New minister on spot over Hobbit Law
Life is simple for politicians out of power. Problems can be presented as a clash of principles, issues painted in black and white. When they get into government they quickly find themselves working in shades of grey. No politician could attest to that better than the new Government’s Minister of Workplace Relations, Iain Lees-Galloway.
He had barely found his Beehive suite before the local film industry was at his door, worried that he would repeal National’s infamous “Hobbit Law”. He told them, as reported in The Business on Friday, that while he wants to restore collective bargaining rights for New Zealand actors and production crews, that will not necessarily mean repeal.
He is treating the movie industry as a “complete anomaly” in this country’s workplace arrangements, which is more or less what the previous Government said when it put through the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Act in 2010 to ensure Warner Brothers did not take Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy to another country.
The problem then, as now, was the ability of actors and crew hired as independent contractors to seek a change of status in employment law part way through the production. The American studios were said to be unwilling to finance films here unless that risk was removed.
The industry is not such an anomaly in fact. Employers’ use of independent contracting to bypass employment liabilities has been a recurring issue in industrial relations law since the 1990s. Actors Equity was well aware of that when made itself unpopular by opposing an exemption for Warner Brothers seven years ago.
The amendment was passed, the trilogy was made here and film crew, who did not share the actors’ concerns, remain happy with the law, according to their union, the Screen Industry Guild. Movies have continued to be made here. A $150 million Disney production, Mulan, directed by Niki Caro of Whale Rider fame, has just been confirmed for production at Kumeu Film Studios. So whatever assurance the industry has received since the change of government seems to be working so far.
Lees-Galloway told The Business he wants to “restore fairness for people working in the industry” in a way which is also “fit for purpose for the industry”. He hopes the working group can come up with a compromise.
The solution seems obvious from outside the industry — let each person decide whether it suits them to be an independent contractor or covered by a collective agreement. That choice has been available to all workers in the economy since the 1990s and collective bargaining in the private sector has suffered. Actor Robyn Malcolm, one of those who led the resistance to the Hobbit Law, says their terms and conditions have deteriorated so much since its passage that she no longer does much work in New Zealand. But if film companies are not willing to run the risk of industrial disruption, there will be less work for everyone in the industry here. Our production centres appear to be doing very well under the law as it stands. Any changes should be minimal.