Screen Industry Workers Bill

Members, we come now to Part 3. This is the debate on clauses 21 to 55, on “Collective bargaining”. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

Thank you kindly, Madam Chair. I’m happy to say a few words at the beginning of this part. Part 3 primarily deals with collective bargaining matters. As we’ve traversed over the course of the debate, this is a substantial part of the legislation that’s before the committee this evening. The bill and the entire working group process that preceded it was established to deal with this fundamental problem that collective bargaining had, effectively, been taken away by a targeted piece of legislation under the previous Government, and we did not believe that that was a fair, equitable, or appropriate situation to have. As I’ve said specifically before, that was by dint of workers in the sector being classified by legislation as “contractors” rather than “employees” and having their ability to test that right in the courts was taken away by that legislation—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: They classified themselves.

—that was put through under urgency, Mr Woodhouse. So the grand bargain, as I said at the beginning, effectively, under this legislation, is that the contracting arrangement is kept in place, but the workers concerned are able to access collective bargaining mechanisms. There are two collective-bargaining processes that can take place: occupational-level collective bargaining and enterprise-level collective bargaining, depending on how worker engagers wish to engage with those processes.

There are a number of changes which are worth noting. The Education and Workforce Committee has proposed a number of changes to streamline the bargaining process, in particular the process around variations to collective contracts. In Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 234, the things which I would draw to the attention of the committee are that there has been a change to put in place, in terms of ratification of collective contracts, that they need to be done by a majority of those who vote, rather than a majority of those who are covered by the contract.

Secondly, that there is a simpler process around replacement signatories, in the event that that is necessary, given the passage of time.

And, thirdly, in terms of the fact—and we discussed this in the Part 2 debate—that there is, effectively, a cascading situation whereby occupational-level contracts form base terms and conditions; enterprise collective contracts need to be as good as, or better than, the underlying occupational contract than the individual agreements more so. There’s been a change here, whereas previously it was proposed that there would be sort of an overall test as to whether an enterprise-level contract was better than the occupational contract; that will now be done on a term-by-term basis. That was as a result of feedback and ongoing engagement with both sides—unions, guilds, and producers—as to what would be a more simple and streamlined and clearer way of making that assessment.

So those are some of the changes, both through the ministerial SOP and from the select committee, that are proposed to Part 3. I’m happy to take any questions that do relate to Part 3. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yes, we do come to the crunchy part of the bill in relation to introducing collective bargaining to the screen workers industry areas, which hasn’t been the case in the past.

People might be surprised to learn that films have been made in the past in the absence of this collective bargaining and people haven’t been driven to the edge of extinction. Actually, it’s been a highly successful and prosperous business that has created many opportunities and jobs and livelihoods for many New Zealanders, and great films have been made and that’s something that we’re all very proud of. My favourite, well, in recent times, is probably Boy, actually—we sat down with the family over the weekend and watched it. What a gripping film, very great film. I’m not sure of the union arrangement in that film, but, nevertheless, it was made and it was good.

The point is that the industry is in good heart. It continues to have many opportunities for these things to happen. So the Minister is out here, driven, we believe, primarily by ideology around this and is imposing, on this sector, significant changes.

Some of the languages that we’re getting from people in the industry, firstly, are concerned about the adversarial sort of tinge that is coming back into the sector—memorable from the bad days of the initial incidents that led to the initial legislation—regarding painting the sector as the wild west and some of the sort of language that was bandied about. The us-and-them kind of attitude that sometimes goes with these sorts of situations is of concern to some in the sector when the area is struggling. Post-virus, nobody’s had a chance to stop and take their breath; they’re stressed; they’re coming from a difficult sort of period and now having to face what could be very long, intensive negotiations.

I suppose a starting point is that the legislation, at the start, says that an incorporated society has to be formed for both the worker and engager organisation. The engagers are the ones who are, you know, producers who are putting together these films. So they have to sort of form these societies—Screen Production and Development Association might be one of them; I don’t know—who would engage in the negotiations.

