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October 30, 2010 9:40am by David Farrar

Excellent summary

Derek Cheng has an excellent summary of The Hobbit saga.

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Comment18

NZ Politics
Derek Cheng
The Hobbit

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Comments (18)

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Doug

It’s great to see some investigative journalism instead of making shit up to sell News Papers.
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October 30, 2010 10:10am
TripeWryter

It appears to be a more factual account than most. But there is the usual New Zealand Herald condecension towards Jackson and the Wellington film industry.

Having said that, I do agree with the Herald’s John Roughan — the Rings book was a fad in 1971, and I felt terribly left out because when I tried to read it I found it awfully boring. I enjoyed the movies, for their spectacle and for the pride I felt that they were being made here in New Zealand by a New Zealand genius — but I can’t say I found them easy to follow.

Chris Trotter: he writes in The Dominion Post that Jackson scripted it all to get the result he and Warners wanted. I like reading Trotter sometimes — but I do wish the man would provide evidence to prove what he says.

I hope that everyone who work on the movies get treated fairly. Too many New Zealand movies get made on the unpaid and low-paid backs of enthusiasts and volunteers.
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October 30, 2010 10:15am
reid

You know the very worst thing to me is the execrable people who caused all this – the unions – refuse to acknowledge culpability instead the bastards are smearing everyone with allegations bordering on corruption.

This is both the Labour Party spin as per RedAlert and it’s the unions spin.

It’s outrageous.

Naturally one is not in the least surprised that they’re doing this, what surprises me however is that some or even many lower-level lefties are showing signs of actually believing this drop-dead obvious bollocks. Cognitive dissonance once again rears its ugly head.
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October 30, 2010 10:32am
labrator

It’s a good timeline. The one part I don’t follow is the last sentence, how does the new law “weaken workers rights”?
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October 30, 2010 11:06am
flipper

reid …..
Don’t get too upset. The good thing about the LP/LW spin is that they are preaching to themselves, witness the LP/TU letter writers. They actually think the great unwashed read the editorial (BS pages). Good!
As for O’Herald and Roughan, if Weta were based in Waitakere their views would be different. What else can we expect from such self-centred pricks?
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October 30, 2010 11:43am
pidge

The nature of a workers engagement no longer is a factor if determining if the individual is an employee or a contractor.

The workers need to decide up front if they will be a contractor (and earn more money, at the risk of arbitary termination of contract) or be an employee (and accept a money less than a contractor, but get holiday pay, breaks, kiwisaver, and cannot be arbitarily dismissed without cause).

In that way it is a weakening, but not loss of rights – no more “I’m a contractor, gimme $80/hour, but wait, I’m an employee due to the nature of the engagement (I’ve only worked for you in the last two years etc), you can’t end my contract without cause”
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October 30, 2010 11:49am
adze

I thought the panel coverage on The Nation this morning was interesting – it took quite a different view to the negotiations, suggesting it was more a case of the government and Warners “surfing on Peter Jackson’s rage” (something which they felt kept the boycott issue alive longer than was necessary); it allowed the government and Warners to both get something neither would otherwise have been able to get.

Not sure how I feel about that. I suspect there’s more to this than meets the eye; but it seems a universally-held view that this whole debacle was a monumental union cockup.
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October 30, 2010 12:08pm
tvb

The law change probably means we now have a very decisive advantage over Australia who are heavily unionised up to their collective ears. So we are back in Business and on the back of the Hobbit announcement we got the Avatar announcement. Higher nominal production costs in NZ is actually a secondary consideration. The threats that Union action potentially present like strikes etc pose to film budgets are huge. Now with Labour issues settled and fenced off, any other threats to costs can be managed with hedging contracts and other measures.
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October 30, 2010 12:09pm
Paulus

About he only intelligent thing that the Herald has published over the whole affair. Roughan is as usual so no comment here.

Well done Derek Cheng – I am surprised the Herald let it go forward as it contradicts many earlier comments published in the paper.
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October 30, 2010 1:06pm
Yvette

Derek Cheng _ “… A universal cheer erupts in support of keeping the films here.”

adze – “but it seems a universally-held view that this whole debacle was a monumental union cockup.”

Hey guys, Universal has nothing to do with this
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October 30, 2010 1:22pm
flipper

The nation ??????
On Saturday morning?
Rubbish!
Anyone got some REAL viewer data?
My guess is that viewership is confined to the beltway bandits in Wellington and Auckland.
They delude themselves. Do they not realise that their esoteric pontrificating is over the heads of most voters?
Carry on and stuff the LW once and for all (as will happen in Obama land next week)!
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October 30, 2010 1:28pm
Doug

You must wonder how the Labour Party feels now that Andrew Little has come out and said that the Union made a mistake in supporting the Aussie Union. So the party was sent into Parliament as Cannon Fodder, while Little and Goff stayed well clear of the mess.
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October 30, 2010 1:57pm
tvb

Good old Trev carried the can for the Labour Party. They just left him to it. I guess they figure that Mallard is so lacking in public appeal that it just does not matter what he says. So he lead the opposition and the Unions were squared. Their wholly owned subsidiary did their stuff.
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October 30, 2010 7:26pm
Viking2

The Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Act passed under urgency with the backing of National and its support parties. It was opposed by Labour and the Greens.

Despite amendments to tidy up the hastily drafted five-page law, Labour MP Charles Chauvel said it was so badly written it would do the opposite of what the Government had promised Warner and Jackson. It would provoke more court cases challenging workers’ status, not fewer.

Mr Chauvel was involved as a lawyer in the 2005 Supreme Court case that found James Bryson was an employee, not a contractor, on The Lord of the Rings production.
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The Government did not understand the law and was making many more Bryson-type cases more likely, Mr Chauvel said

Anyone got an opinion on what Chauvel has said????
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October 30, 2010 9:49pm
Nookin

Film workers are excluded from the definition of employees unless there is an employment agreement that provides that they are employees or a pre-existing agreement. I guess so long as there is a written agreement specifying that the contractor is not an employee it would be very difficult for Mr Chavel to drive through a gap. Time will tell
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October 30, 2010 11:33pm
Brian Smaller

Did you see Goof in Wanganui the other day saying that he would have negotiated a better deal. Hell, if the Black Caps had me batting we would be World Champions. What a dick head thing for him to say. He never uttered a word in the whole dispute – how could he when his bosses were on one side of it.
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October 31, 2010 8:17am
Maggie

No doubt to be evenhanded Farrar will also blog on a number of columnists who have taken a different view. John Armstrong, John Drinnan, Finlay McDonald, Fran O’Sullivan, NZ Herald editorial writer, Bryan Rdman, Vernon Small…..

I won’t hold my breath,
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November 1, 2010 3:22pm
RightNow

oh go on, please do
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November 1, 2010 3:26pm

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