Screen Industry Workers Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: I present a legislative statement on the Screen Industry Workers Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

谢谢，Madam Speaker. I move, That the Screen Industry Workers Bill be now read a third time.

Firstly, I’d like to thank the officials, the clerks, and the select committee members who worked on this bill, and those members who submitted and presented to the committee. When people talk about Aotearoa New Zealand’s screen industry, they mention our breathtaking landscapes, they’ll recall spectacular visual effects and digital artistry, they’ll think of strange and fascinating fictional worlds beyond our own. What they don’t see are the people behind the creations. They don’t see that it is our talented crew who make these impossible shoots possible—our writers who tell our stories to the world, and our actors who deliver authentic and moving performances. They don’t see the combinations of creative vision and logistical nous required when producers bring stories to life.

The success of our screen industry reflects the quality of work that goes into making a production. The bill honours that work and delivers on a commitment to restore collective bargaining rights to the screen industry. Those rights were removed when the previous Government legislated under urgency to remove film production workers from the legal definition of an “employee”, known as the “Hobbit law”. For more than a decade, film production workers have been prevented from testing their employment status to gain access to fundamental employment protections. As of 2018, there are 15,000 people doing screen production and post-production work. Of these workers, 85 percent—12,800—were hired contractors. This means an industry where the majority of workers cannot bargain collectively or access minimum employment entitlements such as the minimum wage. Most screen production workers’ median monthly income earnings are under $4,000. Workers are offered contracts on a “take it or leave it” basis, demonstrating the imbalance in bargaining power between them and the people who hire them.

In 2018, we asked the industry to find a new way forward for themselves and we set up the Film Industry Working Group. We asked them whether they could design a system that would allow workers to bargain collectively while giving production companies the certainty they need. The Film Industry Working Group didn’t just manage to design a new model, they unanimously recommended to Government to adopt it. Their model represented their shared vision for a thriving industry and forms the basis of the Screen Industry Workers Bill. We want our screen industry to flourish and to empower workers and the people who hire them, referred to as “engagers”. The Screen Industry Workers Bill will help to achieve this.

The legislation has several components. First, it creates new rules for individual contracts in the screen industry—these are agreements between the workers and the engagers. The bill will give all workers the opportunity to negotiate their contracts and requires that certain types of terms be included in all contracts. It prevents contracts from being terminated just because workers exercise a right they have under law or their contract. Next, the bill provides a framework for collective bargaining in the screen industry. There are two types of bargaining that can take place under this legislation. The first is occupational bargaining, which would result in new minimum terms and conditions of work across the industry. These minimum terms can be built on through the second type of collective bargaining known as “enterprise bargaining”. This type of bargaining can take place within single productions or companies. As with any other collective relationship, problems may arise in contracting relationships or during collective bargaining. In these situations, the legislation allows parties in the screen industry to use dispute resolution processes that already exist in the employment system. This legislation is novel and has been designed based on the unique features of the screen industry. For this reason, the bill requires a review to be started before the fifth anniversary of its commencement. This will allow for reflection on whether this new workplace relations regime for the screen industry is working well.

Finally, I’d like to address the misguided belief the Opposition has about the bill. Members of the Opposition have previously argued that the bill creates a less flexible labour market. This concern stems from the mistaken belief that occupational contracts will remove the right for individual workers and engagers to agree their own terms. This is incorrect. Individual workers and engagers can still negotiate contract terms. However, they cannot go beyond any minimum terms set by the industry through collective bargaining. This is appropriate because it represents the industry’s articulation of minimum working standards. This is not a model that the Government alone could have devised and I want to acknowledge the Film Industry Working Group and other stakeholders in the screen industry. They deserve recognition and credit for their work on this bill since 2018.

Ultimately, the bill represents compromise and a collective vision, and it’s an example of what can be achieved through meaningful and respectful tripartite processes, and when workers, employers, and the Government come together. The legislation provides the groundwork for a new era in screen industry. As our screen industry continues to grow, it will help to ensure we aren’t just known for great works we produce, but that our screen industry is also known as a great place to work. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The National Party will not be supporting this legislation and will continue to oppose it. We’re at the third reading of the Screen Industry Workers Bill—I suppose just another example of a Government that never seems to be interested in thinking about our international competitiveness and how we make a living in this country. Here we are at a time, we look around the world—a dangerous time geopolitically, but also very treacherous conditions economically, seeing dollars plunging and falling, slow growth, high inflation, cost of living pressures. Under all that, the general conclusion that most sensible people would come to is that this is a time when we need to be concentrating on building our economic strength as a country, looking for new ways to succeed internationally and globally, focusing on our international competitiveness and on our productivity so that we’re fit to fight, so that we can foot it with the best in the world.

But instead of doing that, what we see time and time again from this Government is an obsession or a focus on helping out their friends in the union and adding costs and complications wherever you go. We’re in the middle of the fair pay agreements crisis situation, which is going to introduce an enormous amount of rigidity and complications to our labour market relations at a time when we need to be more flexible and agile and responsive than ever, and this legislation, dealing with a specific area in the screen industry, is of the same ilk.