There’s a very sort of obvious question that needs to be asked: well, who pays for all this? Because this could go on for months. It’s complicated; a very complicated sort of process that could drag on. And the organisations don’t have the people who—well, nobody’s really done this sort of stuff in that industry. So you’re going to have to hire a whole bunch of new people with new skills, engage in long-winded processes. Who’s going to pay for it all? How is that going to work? I’d be interested if the Minister had given much thought to that.

The second thing is that there’s been a very significant sort of shift, and I’d like the Minister to just set out, if he could, the differences between what the working group came up with—again, not particularly operating in the voluntary sort of circumstances as an industry where Government funding is very significant; Government wants something and is determined to have it. The industry doesn’t, you know, and they have to, you know, kind of do what they have to do. They have no choice.

They recommended a few things in the space. But the bill and the Supplementary Order Paper have moved a long way from there in terms of detail—a long way towards the fair pay language of legislation that’s been developed as well. There seems a lot of some similarities between those two pieces of legislation.

So I’d like the Minister just to, if he could, outline the differences between the original recommendations—arguably made under a bit of pressure—to where we are today.

Thank you, Madam Chair; I didn’t want to interrupt the Minister if he wished to speak. Look, one part I want to echo is where Paul Goldsmith has gone. It’s, effectively, the question as we look at collective bargaining, and particularly when we think of the loss of the Amazon production around The Lord of the Rings. Does the Minister believe the insertion of this Part 3 on collective bargaining is going to see more or fewer—note the important grammar—productions coming into New Zealand when they are already leaving? I’ll acknowledge that was leaving under the old arrangements, or existing arrangements. Does he think this Part 3 is going to lead to more or fewer productions? I’d love to have that on record. As the Minister will know, of course, the new Lord of the Rings starts tomorrow—the last time it’s been in New Zealand. Get into it now.

Clause 26 in Part 3 once again talks about good-faith bargaining. I just want to come back to when we were cut short in Part 2; how does the Minister feel we can have good faith, which implies equal treatment, when his bill is slanting the whole process to one side? So how does he reconcile that?

Then to move to clause 31, in particular, but not exclusively—particularly in the context of plain language. The context here is that it prescribes in clause 31 what the collective contract might be like, and I’ve got no particular issues with that in the various—well, actually, it’s clause 31 and following. But I noticed in Part 2, clause 16A, which we were cut short; we Gloss-ed over—which, for those of you who follow television, is a very bad and aged pun. We talked about plain language as required; I’m wondering why in Part 2 there must be plain language and yet here we are in Part 3 talking about the nature of collective contracts, and there’s no prescription for plain language. I’m just wondering why there’s an inconsistency there.

Carrying on what has been a very bad set of puns, Minister, throughout the evening—because I’m sort of wanting to reference the Minority Report and Looper, looking into the future—one of your colleagues, Rachel Boyack, has a bill that’s going to be read tomorrow around plain language. I’m curious to know that if, through the bill, where you’ve mentioned plain language, whether you and your officials have had any thought to what that actually means. And by that I mean what does plain language mean legally right now? Do you have any conception—not an Inception; again, a very bad movie reference. But any conceptions of what this bill, in the future, that one of your party is pushing—what does plain language actually mean? And, again, to draw it back to Part 3, clauses 31 and following, why is it that the collective contracts, their form and content, is not prescribed to be in plain language in the same way that we’ve seen it prescribed in Part 2?

Responding to a couple of the questions that have been asked by members, Mr Goldsmith asked a couple of questions which—generously, I think—are linked to this part. He made the claim at the outset that this is something that has been forced on the sector, which, of course, stood in contrast to the remarks of Mr Woodhouse, who sort of said this is something that’s been put up by a working group and that the Government should have taken more of a direct role in saying what’s what with it.

