysts that the continuing uncertainty had helped drive down the value of the New Zealand dollar.” That is an overseas organisation reporting on this situation. 
We have also heard employment law specialists criticising the Government’s plan—in particular Professor Nigel Haworth from the University of Auckland business school. He did not see a need for the change in the law which could also be an alternative title for this bill. There is no need for a change in the law.