Marking Out the Boundaries.

By George Davis in Articles

George looks back at the Hobbit film debate

Marking Out the Boundaries.

We most often associate marking the boundaries almost exclusively with the little world of our own private property. It's a job for the surveyors, we think. We sell off a little and it doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps we need a larger view which might also take in moral boundaries. Recently, there has been a good deal of boundary marking for New Zealand. The Hobbit film debate has high-lighted the need for us to be aware of the impact of others' interests in our sovereign domain.

From across the Tasman help was sought from Simon Whipp, head of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the Australian actors' union by NZ Actors' Equity. Rapidly there were cries of "foul" by none other than producer Sir Peter Jackson who saw the dark hand of Australian control being exercised in the demands by some of our Kiwi actors who had been persuaded to prevent others signing up to the movie. Part of the muddled response to the attempted boycott was a feeling that the movie with all it involved would be made off-shore. Heaven forbid. Subsequently, the representatives of Warner Brothers, the great US movie moguls came to discuss the situation, and in doing so, extracted an agreement that must have had them beaming for joy. It is hard to see the events in this process as being other than intimately connected. In rebutting the advice of the Australian trade unions, we caved in to greater forces from over the eastern Pacific.

What does all of this mean? Have we somehow in all of this endangered our own sovereignty? Have we sold our birthright for a mess of pottage? Possibly not, but we have opened the door for other international entrepreneurs to see New Zealand as a soft touch.

Stepping back from the situation we can see that the responses at a number of points may have been less than well considered. NZ Actors Equity felt that it was not getting any response to an appeal for a meeting with the managers over the issue of pay rates and the place of contractors vis-à-vis employees. It seemed reasonable to seek advice in Australia where there is a longer history of film and television employment. The matter of a boycott as a response to non-consideration of negotiating talks is usual but was obviously seen as dangerous by both film administrators and the Government. This assumed danger was played on superbly by Sir Peter at the time of the Warner Brothers executives' visit.

In the end, with the imminent and then actual arrival of the Hollywood moguls, and following rallies strongly in support of staging the production in New Zealand, both NZ Actors' Equity and the Government have generously offered positive incentives to ensure Sir Peter Jackson's wish for The Hobbit to be another NZ blockbuster.

In making these breathtakingly rapid responses have we gone too far? Has the Government mortgaged the future in fostering expectations by others that NZ is a great country to make movies in because the Government will do almost anything to ensure satisfaction? Might this reduce our boundaries? Sovereignty, like integrity, is much like any good reputation - hard to gain but most difficult to regain once dented or lost. Perhaps the legacy of all of this may be a successful production, but it will carry a distinct niggle of how it all came about. And that does matter.

--George Davis

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish Weekly Bulletin, November 7, 2010.