This has very much been a process that has been genuinely collaborative, and I would really encourage the members, if they have a genuine concern in that respect, to go and talk to SPADA—go and talk to the Screen Production and Development Association—who have genuinely engaged in this process, who genuinely went in with an open mind, who will speak about that process, who will speak about some of the concerns and anxieties they had at the outset, and who will speak about the fact that, through a good-faith, engaged, problem-solving process, they came to a point where they strongly support what has been proposed by the working group and is now transferred into legislation by the Government. I say that quite genuinely because that is the process that has played out. It has generally been seen as a model by all of the parties who have been engaged in it. There was no obligation for them to do that, but they did.

In respect of who pays, again, not necessarily linked to the part, but I can give the member some comfort there. The member, as I know, is a strong supporter of the fair pay agreements legislation that we are putting forward and the framework that surrounds that. One of the decisions that Cabinet did make in terms of the Budget funding—

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order. The Minister is clearly misrepresenting my position on a topic. I’d like him to correct that. I am certainly not a supporter of the fair pay agreements.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Goldsmith can take a call if he wishes to disagree with the Minister. It’s clearly a debating point.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Would the Minister like to complete his response?

Yes, I would, thank you. As a part of Cabinet’s decision to provide financial support for the bargaining process under fair pay agreements, at the same time as we made those decisions we did also make the decision that parties who engage in collective negotiations under this piece of legislation would also be able to access that financial support of up to $50,000 per bargaining. I note that in the general employment law scene, parties as a matter of course do need to factor in and cover bargaining costs. That is a part of business as usual for most organisations, whether it’s individual negotiations or collective bargaining. So it’s not unusual that organisations will need to consider and fund some costs in a bargaining process, but we will actually provide a bit of additional support in this area, in recognition of the fact that it is a new process, particularly as it gets under way.

In respect of the question that Mr O’Connor raised about clause 26 and the good-faith provisions, I think the important point to note here is that we’re talking about how good faith must apply during bargaining. In fact, in clause 26(1A) it’s very specifically set out what those provisions are. I just think these are basically things that are very difficult for a reasonable person to argue about as being conditions for reasonable conduct between parties in bargaining. Parties should use their best endeavours to agree a process for conducting the bargaining in an effective and efficient manner. They should agree to meet with each other. They should consider and respond to proposals from one another. They should continue to bargain about matters if they haven’t quite got to a point of agreement and try to find a way of getting through that. They should recognise the role and the authority of another person, not undermine one another.

These are basic and well-tested good-faith provisions that have been embedded in our employment relations landscape for over 20 years now, and we think it’s just a reasonable thing to be clear that they should be processes which should guide fruitful bargaining processes, and this piece of legislation as well.

Look, I thank the Minister for his actually quite comprehensive response. I suppose the paradox around good faith is not the concept but the fact that he is becoming very prescriptive in legislation. The very nature of good faith is that it is open.

💬 Marja Lubeck: He has to because some people don’t know what good faith means, like yourself; it is not equal treatment.

Right. That’s brilliant. So we once again have the great sage of Marja Lubeck deciding what is and isn’t out of good faith, which is the exact point that good faith is about a discussion, not a heckling. And so, drawing it back to Part 3 again, I think, Minister, we all agree with the nature of good faith; it’s just does he understand the paradox that to prescribe what is and is not in good faith is, in fact, counter-productive?

The second is to come back to the earlier question: does he believe, as he’s just answered—and, again, thank you for that—all the various conditions and processes and costs are going to lead to more or fewer productions in New Zealand? I think that’s a fundamental question, because he’s right to mention the Screen Production and Development Association and others, but I know a number of people—and I keep bringing up the Amazon production of The Lord of the Rings, but, actually, they have left the country; they left the country. They are unlikely, I’d suggest, to come back. And the worry that I genuinely have is that legislation like this is going to make life even harder.

So we can opine, like Marja Lubeck here, wonderful great diatribes, but, actually, we’re going to have fewer people working in the industry because of this legislation—we’re going to have fewer people. So two ultimate questions: how does he reconcile good faith, the concept, with adding quite a prescriptive formula through his legislation; and, secondly—and to repeat again—does he believe, because of this Part 3 in particular, we are going to see more or fewer productions in New Zealand?

