SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. This is the first time today that I'm quite stoked to get to stand up and speak to this bill. It's fantastic to see it back after two years of COVID delay. I know that a lot of our people working in the screen industry have been eagerly awaiting this day because this is a real step forward for them.I want to acknowledge too the whakapapa of this is a result of an 18-month process of negotiation and collaboration of industry stakeholders within the Film Industry Working Group. At the end of that process all of the guilds and production companies and representatives and Business New Zealand were able to come up with unanimous recommendations for fairer working conditions and collective bargaining for the contractors within our screen industry—because they're not employees and they don't get access to those rights that so many of us rely on in this country.I do too recognise the importance of this and just want to—that there's been a lot of work done in select committee. I wasn't lucky enough to be able to sit in on the select committee last term when considering this bill but I've read some of the submissions and been through the quite extensive report. There's a lot of work that was clearly done in committee in response to the submissions to strengthen this bill. I would like to just speak to a few of those.But before I get into that I do have to respond to the comments by a previous National speaker talking about standing for freedom" and the "flexibility for business". The idea of freedom for me doesn't equate with the reality that we've had in this industry of entire casts being fired for approaching the producer to try and negotiate collective conditions. That's what happened under the "Hobbit law": an entire cast wanting just to talk about the possibility of being able to get some collective conditions were fired. The production decided to start again.Like where is the understanding of freedom in that? That is just an unmitigated abuse of power and that has been the norm or at least if not the norm—I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration—but has been happening in the screen industry. My partner worked in the screen industry for a while; 16-hour days as a norm. It's a very very often hierarchical industry where people start on the shop floor and have to work really really hard on tight budgets and do whatever is required. And that means that health and safety and the wellbeing of that person and their ability to be a member of their family is often compromised.We've seen the wages of our actors in terms of relation to other wages in the country—as well as internationally—go backwards over the last 15 to 20 years. These are artists who contribute a huge amount to our country whether they're in front of the screen or behind it. They have on a regular basis still been exploited in this country. The "Hobbit law" which I think is in the Urban Dictionary defined as a "Law that is introduced as a knee jerk reaction usually to erode the rights […] of people at work." That's the National Party's definition of freedom. That is what they are standing up for in this House. That is not my definition of freedom.My definition of freedom is for people to have the opportunity to have decent conditions and that requires an ability to bargain collectively for many people. Some rare people will be able to do it for themselves but that's usually because they've got quite a few things behind them to get to that point and it is not the norm.So to get into some of the detail of this bill which I think is really interesting and some of the changes that have been made is—it does clarify the position on a prohibition on industrial action during collective bargaining. And that is one of the points where the Green Party differs in terms of the outcome of this. The right to strike for us is a fundamental right that we do not want to see traded away through negotiations or through legislation. On a more positive side we've seen through submissions coverage of this bill being extended to computer-generated games for educational training and advertising purposes through the submissions of people requesting that cover which I think is brilliant. From the submissions some of those stories of manipulation and misuse of power came through because there has been a strengthening in the bill of protections against the use of undue influence. There's been the addition of situations of somebody trying to prevent people representing workers or trying to get somebody to terminate any work because of that individual's status as a member or non-member of a worker association. So clearly that is a very real dynamic where people have lost their opportunities to be working and we know blacklisting is a very active practice in our screen industries that really does need to be stamped out. And this is more protection to try and change that culture even though listening to the previous National member the Hon Scott Simpson rail against unions as if they're the devil's spawn as opposed to the collective voice of workers just surprises me. He might support terminating people's work on the basis of their union membership because he doesn't seem to understand what a union is. However this provides protection against that which I think is great. It clarifies the duty of good faith. And I note that this is more limited than the duties within the Employment Relations Act and that is the result of that bargained situation—which is clear that these are not just demands from one party in the workers in the screen industry; it is about trying to meet the needs for everybody. There's also carve-outs around some of this in terms of volunteers and recognising that our film industry—in particular short films—and part of the industry relies on people volunteering in films and that that is built into the industry. And this bill is not undermining that because it's a recognition of the reality that people are working with. It's also providing more clarity around where there's a collective in place individual contracts while they're allowed cannot offer conditions less favourable.It also strengthens provisions against retaliatory termination to provide protection for workers who exercise any power right authority or remedy under any enactment not just this one. I really speak to the absolute importance of that in terms of providing some surety around and strengthening of our health and safety provisions as well as noting that that includes providing information in relation to a complaint about bullying discrimination or harassment because that is a known dynamic where people are blacklisted for reporting on the behaviour of people more powerful than them. The committee did just consider putting in specific processes for raising complaints around bullying discrimination or harassment but were advised that further policy work would be required to determine how a single process fixed in legislation could apply. Now that we are kind of two years on from the select committee I do wonder if there's been an opportunity for that work to have been done and whether we might see a Supplementary Order Paper in that space. Because we know that as a country—and a shout-out to Deborah Russell who's in the House and her fantastic bill that's around at the moment around extending the time to be able to make a sexual harassment complaint—that there are huge barriers in terms of being able to report and get an adequate response around bullying and harassment and industry-specific responses are important. So thank you Mr Speaker."