Let’s just go back—it’s slapdash legislation in the whole approach to it, because it was introduced by Iain Lees-Galloway. I don’t know if people can remember Iain Lees-Galloway; he was an interesting rooster. The former Minister came in, introduced this in a flurry in early 2017—no, was it 2020; 2020, I think it was—and then we rushed off to a select committee, in a shortened period of the select committee so we didn’t hear from everybody as long as we would’ve liked, because this was a great, urgent thing that Mr Iain Lees-Galloway was going to introduce and do, even though there was no great problem that they were trying to fix. The legislative arrangement that the previous National Government had come to in 2010 to keep the Hobbit films happening in New Zealand, which most people enjoyed—it was great entertainment; we loved it. The industry’s working pretty well. But this manufactured crisis, a little bit like this kind of manufactured crisis that we have in why we need to merge Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and TVNZ—nobody can quite understand why; it’s not obvious to anybody why we need to be doing this, why this is a big focus. But, anyway, that’s $370 million - odd, they’ll just do that; why not? This legislation, again, you know—what’s the great crisis that they’re needing to deal with? Nothing, really, other than that the unions want it.

So Iain Lees-Galloway, he brought it in, rushed through the select committee stage, and then, suddenly, woomph—it just fell into the freezer and they forgot about it for three years. It was during the period of Kris Faafoi’s long snooze, when nothing much happened. He was resting. He was recuperating and focusing on other things. Nothing happened. Lost interest, lost his way—a bit like how they lost their way on law and order and a whole bunch of things. Everything just sort of slid for a little while.

And then what happens is we have the re-emergence of an ideologue of the left—Michael Wood. He took up the role, and he, of course, is very determined to push through everything he possibly can. He came over the horizon there, ready to defend and protect and strengthen union rights at every step. So we’ve got the fair pay agreement ripping through the House—again, a solution looking for a problem, adding costs, adding rigidity, making it more difficult, particularly, actually, for small businesses. Great for the big businesses that get to construct all this sort of stuff; very difficult for the small businesses. So he’s pushing all that through, and at the same time this piece of legislation is coming through.

And it comes at a difficult time for the industry, of course, because they’ve been through, like everybody else, extraordinary difficulties around the COVID restrictions, which have seen us lose a number of productions; big difficulties around the lack of immigration, or the difficult immigration system that we’ve got—this Government’s determined to make it difficult for people to get in. So, like every industry, they’re struggling to get people to turn up and to be the workers. So that’s complicated.

They’re also trying to figure out what this TVNZ-RNZ merger means for them and their industry. So there’s a lot of complication around that. And they’re also struggling with overall costs, like every—you know, whether it’s the fuel that they need to get the buses and trucks to the production site, whether it’s the chicken sandwiches; everything’s more expensive. So they’re dealing with all that, and they’re also trying to navigate their way in a highly internationally competitive industry. So when all that is going on, what is the last thing they need? The last thing they need is a completely different new industrial relations process which introduces collective bargaining to an industry that has never had that before and has to set up a whole lot of new procedures. The poor old Screen Production and Development Association of NZ has to get into negotiating around collective agreements. There’s all sorts of additional work, complication, difficulty, and opportunities for tension and discord within the industry—a return, potentially, to the real discord that we had back in 2010 when a bunch of Australian unionists came over and stirred things up. So that is the real risk.

So, many people are asking, “What on earth are we doing this for?”, and the only obvious answer is that Michael Wood, being an ideologue, being very keen to do everything he can to strengthen the power of the unions, is determined to do this.

So we don’t support it. We don’t think it will help. We don’t see the burning platform here. All we see is it’s just another example of a Government that does not seem to recognise the relationship between adding costs, regulatory uncertainty and confusion, and extra layers of complication—how that flows through to the cost structure of our society, which feeds through, ultimately, to cost of living pressures but also a lack of international competitiveness for our country.

And, you know, you can roll your eyes on the other side of the House, you can be dismissive of it, but ultimately, as a small trading nation, our international competitiveness matters because we’re a long way away from the rest of the world. If you’re looking at it from the point of view of Hollywood or somewhere else—“Where are we going to invest our money? Are we going to do it here or there or elsewhere?”—New Zealand is not the easiest option. We’re a long way away. We’re a long way—yes, we do have pretty mountains. We’re not the only country in the world that has pretty mountains, I’m bound to point out. We’re not the only country in the world that has nice forests and lakes. There are other places that have nice forests and lakes as well, and they have snowy mountains there. We seem to be somewhat complacent about how we operate, in the world that we operate. It is a highly competitive world, and we need to be doing everything we can to ensure our industries are agile and able to respond.

Now, we’ve had a pretty successful industry in that sense, and this bill won’t help—in fact, it’ll make it harder. I don’t think the purpose of Government should be to make things more difficult for industries in New Zealand who are trying to foot it with the best in the world and to provide opportunities for New Zealanders, and, of course, who work hard to provide the entertainment that we all look forward to, in an industry that gives New Zealanders the thrills that they have and the stories that they like to celebrate and everything that is positive about the screen industry.

So, you know, we here on this side of the House stand behind the industry. We want them to succeed; we want them to do well. We want them to be internationally competitive, and we want them to succeed and continue to entertain and to delight us. What we don’t want to do is make life more difficult for them, and this bill will do precisely that.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. You’ve just go to love it when the Opposition talks about rushing through legislation and pushing through laws and bills, when, in fact, this particular bill reverses the fundamental employment protections that the National Government in 2010 took away from workers in the screen industry. They took away fundamental rights, which are recognised all through international law, to bargain collectively. So that’s the hypocrisy of the Opposition for you.

They’re also out of touch with the extensive process that this bill went through from the start. The screen industry was completely involved. They came up with practical solutions that actually would restore their workers’ rights, as well as, at the same time, still reflecting the needs of the industry. This bill implements unanimously agreed recommendations from the Film Industry Working Group, which consists of industry guilds, the dreaded “union” word, production companies, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, and Business New Zealand. The only party here, in this argument, that is not agreeing to this bill is the National Party. Every other stakeholder has said, as it says in our department report, “We don’t support the status quo.” Every submitter has not supported the status quo. It’s only the National Party who doesn’t want this bill to get through. What this bill does is, basically, reinstate the right for workers to get together to talk about protections, to have minimum wage protections, to be protected from bullying, to have their holidays, to have their health and safety.