Briefly, in answer to the two questions—firstly, as I said, good faith is a very, very established framework for productive collective bargaining. The argument that the member makes that somehow it’s overly prescriptive or burdensome doesn’t hold any water. It was retained by the previous National Government for its entire nine years as one of the building blocks of the collective bargaining framework under the Employment Relations Act. The code of good faith, which was promulgated by Margaret Wilson in the early 2000s, was kept in place by that previous National Government to provide guidance for people engaging in bargaining processes for that entire period. I don’t see it as particularly burdensome in any particular way. Actually, in amongst the wide range of debates with employers and unions about the nature of our employment relations framework, that is not a point that I can say has ever particularly been raised with me in my time as a Minister or someone who has been engaged in this area. If anything, I think it provides some certainty and some structure to the way that bargaining will be conducted to ensure that it’s productive and actually results in outcomes.

Secondly, in respect of any expectation that I might have about there being fewer or more productions as a result of there being collective bargaining provisions: I don’t have any particular reason to think that it will be here nor there in that respect. The main example that the member referred to, of course, was Amazon shifting production elsewhere, which was driven by other factors—as I understand it, primarily by tax treatment and subsidies that are often probably, actually, amongst the most significant drivers of where productions settle internationally. But I really just don’t accept the fundamental premise that basic labour rights should be on the table in this area. If you go down that rabbit hole, well, maybe we should remove the minimum wage, maybe we should remove basic provisions to sick leave and ACC and others things that are a bedrock of decent terms and conditions because international businesses would prefer that we lowered their cost base. We just don’t think that is a way that we should conduct ourselves. We think that we should have basic decent terms and conditions for people who do work in New Zealand, and then aim to be competitive in other ways other than a race to the bottom.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. You can sense the anticipation on this side, both between myself and the Hon Paul Goldsmith, to stand up and speak. But I want to refer to clause 32A of Part 3—there’s a little segue—in regards to bargaining fees. It’s interesting—I’m not referring to the recent movie release called Bargaining, which is actually a Korean film, an action film called Bargaining; it’s about a kidnapping, so a bit more dangerous than what we’re talking about tonight, Minister. But a little segue, because one of the things we’re trying to do is to try and make this relevant.

The questions that I have in regards to clause 32A, in particular—and I’ll get into it, Subparts 2 and 3—is getting the Minister’s perspective in terms of how he sees this aspect will work in practice. My point, more detailed around the border concept, around the bargaining fees clause here, is in regards to enterprise-level collective contracts, which is obviously throughout this section but highlighted here in particular at Subpart 3, and really I’m keen to get an understanding in terms of the, I guess, key contrasts between how the bargaining fee arrangement will differ between occupational-level collective contract and enterprise-level collective contract. For those that aren’t over the detail in regards to that element, I think that would be quite helpful because I think there is some complexity. With the enterprise-level collectives, I guess it goes back to the point that Simon O’Connor was referring to, in terms of some of these, you know, big production companies or production companies working with employee collective groups—just how that will work, and, I guess, an expectation also, or some perspective from the Minister around the expectation around what those bargaining fees and the terms could look like. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to dig into clause 37, which is around the initiating of bargaining. And I’m intrigued on this one, when we’re talking about an occupational-level collective contract. So this is kind of the fair pay agreements of the screen industry, which is a significant move away from the practice of the country for the last 30 years, which has been enterprise-level based. This legislation pre-empts the fair pay agreement legislation looking at occupational-level collective contracts, and I’m mystified as to why the Minister thinks that’s a great idea, but he might be able to come up with some reasons why.

