Lees-Galloway IainSCREEN INDUSTRY WORKERS BILLFirst ReadingHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move That the Screen Industry Workers Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Screen Industry Workers Bill be reported to the House by 2 June 2020 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 191 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).Our screen industry is world class. We are known here in New Zealand as a great place to make movies and to make television and games. This isn't just because of our dramatic landscapes. It's because of the talented creative people working in our screen industry. However there is one feature of our screen industry of which none of us can be proud. The general law of New Zealand consistent with international best practice is that the courts will look at the real nature of a relationship between parties and determine whether they are an employee or a contractor.Ten years ago when the National Party was in Government they introduced legislation and rammed it through all three stages under urgency in a single day. It was the so-called Hobbit law". There was no consultation of affected workers no select committee—an abrogation of the democratic process. And as a result film workers lost their ability to challenge their status as a contractor. For those who would have been employees this means they also lost their right to bargain collectively their right to challenge unfair dismissals and a range of other rights. Today almost 90 percent of screen production workers are contractors. They generally work multiple jobs a year and experience peaks and troughs in their work. They supplement their income by taking on jobs outside the industry. We hear about workers who accept less pay on a domestic production because they want to see the local industry grow and then they try to make up the difference with a higher paying job on an international production.A screen worker's median monthly earnings are around $3370. That comes to about $40000 annually. Workers are often offered contracts on a "take it or leave it" basis. There is no scope to negotiate terms and conditions of work let alone to request to be hired as an employee rather than a contractor. Another problem is that when something goes wrong contractors in the screen industry have no avenues for recourse within the employment system. Instead they have to use the civil dispute resolution procedures which see them treated as corporate entities having a contractual dispute rather than as people just having a problem at work.During the 2017 election campaign the Labour Party said that we would restore the rights of film industry workers to bargain collectively. Upon forming a Government with our partners in New Zealand First and the Greens we formed the Film Industry Working Group drawing from all the major players in the screen industry including producers actors and technicians plus the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand. We asked the working group to find a way to balance allowing workers to bargain collectively and to keep working as contractors if they wanted with giving production companies certainty about workers' employment status while maintaining contribution in our vibrant screen industry. This was not an easy task. I commend the members of the Film Industry Working Group and their facilitator Linda Clark for their creativity and the collaboration they demonstrated during the process. Over 10 months in 2018 they developed a unique model for workplace relations in the screen industry. Their model is what the Screen Industry Workers Bill is based on.The working group said that production companies should retain certainty about their workers' employment status through continuing to be exempt from the real nature test for employment status. In exchange they said that contractors in the industry should be able to bargain collectively. Alongside this screen industry collective bargaining should provide a greater degree of worker protection than collective bargaining under the Employment Relations Act.The bill has been designed with the unique circumstances of the screen industry in mind. It is self-contained; it has no effect outside of the screen industry. The main features of the bill are a requirement for all workers to have written contracts which contain mandatory terms about termination and protection from bullying discrimination and harassment; a framework allowing occupation-wide collective contracts to be negotiated which set minimum terms for all contractors in those occupations—these can of course be improved upon in enterprise-specific collective contracts and individual contracts—and a tiered dispute resolution system to support parties to resolve issues that may arise during the course of a contractual relationship or collective bargaining is also provided for in this bill.We want to make sure that our screen industry flourishes. That's why we've involved industry from the outset: to identify a practical solution that restores workers' rights whilst reflecting the real needs of the screen industry. The bill represents the industry's collective vision and ambitions. The Film Industry Working Group process has also generated mature and trusting relationships across various segments of the screen industry. I believe this will stand the industry in good stead. The consensus between the industry and screen workers will provide certainty for the sector and investors so that our screen production industry can thrive for many many years to come. All people in New Zealand deserve good jobs decent work conditions and fair compensation for their work. The screen industry bill will ensure these for workers in our screen industry too.I want to conclude with a message to the Opposition. I don't know how they plan to vote on this bill this evening but the press release that I have seen from the National Party indicates that they plan to vote against. I say to them: send this bill to the select committee and send a signal to the screen industry and especially producers overseas who plan to invest in the New Zealand screen industry that this issue is settled that they can have confidence that there will be no chopping and changing in the future at some distant point in the future when another Government is in charge of New Zealand. They want certainty. That is what we have achieved by working alongside them. I implore all members of the House to signal to the screen industry that this is the final resolution of an issue which has challenged this nation for near on a decade. I commend this bill to the House."