And just one more comment: when Mr Paul Goldsmith said, “Why on earth are we doing it?”, I remember, in his second reading speech, he said the industry is in increasingly good shape. Well, this is the shape it’s in: median monthly earnings for contractors versus workers have just gone down—have gone down, down, down. The top rate now was the bottom rate 20 years ago. That’s the shape the industry is in. That’s why we’re making these changes, and the real danger, actually, of the National Party not agreeing to this bill is that the certainty this bill brings, which the industry needs, is actually undermined by the National Party being the only stakeholder in this process not agreeing to this bill. I commend it to the House.

Well, the speaker that has just resumed her seat, Marja Lubeck, represents, very starkly and clearly, the fundamental ideological difference between the socialist left that is dominated by union activists, and those of us on the right side of the politics in New Zealand who understand, treasure, and value the rights and freedoms of individuals to negotiate their own terms of employment and agreements with their employer in a way that provides flexibility, certainty, and, most importantly, in a way that provides economic goodwill and growth for us as a nation. My colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith, in his very good contribution on this, the third reading of the Screen Industry Workers Bill, made a number of those exact points.

This is a piece of legislation that one can’t help but feel is a piece of legislation that has only been pushed through the Parliament as a result of a new Minister determined to exert his ideological views about the roles of trade unions on New Zealand workers, in a way that his predecessor didn’t. His predecessor Kristopher Faafoi had some very good common-sense things, and he managed to put this piece of legislation on the backburner, because he knew and understood that it would create problems, that it would have a negative impact on our economy, and it would be very bad, actually, for workers in the film sector. What we’ve heard today just confirms all that stuff.

Of course, the current Minister and the speaker that’s just resumed her seat both came to this Parliament by way of trades hall—union representatives, union delegates. One only has to remember, to understand the philosophy and motivation for this piece of legislation, a little bit of the history of labour parties around the world—of course, back in the 1800s, when there was a need and a time for trade unions, when they were relevant, when they were coherent, meaningful, and modern, there was a need. That time has long since passed. What happened was that the trade union movement around the world established itself in a way that ultimately decided that, sooner or later, they needed parliamentary representation if they were going to make the changes that they needed. So labour parties sprung up in places like the United Kingdom, in Canada, Australia, and, of course, in New Zealand. The parliamentary Labour Party, effectively, became the political wing of the trade union movement.

So many people, today, often forget that history, they forget the connections, they forget the motivation—they don’t necessarily join up the dots that see a bill like this coming to the Parliament that will be a handbrake on innovation, a handbrake on enterprise, and a handbrake on economic development in the international film sector, for which New Zealand has a very proud, and rightly proud, record of magnificent success.

My colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith made the very good point that New Zealand is not the only country in the world with beautiful landscapes, with snow-capped mountains, with blue skies, lovely lakes, and lovely vistas. The people who make movies around the world are competitive creatures and they will make movies in environments where the regulatory and legal opportunities exist for them to do so successfully. It’s not like there’s any shortage of people wanting to participate. When the National Government passed what has become affectionately referred to as the “Hobbit law”, a massive freeing up of opportunity—not only for those businesses but for the individuals who were engaged in it, who were successfully employed, who were contracting, who were earning very good money, who would otherwise not have been doing so.

So this is a piece legislation that was originally promised by a fellow by the name of Iain Lees-Galloway. Most people in the Chamber probably—in fact, certainly the Labour backbench—weren’t in Parliament when this fellow, Lees-Galloway, was here, it was so long ago. He promised—in fact, Labour promised, back in 2017 at the election, that they would pass this piece of legislation in their first hundred days. Well, their five years of failure is stark, not only on this piece of legislation but it’s stark in every other aspect of Labour Government’s policy initiatives. Five years of complete and utter failure—inability to understand the basic mechanism of a thriving, flourishing, and prosperous economy. Our total economy is now paying the price for that lack of understanding, that lack of knowledge, and the stubborn determination that the parliamentary Labour Party has in following through on their promises to the trade union movement.

So this is a piece of legislation that unions don’t like. The reason they don’t like it is because, currently, there is virtually no collective bargaining in the film industry, as the majority of film production workers are actually contractors. That’s a situation that suits the contractors, it suits the employers, and there’s no shortage of people wanting to take up the flexibility that comes with being a contractor.

Now, I know that the Government fundamentally don’t like contractors. The reason they don’t like contractors is because independent contractors don’t become members of a trade union—they don’t become a member of a trade union. Of course, since the establishment of the Employment Contracts Act back in the 1990s, trade union membership has dropped significantly and steadily. The reason it’s dropped significantly and steadily is because most New Zealanders don’t find relevance from being a member of a trade union. They don’t find any benefit from paying their $500, $600, $700, or $800 a year membership to be a member of a magical collective that is somehow going to further stifle their employment and entrepreneurial opportunities.

So unions don’t like the prospect of people having freedoms, of people having free choice, of people negotiating terms and conditions with their employer, and they want everybody to be pigeon-holed, to be boxed in together as a unit of labour, if you like, a unit of production. But we on this side of the House see things in fundamentally different terms. We see people as individuals, as people who are able and capable of determining their own employment arrangements that benefit most effectively from the flexibility that comes with a nimble, flexible approach to the economy, and to employment conditions.