But the issue is, to initiate it, he’s saying that if the union is organised—you know, a worker organisation is initiating this occupational-level collective contract, it needs to go to the members and get a majority of its members supporting the initiation of these contracts, which is quite different to the fair pay agreement where you only have to have a 10 percent of the sector as a whole, or a thousand members, or, even better than that, some sort of vague idea that it’s a good thing or required. I can’t remember the exact phrase. I’m pleased that he’s at least expecting half the union members to sign up to the initiation. But I suppose my worry is what happens if you’ve got an occupation—I don’t know what it might be. It might be, I don’t know, if you divide it up between—what is it? What’s the term used for people who are sort of just in the background of a film, bit-part players or—

💬 Hon Members: Extras.

Extras. Extras, for example. Extras. And—

💬 Chris Bishop: A bit like the Labour backbench. They’re sort of bit-part players; they have no role. They’re all going to lose their seats.

You shouldn’t be unkind to Marja Lubeck like that—I’ll defend it. So, we’re talking about extras—we’re talking about extras. If there was an extras union, and there might be over the course of the year, I don’t know, a thousand extras, there might be 5,000 extras if there’s a big film going on which included a lot of extras—a lot of orcs, for example, or something like that—and the union only had a hundred members out of the 5,000 because it wasn’t much chop, you’re saying that it might only be 50 people, half of the hundred members of the union required to initiate collective agreement for the whole occupational level.

So I just want to sort of clarify how all that works. If one is negotiated, does that automatically apply to the other thousands who might have had nothing to do with it, didn’t want it, didn’t want to be involved in it in any way, shape, or form, but were sort of, effectively, dragooned into the arrangements, whatever they may be. And one of the arrangements might be that, I don’t know, as an extra you need to have half hour breaks at this time, or whatever; it might be all sorts of rules and regulations. So I’d be keen for the Minister just to clarify: (a) why the difference with the fair pay agreement? And what rules are there in place to ensure that, actually, if you’re dealing with an occupation, that there is a majority of people in the occupation that actually want to do this, rather than just who might join up with one particular union? Then, thirdly, why does this apply to everybody? Is that sort of a form of compulsory union or something like that? If you could give some clarification on those issues, I’d be grateful.

A couple of questions which have come up there: one around bargaining fees from Mr Watts, and then some questions around initiation from Mr Goldsmith. In respect of bargaining fees, these only apply to enterprise-level bargaining, and they only apply where a non-member of the union or guild concerned chooses to sign up to the enterprise-level bargaining. So, effectively, it’s about recognising that that person, if they choose to do so, will be receiving the benefits of that collective contract bargaining process, and it’s reasonable to ask them to make a contribution towards the costs of that, but others do not have to if they do not wish to sign up there. The fee is struck, as I understand it, at the lowest level of what the applicable union fee or guild fee would be in that particular case.

In respect of the bargaining initiation process for occupational-level contracts that Mr Goldsmith was asking about, once the initiating body—the worker body—has put forward an initiation request to the authority, the authority will then test support with that occupational grouping. So it will be run by the authority across the whole grouping—not just the union or guild members, but across that whole grouping of workers—and they will have to test that there is majority support before that proposal proceeds.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is—

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: Oh, come on, I—[Chair confers with the Clerk]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister Wood didn’t answer all my questions, obviously—but if he chooses not to, he doesn’t have to, I suppose. But it was a question around the numbers and the impact that these occupation-level collective contracts have on everybody in the industry.

I suppose, if, again, we’re thinking of extras as an example, presumably there might be a very big difference between a production that had thousands of extras—in a big film or a set of trilogies, and so forth, if you think of the hobbits and all that sort of stuff—and a very small production, which may have just two or three for a very short period of time while something is being produced. I’d be keen for the Minister to explain how life is going to be improved by fitting those two different situations into one box when it comes to pay and conditions. What may suit or may be affordable, even, for a larger production with large amounts of money—well organised, huge numbers of people, huge flexibility with those numbers of people—may not be appropriate for a small operation with a very small group involved. It may make life difficult. So I’m just curious as to why he thinks that in an industry that requires, many times, a great deal of flexibility and in a huge variety of situations, a kind of one-size-fits-all occupation-level approach is wise? Will it lead to better outcomes?

