Helen Kelly and the green affiliated haters think its fine to try and derail a great promotional event for the countries brand and tourism.

Economic treason sums it up KIA.

The movie industry is cutthroat and ruthless – the big Hollywood producers are used to playing one jurisdiction off against another to squeeze the very best deal so the tax inducements that were offered are standard and par for the course if you want to play with the big boys. Each movie is a new deal – there’s no decade length deal just a deal for a movie (or in this case a trilogy). Jackson haters love to say that Jackson overplayed the threat – knowing a few people who’ve invested in movies here I can tell you that the threats were absolutely real and that the big name production houses always have a Plan B and C ready to move to. NZ is beautiful for sure but the scenery for The Hobbit could’ve been recreated in a number of places anxious to host a blockbuster movie like that.

The Hobbit hating expressed by the left is part and parcel of their vicious class envy. Ideology trumps everything and so doing the bidding of the Australian Actors union was deemed by the NZ union movement and their Labour Party lackies to be of far greater importance than any job creation or promotion practicalities. To see prominent Labour front benchers at the premier was an abject lesson in political hypocrisy and it was marvelous to see Steven Joyce skewering them in Question Time yesterday. The whining, screeching, lying (animal cruelty) and outright distortion of the financial facts has been one of the more disgraceful acts of economic treachery in NZ history and the animus directed at one of our most successful businessman in our history and John Key for his role in brokering the deal, whilst predictable politics as usual, was the NZ tall poppy syndrome at its absolute worst and is one of THE most compelling reasons why so many successful entrepreneurs have taken their skills, heir wealth (and tax) creating abilities to climes more favourable to their skills. NZ is all the poorer for it and yet when we actually get it right and make a splash on the world stage rather than be proud (as most kiwis are) we get the sneering, moralizing and lying from the left.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/movies/call-for-action-as-australia-loses-200m-film-20121126-2a2x2.html

WFF = subsidised rooting.

Wrong (as usual). The Aussies do not forgo GST on food. Only some food, and it’s a nightmare to administer.

However, if it’s OK to forgo GST on films, why is it not OK to forgo GST on food (you know, like the Aussies do)?

Oh, that’s right, subsidies are for the rich, the powerful, the successful and the well-connected…

“The whole “doesnt cost us anything” argument that DPF has put forward is basically an extension of the lump of labour fallacy. If the hobbit wasnt here, these people wouldnt just sit around and do nothing.”

This is the only real argument. Although no subsidy was paid, we don’t know what the opportunity cost was.

lazza,

“But Hey see today’s Guardian…”

Would that be the same Guardian notorious for its own tax avoidence scheming?

http://order-order.com/2009/02/02/guardians-tax-hypocrisy-is-ridiculous/

Hamnida, you accuse them of:

animal cruelty in the Animal Welfare Act 1999 … they went ahead and killed twenty innocent animals

I trust, then, that you will be filing a criminal complaint with the police?

Backup.

Hamnida is acusing Warner Bros, Peter Jackson of killing twenty innocent animals.

But Warner Bros were not in charge of the animals, and no one working for Warner Bros killed them. Neither did Peter Jackson.

Let alone that he’s claiming that killing them was cruel. That isn’t even the allegation, the allegation is that they were kept in pasture that was unsuitable for horses, and had accidents that means they needed to be put down. Killing an animal isn’t cruelty per se.

Scrubone, there is a vast gulf between what is there and what is required to manufacture a decent modern product and that aside the Hillside shop would still be importing 3/4 of the gear made up anyways. From China.
Or are you saying we should build a mine , steel mill and foundry as well?

Again, your comments are utterly bizarre.

Just because we import steel to make stuff doesn’t mean we shoudn’t make stuff. Yes, the steel is imported as are many of the components. But that’s the way manufacturing works, you purchase components, make others yourself and put them together.

There *is* a foundry there, already. I’m staggered that you think there’s isn’t. What do you think they have there!

And they have been making wagons and carriages for years – very, very good ones.

How on earth can you make such comments when you clearly know so little about what you are talking abouth.

Basically this is a full-costing v’s marginal costing argument. You can always say that at the margin, it is beneficial for NZ so why not do it. But the problem is that if the entire economy is priced based on marginal costing, nobody’s paying the overheads.

It has been suggested before, however, that we could drop company tax to a very low level – say 5%. Any NZ company owners still have to pay tax on that – since when the company distributes the profit it is taxable to the owner. Any offshore company owners would arguably have incentive to recognise more of their profits in NZ, and to open companies in NZ. So not much loss to the NZ tax system, and arguably would increase employment a lot. To the extent that subsidies take this form I have little against them. My understanding is that the Hobbit subsidy wasn’t structured in this way.

* Don’t forget the ‘foreign capital investment’ element of the deal else Russel will be using that argument as evidence of the ‘Keynesian multiplier’ and insisting that printing money is a good thing. [Which it absolutely is not.]

Dunno about that – seems to be an awful lot of people sitting around on the dole in between Jackson’s productions. One of the reasons why film-making hasn’t just shot of to an even lower wage location is that you need to be able to maintain a fairly skilled pool of workers who will only be needed from time to time. Social welfare’s pretty good for that.

“Or are you saying we should build a mine , steel mill and foundry as well?”

Last I heard we still had those.

http://www.nzsteel.co.nz/about-new-zealand-steel/operations-/glenbrook-steel-site

Here’s the problem though. There are an awful lot of things that would be done in NZ if they were tax free, that are not done here today. Are all those things also things that we should give tax breaks for? Following that to it’s logical conclusion, shouldn’t we take tax off everything, as that would then allow us to have a much larger economy?

The reality is that we do have a government to support. Whilst I’d agree that government should be smaller, and therefore every industry in NZ should be getting a tax break, I’m not at all sure that it makes sense for the govt to pick and choose industries that get a break. Because when you do that, it just means that other industries need to pay more tax than they otherwise would – when you give movies a tax break you’re choosing to have less farming, or less tourism, or less something else.

But Hey see today’s Guardian. They have done “an amazing number”, naming and shaming the Big Boys sheltering their taxes in London Property. Ever wonder why a lil Flat in Westminster costs a Good Lotto Win. Answer: The same as for Hollywwod do with their profits … they lose em all somewheres. The Fiscal Cliff, Obama, Europe’s meltdown, Gecko, and The Occupy Movement all signify … that the tax evasion/avoidance industry will soon be behind bars … unless they play ball. End Of Sermon.

So Right now, are you suggesting that all the flights out of Wellington will be full of emmigrating Weta workshop artists over the next month?