The Government's Rescue Package

Segregation, sterilisation and food vouchers… is this really where life is heading for film and television workers? Tim Riley takes a satirical look at what the Government could have in store next for the industry.

Following on from the removal of fundamental employment rights for film and television workers, along with the withdrawal of immigration protections in the industry, the Government has announced new measures designed to recognise the fundamental differences between film workers and other people. In announcing the legislative package**, Gerry ‘the Enforcer’ Brownlee**, said it wasn’t that film workers were a lower class of persons – it was just that they were “different.”

The legislation was passed under urgency at a secret location. Insiders say the meeting took place in** Sir Peter Jackson’s **private cinema at his Seatoun house (with a Skype linkage to Warner Bros headquarters in LA).

The package contains a number of major law changes including the following:

• A new Government department will be set up called ‘Department for the Registration and Supervision of Film Workers.’ Gerry ‘the Enforcer’ Brownlee has been allocated the portfolio. A new categorisation of the citizenry into film workers (‘FWs’) and non-film-workers (‘NFWs’) will be put in place.
• All FWs will be required to register with the new department and be fitted with an ankle bracelet containing personal identification information and a GPS transponder.
• Certain areas in all towns and cities will be designated as ‘NFW only’ areas. FWs may only travel into these areas and use the facilities in such areas under special dispensation from the department. The ankle bracelets will be programmed to deliver painful electrical shocks to any FW who enters prohibited areas without the requisite authority.
• To incentivise foreign production companies to come to New Zealand, the Government will take over responsibility for paying FWs service fees and other related income. This will of course be a cost to the taxpayer but it will be more than offset by the huge wealth that will flow into New Zealand from the foreign productions that will be made here. Given FWs' propensity to squander money on alcohol, tobacco, and other more nefarious substances, the income payments to FWs will comprise food and accommodation vouchers that can only be redeemed at supermarkets and with certain prescribed landlords (and obviously only within those parts of town that FWs are allowed to frequent).
• To maintain the population of FWs at an appropriate level, the Associate Minister of the new department, Paula ‘Basher’ Bennett, has indicated Government assistance for contraception costs for FWs. As an efficient means of achieving this without too much burden on the taxpayer (and in recognition of the increasingly close trading relations we are enjoying with China), she has proposed a one-child policy for FWs. This will be accompanied by forced sterilisations and vasectomies as an efficient means of ensuring compliance with the one-child policy.

A number of further changes have been hinted at by **Prime Minister John Key **if the first round of legislation proves popular. These include:

• A plan to further reduce the costs of maintaining FWs by creating a dedicated settlement where they can be housed and fed between projects at minimal cost to the taxpayer. It has been suggested that Hamilton could be converted to this purpose given its proximity to Auckland. A smaller settlement on Quarantine Island in Wellington’s harbour would be for the benefit of the industry in that region.
• The conversion of the Prime Minister’s residence in Tinakori Road, to a super-luxury boutique hotel where visiting studio executives could be put up whilst engaging in ‘hard ball’ negotiations with the Prime Minister.
• The tripling in size of the crown limousine fleet so that sufficient (free) transport was available to visiting executives.
• A new financial package aimed at encouraging foreign productions to come to this country. This is said to include a rebate of 80% of the production budget (up to $300 million) plus a significant contribution to the marketing budget and an undertaking that New Zealand FWs need only be used if cheaper labour cannot be introduced from traditional labour markets such as Mexico. In addition, the Government would act as the counter-party in a free hedging transaction with the production company to ensure it was not disadvantaged by adverse exchange movements between the NZD and the USD.