All around the world, other countries have looked at our industrial relations environmental landscape and they’ve said, “By crikey, over the last 30 years, since the 1990s, New Zealand has got it right.” But since this Labour Government came into Parliament, or came into power, they’ve determinedly tried to change every single aspect and turn it back to the “good old days”, as they see it, of union dominance, union control, and decisions being made behind closed doors at trades hall. The days of that, I thought, were long gone. I thought that that was long, long over. But the current Minister, of course, is a Minister who comes from a trade union background. He was an organiser in the FinSec union, and I guess that, probably, after the next election, that’s where he will go back to—to a trade union of a similar sort, because there’s going to be a whole lot of those Labour members, who came from that union delegate role, who will be looking for new jobs after the next election.

So they’re trying to use their absolute majority in this Parliament, at the moment, to pass this piece of legislation. They’ll pass it, and then it will be up to a future Government to have a look at it, to determine how unhelpful it’s been, how impossibly difficult it’s made employers’ opportunities, and how little work is being done in terms of film production in New Zealand, because those companies will have simply taken their capital, their enterprise, and their imagination and innovation to another country. It will be New Zealand—it will be New Zealanders—that lose out as a result of that ideological change that the Labour Party and their union friends seem so determined to foist upon hard-working, innovative, imaginative, and creative New Zealanders.

Well, we on this side of the House take a fundamentally different view. We have faith in New Zealanders. We trust them. We understand that they can and will make sensible and fine decisions based on what is good for their own creative talent, what is good for the opportunities that are provided to them. So this piece of legislation is little more than the Labour Party belatedly, finally—not in their first hundred days, but finally—under duress, I suspect, and a little bit of nudging, pushing, and prodding by the trade union movement, they’re trying to get this passed while they have a Parliamentary majority to achieve that. Well, we’ll have a look at it when we get the opportunity, should we get the opportunity to be in Government at the next election. This will be a piece of legislation that will be firmly on our radar. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a proud day today to be in the House to right what is a significant wrong that was implemented by the last National Government. The last speaker, Scott Simpson—I disagreed with his entire speech. He seemed to have not noticed the fact that the contractor status of screen industry workers is maintained by this particular legislation, as agreed by the Film Industry Working Group. He was also wrong about Kris Faafoi being the last Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and he’s wrong about what this bill does and what the importance of this bill is.

His colleague Paul Goldsmith said, “What is the crisis?” I’ll tell you what the crisis is. I worked as an employment lawyer and I had people in the screen industry come to me while this legislation was in force, and I had to say to them there is nothing I can do for you—there is nothing I can do for you—because, regardless of the true nature of your job, you are treated as a contractor and you have no rights. That is a crisis, and that is important to New Zealanders, and that is why it’s so important that we pass this Screen Industry Workers Bill today and return the dignity and mana to this incredibly important industry of creative individuals that bring so much joy and so much culture to our country—such an important industry.

I just want to briefly reflect—I wanted to be quite hopeful with this speech, because we’ve done quite a lot of work in this area, and we have gone through what happened under the last National Government at length in the second reading. So I wanted to talk a little bit about ex - Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly and the involvement that she had during this dispute. This was a horrible experience that she had to go through for standing up for the fundamental rights of an industry. The Government came in—at the time, the National Government—and took away the employment rights of an entire industry. No select committee process, no consultation—they had nothing. She stood up with them. She was vilified. She was told that she was being unpatriotic. She said, at the time, it was outrageous that the Government removed workers’ rights in the way that they did. I agree, and that’s why I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I, too, rise to celebrate this piece of legislation and a righting of a grievous wrong in our country.

It’s not what I intended but I want to start my speech with just a little bit of a review of history, because the National Party is so busy rewriting it that I feel compelled to be able to put some of the reality back on track. So we’ve heard that, actually, there was no reason for this legislation—none whatsoever—and that the National Party had intervened to save an industry and protect workers. Whereas, actually, and I’m also going to, in this, reference part of Rebecca Macfie’s biography and some material in that biography of Helen Kelly, where she talks about the process that’s led to this legislation today and what was happening under National, saying that “unlike their international peers, New Zealand actors didn’t work under union contracts and were increasingly aggrieved that their pay and conditions seemed to be getting worse, despite the growth and success of the New Zealand film … in the global film industry,” and that New Zealand cast and crews—and this is quoting from it—“had become known as the ‘Mexicans of the South Pacific.’ ”

I want to acknowledge the racism in terms of reference to Mexicans in that statement, and that came from an American context. But that was the reality for the people behind our creative industries, film industries, and screen industries at that time. It was where we heard of an attempt of one production where they went to the producer to have the discussion about having a collective contract and the entire cast was sacked and recast, just for wanting to have the conversation.

So there were efforts to be able to unionise and change this. There were efforts that then led to a boycott of the Lord of the Rings films that naturally, I think, in terms of the public conversations and how dear those films were held to New Zealanders, led to an uproar in response to that. Then, at that point, the Council of Trade Unions intervened and got an agreement between the producers and Equity New Zealand to be able to negotiate a resolution. Problem solved. But then big capital in the form of Warner Bros. and their executives flew into the country late at night and met with John Key. Then, under urgency with no select committee process, a law to remove employment rights for our film and screen industries were put in place with no public transparency, no ability for people of this country to have a say or even understand what was going on.

