Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14998] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Clause 2 is particularly interesting to the Labour Party because it goes to the timing of the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill coming into effect and the method by which it is brought into effect. Part of the debate will be around the timing and part will be around the method. 
These days as we sacrifice our economic sovereignty our political sovereignty and our parliamentary sovereignty perhaps the bill should be brought into effect by being stamped by Warner Bros in the United States rather than by Royal assent in New Zealand. We will have a discussion about what the appropriate method is these days now that we have sacrificed our integrity as a Parliament to the whims of a foreign company according to Mr Joyce. Actually I tended to believe Gerry Brownlee when he said in answer to question No. 1 this afternoon that this legislation was not really important to Warner Bros and they did not want it rather than believing what Steven Joyce said. That may or may not be the case. 
The next point that we need to focus on is what we mean by “the day after the date”. Do we mean the New Zealand date or the date on the west coast of the United States? By “the day after” do we mean the day in the United States after the date in New Zealand or vice versa? Is it “a” and “a” “b” and “b” “a” and “b” or “b” and “a”? There are combinations of days and dates that we have to consider in working through this particular matter. The member Russel Norman mentioned  
Avatar 
 recently. If we took some of the interesting approaches to time within that movie where there was the ability to time shift and world shift it might be that we would come up with a number of unusual answers. The “day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent” could in fact be quite a long way back in Middle Earth if we jump from  
Avatar 
 back to the  
Lord of the Rings 
 series. Given the modern world that we live in and the world of movies there is a lack of preciseness in this clause. 
The next question is whether as part of this exercise we will move to have the date of Parliament—currently unsponsored—sponsored. Will 28 October be sponsored by Warner Bros? Is that what we will have? Is that how we will have the date of Parliament? If that is the case will the date move forward under urgency stay the same or take the industrial relations approach of the National Government and move backwards? 
I want to make a slightly irrelevant passing comment about  
Avatar 
 which was referred to by Russel Norman. An interesting experience for me was spending time with James Cameron at one of these hui criticised by Gerry Brownlee. Cameron was trying to make up his mind whether he wanted  
Avatar  
to be produced in New Zealand. But that was US time rather than New Zealand time. That was west coast time. There is 6 hours’ difference. I think it would probably be getting on for 3.30 a.m. over there now but 3.30 a.m. of yesterday. I think that just about sums up Gerry Brownlee’s approach on this bill. He thinks he is slightly ahead but he is actually quite a long way behind. The world has just about caught up to him because he has been so backward in this particular area. 
The question of time is one on which there is some focus in  
The Hobbit 
. In fact  
The Hobbit 
 is full of riddles and one of them is called the time riddle. It is this one: 
This thing; All things it devours: 
Birds beasts trees and flowers: 
Gnaws iron bites steel; 
Grinds hard stones to meal; 
Slays kings ruins town  
And beats high mountain down. 
It is one of Gollum’s riddles for Bilbo Baggins and the answer of course is time. That is what we talking about now. The answer we are talking about today is time and we are trying to work out when would be the right time to bring this legislation into effect. Some of us would say there is never a right time but others would say that given the possibility of this bill going through the House we should think about whether there might be a better time to bring it into effect. I have an amendment—it is different from my next amendment which is to insert an expiry clause—to omit all the words after “force” and insert the words “1 April 2012”. 
The reason is relatively simple. Warner Bros have already spent $100 million on the movie. A deferral would give them a chance to get on with making the movie and we would be able to see whether this legislation is necessary. My bet is it would be totally unnecessary. It was unnecessary for the 120 feature films that were made in New Zealand in the last decade with the help of the work done by mainly my colleague Pete Hodgson to facilitate them. He facilitated schemes and did work in that area. This legislation was not necessary then. But Labour members are reasonable people; we will keep a bit of an open mind on it and we are prepared over the next year over the period of the next election campaign to work through whether this legislation is necessary. A deferral of it being brought into force would give us the possibility of examining it more carefully and other amendments of ours provide for other methods of examination. 
Deferring it would also give some of the thespians in the Chamber time to practise their skills to hone their skills and to work towards having roles in  
The Hobbit 
. I know there is quite a lot of interest in the Chamber in doing that. It has been a very long time since people wanted me for a part in a movie that involved filming my face. In fact the last production I was in was  
bro’Town.  
That was probably the last dramatic one. Most of my colleagues will not remember  
Close to Home 
 but that series was a good regular source of income when I was a student. I was an employee and made a lot of money. I am not suggesting that this bill should be backdated. In fact I would be very upset if it was backdated to the late 1960s or early 1970s or whenever it was that I had bit parts in  
Close to Home 
. It might have been the very early 1970s. It was certainly by 1973 because one of my kids had a bit part in it in 1974 I think. 
We are focusing now on whether it is appropriate to backdate the legislation’s coming into force—to take the Muldoon approach and make it retrospective and what the implications of that would be. The more reasonable approach and the one that I have taken is to say that it is grubby legislation it should never come in and therefore it should be deferred.