Then, when it comes to the question of—I’ll presume the outcome that the Minister is after is higher wages and additional benefits, whether it’s more breaks or better arrangements in some place, and that, ultimately, leads to higher costs. Does he think that the costs are irrelevant when it comes to deciding whether to do a particular production here in New Zealand or not? He seems to be implying that the only thing that really matters is the subsidy regime, or the tax treatment of it. But I suppose I’d just like to know whether he’s got any evidence to support that, or whether the cost structure of the whole process and the flexibility within arrangements will make a difference. He’ll probably say, “Oh, well, everybody else does it.” I suppose the point is, in a global world, when you’re trying to attract things into a very remote location in New Zealand, does a little bit of extra flexibility make people more likely to come here? That’s not an unreasonable proposition, so I’d be interested in his thoughts around that.

The other thing that he didn’t really respond to is: why the different approach taken to the approach taken in the fair pay agreement around initiating occupation-level contracts? Is this a hangover from the desires of the working group? I’m not sure what the working group had to say on the initiation process, but it would be interesting to know whether he has on this occasion listened to some degree to that group, or not.

The other aspect that I was trying to figure out was, again, if the union representation in a particular occupation group was very low, does that just draw everybody else in, regardless of whether they want to be or not?

The questions around the initiation threshold—yes, that is a part of the recommendations that we received from the working group in terms of what they believe would be an appropriate and workable structure. We listened to them very carefully.

In answer to Mr Goldsmith’s question that sort of went to the broader issue of flexibility, I think the answer to that lies in the graduated structure. So for a worker, for example—taking Mr Goldsmith’s example—an extra who might, as a contractor, move from production to production, employer to employer, the occupation-level bargaining will ensure that that worker has the certainty of there being a basic level of fair negotiated terms and conditions that apply across that occupation wherever he or she moves. But over the course of a year or two years, that worker might move between different productions and different employers, and, to Mr Goldsmith’s point, yes, one of them might be large and have more means, and one of them might be small and have lesser means. And that’s where the enterprise-level bargaining, should it occur, in the individual-level contracts will allow differentiation which is fit for purpose for that organisation and its ability to engage. So I think the graduated nature there is the answer to his question. Whether he agrees with it or not, that is the way the system is set up.

In terms of his final question, “Does cost structure matter?”, well, of course it matters in any industry, in terms of being viable. As I’ve outlined, there’s no particular reason to think that giving people the basic, fundamental human right of being able to collectively bargain should be a particular prohibition in that area. I do note there are other sectors of the New Zealand economy that attract offshore capital and ownership in which collective bargaining is very normal.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I must say this committee stage does remind me of the 2015 movie Everest, you know, as a tough struggle; hopefully, unlike that movie, which had a bit of a sad ending—this is probably where this bill is going to end up as well.

But, anyway, let’s get to clause 33—a new clause that we haven’t talked about tonight. I’m particularly interested in clause 33(4)—again, a new area that we haven’t touched on, but let’s get into it because it’s one that raises a few, I think, important points that I’m keen for the Minister to provide some context on. So what I’m referring to here is around the exemptions for terms of occupational-level collective contracts, and, in particular, the subclause (4), which refers to “significant disruption”—[Interruption] what’s that, Mr Goldsmith?

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: No, no, no.

Oh no, just want to give me some tips. The “significant disruption to a production”. That’s reasonable. We all expect that there may be cases where you’re going to face a significant disruption and aspects like that.

But clause 33(4)(b) is the one that captured my eye, and that is because it refers to “the availability of essential personnel” in particular. Obviously, we’re acutely aware around the workforce shortages and crises that exist at the moment across multiple sectors. I’m in no doubt that the film and production sector are, no doubt, probably facing similar challenges around the availability of essential personnel, which this clause is referring to.