We have seen that the rights and the pay and the conditions of these people that feed so much of our sense of cultural understanding, as well as promoting this country to the world, have just been eroding ever since. That is the history and why this piece of legislation is so important. It was Labour Party policy to overturn this, but while we hear from other speakers that “The Labour Party is just so ideological, they’ll just do that.”; actually, the Labour Party decided to bring together a film working group with producers and guilds and unions to negotiate a solution rather than just overturning it. They heard the potential concerns and wanted a sustainable solution to the problems in our film industries. It got agreement of all of those parties over a 10-month process. It was not what I would normally describe as a slapdash process, but that’s what we heard from the National Party, despite their legislation passing in urgency after a late-night meeting with international interests—that, I might describe as slapdash, knee-jerk, offensive, and anti-democratic, but, hey, that’s for another day.

So we have this piece of legislation that has gone through a long select committee process, and a lot of really good changes were made in that in terms of the detail and strengthening it. I really want to acknowledge that a lot of occupational groups today is so important. I think I acknowledged Equity New Zealand and Denise Roche in the House to observe this because this is such an important day for our actors as well as our writers and our directors and editors, and they have been waiting for this.

Collective bargaining will be a game-changer for many in our screen industries. It represents a maturing of the industry and a sign to me that as a country and as a Government and as a support party, we are no longer willing to sacrifice our artists to the altar of exploitative interests. Once this bill is in effect, all contracts will have the protection against sexual harassment, bullying, discrimination, and unfair termination. That’s what the National Party is arguing against. I hope they feel proud. I would not be proud to be taking that position; I find it embarrassing. Every person in the industry will have these contracts with the protections even before collective bargaining, and they will maintain their independent contractor status, as has already been clarified because the National Party does not seem to understand the legislation.

I really want to acknowledge that the fearmongering that I’ve heard from National about this putting our industry under threat neglects to mention that these protections are in place everywhere else in the world. This is not setting up additional protections for our workers; this is providing our workers with the same protections as those in other countries so that they are not treated as the lackeys and the cheap buy of big corporate interests, which is what John Key created and reinforced and went behind. So this bill will support a more stable industry where producers will be able to predict their budgets, and their budgets will be able to be based on reasonable wages and conditions, and they will be able to plan for that as they can in other jurisdictions.

Today is a day to celebrate our creators, and rather than just say that in words, to say it in a way that matters, in a way where we get behind them having the ability to have basic protections, and, hopefully, increasing pay and conditions at work. The Green Party is stoked to be able to support this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to the Screen Industry Workers Bill, a bill about the relationship between employers and employees. I’d like to start by thanking those businesses and employers who funded New Zealand’s Queen Elizabeth II memorial holiday. I’m sure all employees were grateful to their employer for paying for this holiday and will work extra hard to make up the shortfall in funds. The painting and plastering business with 50 employees cost between $18,000 and $20,000 for the day. The sawmill owner with 16 staff: cost them $3,500.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Back to the bill. Come on.

It’s coming up. The CEO of a large security company: costs them $140,000 for one day. And the hospitality owner with 32 staff, up to the eyeballs in debt after the one-in-100-year pandemic, which is continually used as an excuse by the Government: having to find an extra $4,500. I thank those people and I hope everyone enjoyed having the day off in memorial.

The bill has been well traversed, and although I wasn’t there for the select committee process, it just seems to me that it is unnecessary. The Film Industry Working Group has suggested four principles apply to all screen production work, and they seem to make sense. Parties must act in good faith in their dealings with each other. Contractors doing screen production work must be protected from bullying, harassment of any kind, and discrimination. People who engage contractors must act fairly and reasonably when terminating contracts, and contractors doing screen production work must receive a fair rate of pay in relation to their skills and the scale of the production.

It makes you wonder if the Government has ever seen employment contracts. Here’s a contract for a delivery driver: 12 pages—12 pages. In those 12 pages, it covers remuneration, it covers termination, it covers employee protection, it covers work safety, it covers employment relation problems, and everything must be dealt with in good faith. A 13-page contract for the hospitality industry covers all of those things, as well. They have to take them away for a week, consult with people, discuss it, take it to a lawyer if they want, and then they sign it. To say that those protections are not already in place is just misinformation.

But the only difference is that this Government doesn’t think individuals are capable of making their own decisions, and only the Government or unions can work out the pay and conditions in an employer-employee relationship. It believes that those people who want to work hard and get ahead don’t want the interference of Government, especially unions. Actually, we know it, because we run businesses, and we deal with workers every day. They don’t want it. Times have changed, and workers are more capable than ever of being masters of their own destiny. They don’t need to be patronised and treated like fools.

A few weeks ago during a debate, the Greens’ Jan Logie said that they’d like to go back to the 1970s, when the unions were strong. Shops weren’t open on the weekends. Pubs shut at 10 o’clock. Maybe we should go back to 6 o’clock closing, because that worked really well—such fantastic times. But, as is typical of the ideology of the left, they still want the benefits that workers have gained since those times: four weeks’ annual leave, not two; two weeks’ sick leave, not none; 12 days of statutory holidays, or 13 in some years; and the numerous other leave provisions that business owners have to pay for. It is unfortunate we have a Government of such division, convincing employees that they are continually being treated terribly, and all employers are rich and just want to get out as much as they can—just so far from the actual reality.

The disconnect between the Government and the union affiliates with the real world is open and on display every day, like Andrew Little saying sick leave won’t hurt businesses a bit—$2 billion; the Council of Trade Unions president stating it’s only one day for the Queen’s holiday—costing businesses $450 million; and the Public Service Association saying that they don’t believe in performance pay. You need to digest that. What they’re saying is they don’t believe that if you work hard, you should be paid more. When I tell workers that, they really don’t believe me. They’re sick of people telling them how to—these are the people who are telling the Government how to run businesses.

