Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. As the Minister indicated we won't be supporting this bill the Screen Industry Workers Bill which has had a very long gestation by this Government. It was introduced by a fellow called Iain Lees-Galloway. I don't know if people remember him. I think he was from Palmerston North. He introduced this way back in March 2020. But just going back before that Jacinda Ardern—and before her Andrew Little—campaigned through 2017 that they were going to repeal the Hobbit law". It was going to be an urgent matter and it was going to be something that was going to be dealt with by a Labour Government in the first hundred days. They were going to bring in collective bargaining and strengthen the unions and this was very much part of the deal to support the unions and increase union activity in New Zealand. That was going to happen within the first hundred days. Of course the first hundred days came and went and this bill never appeared. But eventually in 2020 in the dying days of the first Government Iain Lees-Galloway introduced the bill in March and then he was in a mad hurry and shortened the select committee time rushed it through so we didn't get the normal time for submissions and then they seem to have forgotten about it until today. So after two years in the freezer and five years since it was going to be introduced quickly we see the second reading of this bill. I suppose in film terms it's not as long as the sequels between the Top Gun sequels but it still nevertheless is strange to figure out what the timing is of the reintroduction of this bill. The sad reality is that it comes at a very difficult time for the industry and indicates frankly once again this Government's tin ear when it comes to the needs of businesses that are struggling to survive in very difficult business conditions and in the global context. If you think of what the screen industry are having to deal with at the moment they're dealing with a review of the screen grants process at the moment which is a very important issue for the sector. They are also dealing with the big TVNZ - Radio New Zealand merger and what on earth that means for the broader sector is an open question. It's I suppose one of the problems that nobody sees that the Government is trying to fix at huge expense—$300 million - odd going into that—that nobody seems to want but they're doing it anyway. But it's still creating a lot of issues for the sector. Then on top of those two significant issues the industry of course is dealing with COVID which continues to create real problems. Our lockdowns meant that the country lost the Amazon Lord of the Rings material which was a tragedy for the country. Even now many productions are struggling—just like every other business—with a lot of people being sick and that's just making life difficult.So at a difficult time for the industry what this Government is proposing is a very substantial reform of how the employment relations are dealt with and introducing collective bargaining. If you just think for a moment: they've never had collective bargaining in the sector up until the introduction of this bill. They haven't had it. It's all been contractors people doing things their way. A lot of people would argue that the system works pretty well and there's not a burning platform out there that requires it—the sector is on its knees and it needs transformational change. No this is an ideological decision by the Government. They want to strengthen unions and they want to introduce collective bargaining to this industry. If you think of it from the point of view of people trying to put together films then that requires presumably negotiations with a wide variety of groups within it whether it's the—it could be the actors but of course then there's the people involved in the various elements of it: the writers the stunt people the people who do the catering. Who knows—all the various people involved in the production of movies which is a very complicated area. So you'd be putting a lot of pressure on the employer groups. The Screen Production and Development Association of New Zealand is one of them who are not wildly enthusiastic about this bill at all. The Minister seems to think everybody is delighted at the prospect of this. It just may be that the sector looks at the Government that is brutal and can be vindictive towards people that argue with it and don't agree with what they do and they decide probably just to keep their head down and lump it. But this is not something that is particularly widely appreciated in those areas outside the union strongholds within the sector. What we're seeing is the introduction of a system which is frankly going to create more trouble and dislocation a lot of extra work and anxiety and certainly a lot of extra costs to the whole sector at a time when it's least welcome given all the other pressures that they have. Now when it comes to the arguments put forward for it yes there was a bill that was brought in under a deal back in 2010 to ensure that a set of movies were passed and that's why it was called the "Hobbit law". Is it a perfect piece of legislation? Are there issues that could be dealt with around ensuring or improving protections for workers against harassment and freedom of association and clear standards for employment contracts? Yep yep. We could be persuaded for that and absolutely happy to look at some of those issues.Where we diverge from this Government though is their desire to impose collective bargaining across the various parts of the sector at an occupational level—setting a benchmark at an occupational level and then only allowing enterprise-level bargaining to go on top of that. So that really means that right across the whole sector you will have the same terms and conditions if the collective bargaining proceeds regardless of the size the scope or the situation of the particular production. That reduces flexibility makes the whole system more rigid and fundamentally at a difficult time for the sector imposes a lot of extra costs on to them. This is a Government I suppose that in the broadest sense of the word doesn't seem to accept that Government-imposed regulations that add costs into the sector fundamentally do one of two things. They either in the internationally competitive sectors such as this fundamentally make us less competitive or in industries which are discretionary like hospitality and cafes—if you add those costs on they either get passed on to the consumer or if they can't be passed on to the consumer because people don't have to go and enjoy hospitality or even necessarily watch films then that puts real pressure on the survivability of the business. Everywhere you look this Government every week every month passes new extra costs on to businesses particularly small businesses. It's longer sick leave it's the fair pay agreements—they're the latest ones. Extra public holidays—doesn't matter. Look handing out stuff is what this Government does. Lots of people like to receive extra things but ultimately as a country we either are internationally competitive or we're not. Partly that is reflected on the skill and the talent of those producing goods. The good news on that score in this industry is that New Zealand of course has an extremely talented variety of all sorts of people involved in the sector some of whom are genuinely world class and make our country proud. So that's great. But there's also plenty who are just struggling to get by in a difficult world and the cost structure matters. It does matter. So what's been introduced here will over time add to the cost structure and certainly make it less flexible if collective bargaining goes ahead. On that basis we are opposed to this legislation."