Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14964] 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 I say that Trevor Mallard’s amendment will not be agreed to. It is stupid and it is fatuous. 
Sometimes it is very clear where fault lies and where the jury of public opinion thinks it lies. More important the jury of the people in the industry knows where the fault lies. It is absolutely clear who the offenders are. This is one of those cases. Unfortunately Labour due to its ideological blinkers cannot see that fact. The fault here lies with the unions. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Wayne was in the Labour Party. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: One of the reasons I left was because of the unions in fact. In this instance the unions were totally at fault. They caused this. They have caused the disruption they have destroyed the certainty and we have had to act. What is the evidence for that? I have to say it is pretty clear. Sir Peter Jackson was in no doubt. He said that the first indication he got of this was a global boycott of these two movies. There was no discussion and there were no negotiations; just the indication a clear statement of a global boycott. Meetings up in Auckland run by Jennifer Ward-Lealand who I have to say disappeared out of this pretty quick and Robyn Malcolm who I have to say was a bit slower to leave organised this global boycott which was orchestrated by the Australian union. In that circumstance the world had changed. It was no good talking about the previous 5 years or the previous 10 years the world had changed due to as Peter Jackson himself said the triggering of the nuclear option—do that and one changes things fundamentally. Labour fundamentally refuses to recognise that if certainty is destroyed then an industry is destroyed and we came perilously close to that in this particular instance. So we have had to fix that up. 
Labour members say and I have heard a number of them say it today that they support  
The Hobbit  
being filmed in New Zealand. On one level I guess they do; at an emotional level I guess they do. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Theoretically. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Theoretically. But are Labour members willing to do anything practical? Are they willing to do the key things that have to be done to ensure that these movies come to New Zealand? Well no they are not. Labour members might say in a theoretical sense they support the film industry but in a practical sense they do not support the billion dollar movies not the $100 million movies not the $50 million movies and not in fact these little videos that have been just referred to. On the big issues on the day Labour will be judged by the public to be against the 
 Hobbit 
 movies because it has not supported the key thing that matters in this instance. 
I have read the Three Foot Six judgment in which the court said “It was not open to the Court to reach a decision that had general application to the film industry.” So even though the court recognised that its decision would cause trouble for the industry it had no choice under Labour’s law but to rule in the way it did. That is because the 2000 Employment Relations Act required the courts to ignore what was written down in the documents and follow other indicators which were largely drawn from the Income Tax Act as to whether there would be an independent contract or a dependent contract situation. The old law had the virtue of certainty. The one thing that business absolutely requires is certainty especially global businesses and especially when the wreckers of the union movement have destroyed that certainty. 
This Government is about to restore certainty one way or another. We have said to the people in the industry that they have a choice. If they choose to be independent contractors then that choice will bind them which always used to be the law before the 2000 Act and which was recognised by the Supreme Court itself. If people choose to be employees then that will also bind them and that has consequences as well. I ask Labour members what is wrong with that. What is wrong with people having a clear choice? There is the independent contract on the one hand and the employee contract on the other. What is wrong with that? There is a clear choice and effectively a situation where the contracts are of limited duration not for permanent employment but for event-related situations where there is a clear ability to have that choice. The global industry needed that certainty because it had been disrupted. Who disrupted it? The unions did. Did Labour complain about that? No its instinctive position was to support the unions. At one level I can understand that; Labour is dependent on union support. But that will also destroy its reputation in the industry at the moment and will destroy its capability to negotiate internationally. 
This Government is clear on this: we are determined to grow the New Zealand economy. We are determined to do the things that will get innovation into New Zealand. Weta Digital itself received $5.8 million by way of an innovation grant from Technology New Zealand to build its capability. That money would be down the drain if people listened to Labour because the only relevance of that money is if the movies can be made in New Zealand. One thing has been clear this week and that is that National supports growth in New Zealand. We support innovation in New Zealand. Labour on the other side will go with its cloth-cap mates and will be condemned for it.