This bill is another example of the ideology of a Government devoid of business experience. It will affect the screen industry in New Zealand. It’s just becoming too hard to do business in this beautiful country. ACT believes most employers are good people who just want to run a profitable, productive business, whether that’s in the film industry or whatever, and we believe that most employees or contractors just want to work hard and get ahead. We believe the best way to do that is for the Government to leave them alone and treat them like adults. It has worked for the last 30 years. ACT cannot support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Happy to take a call on the Screen Industry Workers Bill. The previous speaker, Chris Baillie, was in the Education and Workforce Committee throughout the process, and throughout his speech he was referring to employees, but this bill is about contractors, and that’s two different things.

All the speeches from the Opposition MPs were just a rant—anti-worker rant, anti-union rant—there was no substance; there was nothing. And what a shame.

This bill aims to create a workplace relations regime for contractors in the screen industry. It simply provides certainty about the employment status of screen production workers. In 2010, the Employment Relations Act 2000 was amended to remove film production workers from its definition of “an employee”. By doing so, it took away all their basic rights, such as getting paid minimum wage and bargaining collectively. This was a gross injustice that needed to be rectified, and this is exactly what this bill intends to do.

This bill does a few things but mainly restores the mana and dignity of the screen industry workers. It introduces a duty of good faith for workplace relations—for example, between contractors and their engagers. It creates a two-tiered collective bargaining framework, allowing bargaining to occur across occupational groups or within enterprises. It simply restores the occupational-level bargaining, enterprise-level bargaining, and dispute resolution.

This bill is important because it delivers on a commitment to restore collective bargaining rights for film production workers. It’s the rights which were removed when the previous Government legislated under urgency what is known as the “Hobbit law”. This bill is all about righting the wrongs, and I commend it to the House.

The next call is a split call. I call on Sam Uffindell—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s very good to be able to get up and talk on this bill, the Screen Industry Workers Bill, and we’ve heard different points of view from both sides of the House. Repealing the “Hobbit law”, as it was called, within the first 100 days. Well, I’m not sure how many days we’re on now, but we are well down the road, as this Government continues—and you’ve heard it before from the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the Hon Scott Simpson and from our colleagues in the ACT Party, but I will say it again: this is an attempt by this Government to force its union ideological agenda on the New Zealand workforce.

I actually have a sister who works in the film industry, and she is a contractor. That flexibility has given her the ability to enter into agreements—voluntarily—get good wages out of it, and work to how she wants to work. That suits most people very well. And do you know what? People don’t need to be forced into what they’re wanting to do. People can make up their own mind, and we trust people to make up their own mind. Your Government’s advice is actually that the changes we made in 2010 worked. I hear the people in the Green Party talking about what happened when international people flew into New Zealand and met with John Key at midnight. Oh my goodness! Well, guess what we got out of it! We got a trilogy, and how well did that work? That set up thousands of jobs in New Zealand, billions of dollars coming in. That’s what happens when you’re pragmatic, when you work with people and you make things happen.

Would that have worked under your provisions? Would these companies have come to New Zealand? Would they have come over and set this up? I’m not sure if they would have, and that’s the risk we run, because what you guys don’t realise is that we live in an international labour market, and people can choose to go and work wherever they want, and people can choose to film wherever they want. Unlike your side of the House, we’ve figured this out: New Zealand isn’t the epicentre of the world, and we have a very dynamic community, where people and jobs flow. So you need to have good conditions and you need to be internationally competitive, and if you’re not, guess what happens! Those jobs walk away.

We back freedom to choose. We want New Zealand to be internationally competitive. Now, I know it’s taken you guys a while to get to this point, but, as has been acknowledged, you do have a new Minister in charge—Michael Wood—and he’s been very busy. He had on a very smart, bright red tie, showing his political affiliations yesterday, and it’s great to see, from your side of the House. I shouldn’t use sarcasm, but it is good of you to see that you’re pushing your ideological agenda on us. But we don’t support it. We don’t support this bill, because we fundamentally think that it will reduce our competitiveness. We know that it will reduce workers’ right to choose. Gross revenue increased under the changes made by National. You need to remember that. Under the status quo, New Zealand is a very competitive place for people to come and work. Your own advice is that the amendments made by National in 2010 worked. This bill removes flexibility.

💬 Angela Roberts: No, it doesn’t.

It will send production companies offshore. And you might say it won’t, but if you’re a production company and you need to pay more, what are you going to do? You might go to Switzerland; you might go somewhere else. Mexico was brought up earlier today. You may go somewhere where it is more competitive. And do you know what? Workers might do the same as well, because they may want to arrange their own contract. Heaven forbid people can actually sit down with an employer and determine what their working arrangement is going to be! I know it doesn’t bode well for you guys over there, but that’s the reality of how people like to engage.

There’s going to be increased uncertainty. Are film companies going to dive into New Zealand? They might sit on the fence for a little bit. We don’t know; they might wait out the turbulence. The law as implemented by National helped to bring the trilogy here. They brought in a huge amount of money into this economy. They created a number of jobs, and you guys are fundamentally putting that at risk with your ideological agenda. The National Party opposes this bill.

Before I call the next speaker, I’d like to remind the member who just resumed his seat, Sam Uffindell, to not use the word “you”, because every time you do, you bring me into the debate. I didn’t want to stop you while you were making your speech, but it’s a reminder for next time.

谢谢，Madam Speaker. Again, some grace will be given to the member that’s just sat down, Sam Uffindell, because this bill has been before the House during a period where the member—anyway, we’ll stop there.