So I’m interested, from the Minister, in terms of how he sees this specific clause working in practice. The definition of “significant disruption”—I mean, there can’t be too many people with skill sets in this space in New Zealand, with respect, and, no doubt, quite a few of them have probably jumped on the plane and headed to other places to sell their wares in terms of their experience; hopefully not, but that’s probably the reality. So how will that work in practice? I guess, the practical reality of this working in the context of right now is we do have an acute workforce shortage; the likelihood is that that’s going to be around into the future. So, you know, is the reality that is defined as “significant” actually going to be more mainstream in terms of the triggering of this clause, in particular?

So those are the three questions that I have in regards, again, to clause 33(4)(b). Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I suppose I have just a few more questions around the whole engager representative that, as far as I’m aware, there’s only sort of one floating around at the moment, and that’s the Screen Production and Development Association. There may be some others that come along. Who knows? But they haven’t involved themselves in these sorts of negotiations at all. So I suppose I’m just trying to think how the Minister thinks this is going to work if there were five different occupational negotiations started—one for the extras, one’s for the camera people, another one for the writers, another one for the main actors, and another one’s for the stunt people; I mean, you could have half a dozen under way, you could have a whole lot of enterprise-based ones as well—all requiring a completely new skill set for the industry to do this sort of stuff, and an enormous amount of work and cost.

I’m just struggling as to why the Minister thinks this is a great idea and a useful thing to do at the moment, at a time when the industry is just, again, blinking its eyes just coming out of the COVID crisis, struggling with shortages of workers, struggling to get access to people to do the basic job that they want to get done, wondering what’s going to happen when Willie Jackson fiddles around with the TVNZ - Radio New Zealand merger, and New Zealand On Air and what that all means, trying to figure out a whole bunch of other stuff, and somehow it’s got to deal with what could be multiple occupational proposals put forward.

As we’ll go through all the other parts—and I’m sure the poor people who are tuning into this will be struggling to stay awake, and it just goes on, page after page after page of rules and regulation and dispute processes and challenges and this, that, and the other thing; page after page after page, adding time and cost and frustration, and gunging up the system and distracting people in the sector away from getting on with the job at hand.

But, in particular, given the current sort of smallness of the industry bodies and how they operate, how on earth does the Minister think that they’re going to be able to cope if there is half a dozen of these things initiated pretty quickly? Does he think his $50,000 is going to sort of cover the cost in any way, shape, or thing, when the authority starts its long process? And then, once it gets to the authority—this is the Employment Relations Authority—of course, as we know, I think the average waiting time is about a year and a half for them to get round to dealing with a personal grievance. I don’t know how it’s going to get round to dealing with these things in a timely fashion. Does he have any indication from them that they are going to get to these things within a year or two? He’ll probably have 30-day turn-around somewhere on page 500 of this bill. But will they be like the many city councils around the country that have perfected the art of just asking for a little bit more information on day 29, and then starting another 30 days and then they’ve perfected the art of extracting these things or coming up with reasons why they don’t have to meet the deadline? So I’d be interested to know how he thinks it’s going to work in terms of that, which will, again, drag things out and make it even more difficult.

So the broad sort of picture I’m developing here, and one which I think will be of concern to many in the sector, though they won’t mention it, presumably, because they are conscious of the fact that so much of their existence depends on the good will of the Government of the day, and this Government has shown itself to be pretty rough with people who disagree with it, and so that’s always in the back of the mind of everybody—but how are they going to actually do this and how is it going to actually help the sector right at this time?

I did ask him a little bit earlier, and he didn’t answer, whether or not he’d received any correspondence or a letter from people in the sector, pleading for a bit more time, and asking him not to do this right now.

I’ll briefly answer a couple of the questions that were asked. Mr Watts asked about clause 33(4) in the version of the bill reported back by the select committee—just for ease of reference for members, that’s now clause 49C under Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 234, which I have tabled. It’s probably useful to understand the particular examples that were in the select committee report back. At clause 39C—sorry, I’m getting my numbers confused myself. At clause 33(4), the particular examples that are listed there under subparagraphs (i) and (ii) have actually been removed from the final version of the bill under the SOP, just to create greater clarity.

