Immigration, Asset Sales, and Public Broadcasting
Almost half way through the year already!
The mainstream media have finally taken an interest in the way the screen production industry is being affected by the changes to immigration processes and procedures. I guess we have to thank Helen Kelly for that since the CTU lodged an objection to large numbers of people being brought in to work at Weta in Wellington. I don’t know the ‘ins and outs’ of the situation, but we do know that Weta have trouble finding enough people with the right skills to do the massive amounts of work going through that facility, so inevitably they need to recruit from off-shore. But I am not convinced there was a need for the changes to immigration, which have been foisted on our industry. I was interested to hear Prime Minister John Key say “I don’t get involved in immigration cases” when talking to** John Campbell** in May. I guess he means he doesn’t get involved in individual cases, but I am sure he has had a strong hand in the tinkering with immigration rules that has taken place over the past year. “Unions should not have power of veto”, this seems to have been a key motivation for making changes to the immigration processes. The system – as it were – was a system of vetting, which could at times lead to an attempted veto by the Techos’ Guild or Actors Equity or the Directors Guild, (though I can’t recall the directors ever actually making an objection). Seeing an objection would invariably be overturned by the Minister or Associate Minister of Immigration, it seems Government always had effective power of veto anyway. However, what did occur under the system, as it was, and what has almost been lost through the changes, is consultation between parties – between the applicant and the guilds or Actors Equity. A process that often led to a compromise, without an official objection lodged.
On the topic of Government, let’s talk asset sales. For all the criticism of the Government’s proposed asset sales, there seems to be a couple of points that have been missed. One is that only those who can afford to buy shares have any chance of having a continued stake in what have been assets shared by all of us, wealthy or otherwise. So once again the ‘haves’ have the advantage over the ‘have-nots’ – a theme I have touched on in the past. But more concerning to me is the nonsensical way we’ve developed of managing our energy resources. Surely the last thing we need is a more competitive commercial model as this can only encourage more energy use for the sake of more profit. Surely we should be finding ways of conserving all forms of energy, particularly electricity and coal, if we want our civilization to have any chance of sustaining itself on this planet in the long term?
On another matter completely, what’s to become of TV7? Here’s hoping the last-minute lobbying that’s been going on up and down the country has some effect on the decision makers. As I have heard argued by many people, a democracy needs public broadcasting – that is non-commercial broadcasting – to allow points of view and influences outside the purely commercial to have some sway.