But what I wanted to say is that Wellington is not the only place in New Zealand that is the centre of the film industry for New Zealand. Queenstown is a lovely, great place to have film, but, actually, one that is closer to home, in my electorate of Mana, is Kāpiti. Currently, in Kāpiti, we have a budding screen industry that’s growing there. And I want to acknowledge Ryan Cole, who is from Raumati, who just won an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour) - 2022 for his work on Stranger Things. He had done that sound editing from his home. He had done that, as a New Zealander, based here, in Kāpiti, still working for an international company, because he has that ability.

There’s also another budding screen industry worker from Raumati, and she’s currently working on the Indiana Jones movies. She is currently in Los Angeles at the moment working on that film—again, based here in New Zealand, working there. But the interesting thing about this is she is the union rep. She is waiting for this bill to get through because she absolutely agrees with this bill. We’ve been working together to make sure that what she wants to look at, for the part of this bill, that she clearly understands it so that when it is enacted, she knows how to support her members who will have a choice—and, again, who will have a choice and are contractors—to join a union.

So, therefore, I don’t have much further to say. I thank the Education and Workforce Committee and the Minister for the work that they did on this bill and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m really pleased to stand and take a call on this piece of legislation, the Screen Industry Workers Bill. I am a business owner and I employ staff, and I’m not from a union background but I can see that benefit, absolutely, of ensuring that those people who work as employees or as contractors have a voice.

This bill simply gives people who are contractors in the screen industry a voice and rights that they have not had previously. My colleague Camilla Belich talked about her experience as an employment lawyer, and she herself said that when people from the screen industry came to see her because of issues they were having, she could not help them because they had no rights. Why is the National Party so fundamentally against giving good, honest, working people basic rights that protect them from sexual harassment, bullying, and give them basic wage entitlements and sick leave entitlements? I don’t understand why that party is so against looking after the working people of New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

This will be very uncomfortable for the left because they don’t really like hearing consistent logical thought, so brace yourselves and buckle in. You can see the lack of commitment from the left—they’re taking exceptionally, exceptionally short calls. After almost years of prevarication on this bill, they’ve finally—finally—got it to the House.

💬 Angela Roberts: So are we rushing it?

I have to address this—if someone says they’re rushing it, of course they are.

💬 Angela Roberts: Or are we dragging it out?

Now they’re saying, “Have we been dragging it out?” Well, actually, the Labour Party has, because, like so many of their promises, they said that they would sort this in their first 100 days, and, as Sam Uffindell has just pointed out, we are well past 100 days of this Government. In fact, I think most Kiwis are finding that they’re well past this Government entirely. But that’s the first question around this bill: why has it taken so long for a Labour Party promise to come to the House?

This is not a question about the merit of the bill—obviously the left like it. The question is: why has it taken so, so long to get here? [Interruption] We sort of have a choir going on from our lefty friends today, which is involving only two words—they probably can’t be heard. One is “support” and one is “contractors”, as if stating two words is in itself an argument. The problem we have, fundamentally, is that this bill is increasing union rights, which is going to be a detriment to the industry and, I would argue, to the very workers that the union is supposed to represent, and we’ll tease that out a bit.

But first and foremost—well, it’s not first and foremost. I’m already two minutes in; I’ve already done twice as long as any Labour MP. Jo Luxton pointed out concerns around sexual harassment and other conditions that this bill touches on. The National Party has absolutely no problem with that, but, like any legislation, this bill, the Screen Industry Workers Bill, goes much, much wider. So I stress that, for anybody who’s watching this, the National Party supports a good amount of what’s in this legislation. As I say, increased protections around harassment, bullying, and so forth makes absolute and perfect sense. However, that’s not simply what the bill is about; it gives enormous powers to the union to negotiate contracts.

Now, the counterargument from the other side is that what’s known as the “Hobbit law”, passed by the John Key Government, went too far in the other direction, basically stripping—well, there was no union power. Contracts were negotiated between individuals, and if you’re a good left-wing Marxist, like most of them are on the other side, you’ll talk about hierarchies, and power imbalances, and so forth. Tāmati Coffey laughs because he doesn’t quite understand what the word “Marxist” means, but they would argue that it went far too far. The only corollary, of course, is that this bill, like any good pendulum, has flipped completely out the other side. And so the left is here today, patting itself on the back. They’re absolutely delighted. They think it’s going to be marvellous—all these new union conditions that are going to be imposed.

So, first and foremost, it’s certain payback. We definitely know—we can see though the legislative changes being pushed through this House, including around fair pay agreements—that the unions are absolutely delighted. The Labour Party has taken a great leap backwards to take us into the 1950s and 1960s—the cloth cap makers across the country will be delighted. The payback is being given. But the other element that’s going to be kicking forward—or kicking backwards, strictly—is that there will not be the contracts for the union to negotiate. So the unions probably think this is a win. The Labour Party certainly thinks it’s a win. The Greens probably think it’s a win. Some in the industry, yes, think it’s a win and that it’s just great, except they’re going to find there is no industry, actually, and let’s just elucidate on that in two particular ways.

Barbara Edmonds actually gave a very thoughtful contribution, mentioning two people from New Zealand who are doing work overseas, which I think is absolutely fantastic and very much an expression of our modern environment. I would be relatively confident—I’d better be clear: I don’t know, but I’d be relatively confident—that this law will not impact those people, because if they’re working in New Zealand for a company overseas, those are external international contracts and this law has no impact. In fact, it’s symbolic of what is going to happen more. New Zealanders will be doing screen production work for overseas companies. Yes, they can still be in New Zealand, which is tremendous—probably thanks to the ultra-fast broadband that National rolled out—but, actually, they’re going to be governed by international contracts.