Effectively, the purpose of this provision is to allow under exceptional circumstances for there to be some limited exemption from provisions of occupational contracts, except for provisions which relate to pay. So that’s about building in a little bit of flexibility.

I think Mr Goldsmith’s arguments are largely about a fundamental objection to the bill, rather than particular provisions here—a fundamental objection to there being collective bargaining that occurs and an assumption that is always going to result in burdensome cost and complication. I just repeat my comment before that many other sectors are able to manage that, and this process has been arrived at through a joint good-faith process. I think that people in the sector would reject his assertion that hard-working, innovative producers and companies “rely on the goodwill of the Government”. It’s a bit like Mr Luxon’s comment that businesses in New Zealand are soft, somehow. These are serious, innovative, creative, successful businesses and organisations who have come together, sat down with unions and guilds, and agreed on a positive and productive way forward in this area, and a fundamental part of that is the ability to access collective bargaining, as most other workers in New Zealand can.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will come back to this side of the Chamber, but I will allow a call for Hon Michael Woodhouse, who has not yet had a call on this part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is in relation to clause 27, a fascinating clause, which says, “The parties bargaining for a collective contract must conclude a collective contract.” Now, one would normally expect that to be the desired outcome.

So my question is, what does this mean in relation to two parties who don’t previously have a relationship, and could the conclusion of the collective contract bargaining be such that it’s concluded by both parties walking away, without an agreement being reached?

And the reason why this is important is because this is not like an employment relationship where the union—or the bargaining agent—and its members already have an employment relationship with the employer. It may be that a production company comes along to an organisation representing a group of—what used to be independent contractors, but we’ll call them something else for the purposes of this—and saying, “We’d like to engage your actors, lighting staff, grips, whatever”, and they get around the table and they commence bargaining and they’re not able to reach an agreement.

My question about clause 27 is, does conclusion involve walking away without an agreement being reached? Because if you take The Hobbit example from 2009, and let’s, sort of, replay that through this process: there wasn’t already a relationship, in respect of that production, with these two groups of people. So they get around the table, and my question is, what then happens if they cannot agree? The bill, at clause 27, basically says they “must conclude a collective contract.” I want to know whether that was the intention, or does conclusion include the possibility of walking away?

It is worth noting that there continue to be relationships between unions, guilds, and employers in the sector, and there have been right across the last few years; albeit, that there has been in a change in some of the formal relationships because of the previous piece of legislation.

The answer, in respect of clause 27, is that parties can, even if they face difficulties in that bargaining, then access the dispute resolution provisions that are contained within this piece of legislation to try and meet the objective of concluding a collective contract.

Well, that’s a fascinating answer, because I think I interpret that to be: an agreement must be reached. And the Minister’s right. There are a number of existing and ongoing relationships between production companies and actors and production staff, but there will also be new ones and there will also be a series—this is unlike a continuous employment relationship where there are actually a series of discrete contracts, job and finish arrangements. That’s the nature of independent contracting. I wonder if the Minister—because it goes back to the question that Simon O’Connor asked at the start of Part 3 about whether there would be more or fewer engagements when this bill is passed.

It would seem to me that because of clause 27, the answer is going to be emphatically fewer, because no production company would come into New Zealand with a big budget and a chequebook to write for these contractors if before they even start the conversation about “Are we going to engage with each other?”, they’re under a legal obligation to conclude that bargaining with a contract. They’re just not going to take that risk. And, actually, they’re over a barrel before the negotiations even start.

So you know what they’re going to do, Minister? They’re going to go to Poland and Czechoslovakia and India and Australia and the United Kingdom with very mature—

💬 Melissa Lee: Korea.

And Korea—great movies coming out of Korea. But what they won’t have in those countries is the obligation to conclude a collective contract before they even get going. The answer to Simon O’Connor’s question must be: fewer. And New Zealand will be the worse for that and so, incidentally, will be the very people the Minister is trying to protect.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 234 be agreed to.