The second point—and I raised this; I can’t remember whether it was in the second reading or maybe the first reading speech—is that we are already seeing an industry that’s under pressure, and I used Amazon as a really good example. I will admit I have downloaded Prime. I’m paying a subscription to watch The Lord of the Rings. It’s not quite in the spirit of Tolkien, but, you know, it’s still entertaining and it’s a distraction from occasional life in Parliament. But Amazon has already left New Zealand. Things were already getting difficult enough for them. It was a major screen industry, and, as I pointed out before, they’re leaving because of the Labour Government. In effect, the ridiculous COVID rules, mandates, and proscriptions, that the Government pushed, basically saw them leave. Paul Goldsmith is completely correct. New Zealand is not the only country that has mountains and rivers and so forth. They can go to Slovakia and the UK and a whole lot of other places, and they are—they have.

And so already we are seeing an exodus, and this bill is going to make it even worse, I would argue. I could be wrong. I’m more than happy for the left to come back at me in years to come and say, “Look, the movie industry in New Zealand, the screen—

💬 Hon Member: It’s a deal.

—industry, is thriving.” Jo Luxton or someone on the other side has said, “It’s a deal.”—they’ll come back and tell me I’m wrong, and I’d be happy to be wrong, but I don’t think I’m going to be. I think the screen industry in New Zealand is already struggling. It’s already under major pressure, and this law change is going to make things much, much more difficult.

So it’s pyrrhic victory—once again, to offend the principles of plain language that the Labour Government is keen on. It’s a pyrrhic victory. Today, the Labour Party, the Green Party, various union officials, and others will delight in what has happened, but they’re going to find, and those contractors are going to find, that there just isn’t the work here in New Zealand. It’s as simple as that. And related to it as well is that in recent days the screen industry, not only on the international side but also the domestic side, will lose funding. Now, under Willie Jackson, most of the money from New Zealand On Air that used to go to the likes of SPADA—the Screen Production and Development Association—and others, to do screen industry work in New Zealand, is going to go to Willie Jackson’s new multimedia TVNZ/RNZ. In other words, we’re also seeing pressure on the screen industry where domestic funding’s been removed

So we have a bill here that is changing the conditions, which is going to make it even harder for anyone to actually do any film production, and simultaneously we have a Government now looking to strip the funding which some of our screen production associations are using. As I say, the funding from New Zealand On Air is going to be diverted—not all of it, and most of those on the left are looking confused, because Willie Jackson probably hasn’t explained it to them, or, if he did, they couldn’t understand a word he was saying, which is pretty normal. They are taking money that the screen industry and, if you will, the workers use and it’s to be pumped into this new—I’ve forgotten what they call it—New Zealand media company, the fusion of Radio New Zealand and TVNZ. So I would suggest to the House and to you, Madam Speaker, that this piece of legislation is not going to help the industry at all; in fact, I think we’re seeing, unfortunately, an industry going backwards. You can see the great benefits we’ve had of a screen industry that has been thriving up until recent years. Again, I want to acknowledge that COVID had an impact—rather, not COVID but the rules the Labour Government held to.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

They sigh, of course, but these guys have probably never talked to an Amazon or all the companies in New Zealand that had work through them. It’s now gone. Again, we want to stress that—gone. That’s thousands of jobs, thousands and thousands of jobs, and if the left think that this bill is going to make things better, they are sorely wrong.

So I want to conclude where I started. To bookend this little story—well, it will be 10 minutes—even if those on the left think that the previous law and what is currently the existing law is wrong, they are welcome to think that. And you can make a relatively coherent and rational argument of why it was not a good law. I personally think it was fine, but I can understand the rational argument against it. This bill is like a pendulum which is swinging far too far in this case to the left.

Once again, they say, “Oh, the industry wants”—yeah, fine. It’s great that they want it. It’s going to be really interesting in the coming months and years when they find there is no industry and they’re all wringing their hands and saying, “Oh, I wish the Government would give us more money. Oh, we need bailouts because there’s just no one coming here. Oh, we’ve lost all our best talent overseas.” I look forward to the left and those people opining. Anyway, thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

It is an absolute privilege to be the last speaker to take a call on this significant little bill, the Screen Industry Workers Bill. I just want to start by acknowledging the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, who has joined us and who, of course, brought this bill to the House. There have been many who have been mentioned since who have worked on it.

I’ve taught many creative, bright, intelligent, committed, and hard-working students, young people, in school and community theatre, and they wanted to join and become a part of the screen industry. The other side are always talking about, you know, being happy to bask in the glory of our international success, but they’re also clear that the workers in that industry should be grateful to be a part of it. And that’s right—they are grateful to be a part of it. But therein lies the power imbalance and therein lies the injustice: that has led to poor conditions and poor pay for some of our “contractors” in the industry.

I can remember many hundreds of years ago when I was a student myself and was considering going into theatre, and my mother very wisely said to me there is nothing romantic about starving in a garret. I’m really pleased that, if I was in the classroom, I would no longer have to give that advice to my students—that I know that they are going to be safe, they’re going to have their mana intact, in being a part of this.

The industry wants this. The Film Industry Working Group developed the solution. They understand that this is our place and that it is our people that make us internationally competitive. It ain’t the price we pay for our people; it’s our people that make us internationally competitive and successful. Thank goodness the creatives got together to find the solution. They are, absolutely, fundamentally collaborative and innovative, and they came up with things—oh my goodness, it was different and new. Apparently, according to the other side, that is not something to be cherished. They wanted something meaningful and modern. Well, actually, that’s exactly what this bill has delivered—that is exactly what this bill delivered.

This bill is for our young people, our young creatives, who are going to continue to build on our international success and be creative internationally. I commend this bill to the House.