Equity vice-president speaks against new government deal

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and New Zealand Culture
Wellington, 7 March 2015, at the anti-TPPA rally

by Todd Rippon, Vice President, Equity New Zealand

Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou Katoa. Ko Ngati Kahungunu taku iwi. Ko Todd Rippon ahau.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of Equity New Zealand. Today I'm going to give you a performer’s perspective on the current negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Performers lives are directly affected by trade policy. In recent years, the film and television industry has been impacted more profoundly by locked in de-regulation than any other sector of  New Zealand's economy. Performers livelihoods depend on the screen industry more than any other medium. Many performers live close to the poverty line and simply don’t earn enough to live by performance alone. This makes each film and television opportunity of vital importance.

However in 1994 the National government, promised unlimited market access to any foreign broadcast service and their products if they were a signatory to the The World Trade Organization. In other words any moves to introduce regulation for local content including a compulsory television quota, similar to those seen in most if not all western countries, would breach our WTO obligations. Subsequently, when Helen Clark's government endeavoured to support and increase the production of local content they were completely hamstrung by this agreement and were rendered powerless to turn back the clock.

As a result in 2011, New Zealand content accounted for a measly 31% of all programming from 6am to midnight and that includes sports, news, current affairs and reality TV. This compares to a much healthier 60% in Europe and 55% in Australia. New Zealand performers are the living embodiment of our culture. Every time we step in front of the camera, every time we perform, we tell a story articulating our nation’s hopes, dreams and experiences. This ability to speak to one another with our own voice must be maintained into the future.

In New Zealand and around the world, television is the foundation stone of the screen industry. It helps build an infrastructure and skill base that supports the film industry.

Because of the WTO agreement we signed in 1994 our local film industry remains very small and one that is largely based around servicing overseas productions to survive.

As performers we are grateful for the work and opportunities created by offshore productions like Xena, Hercules, The Hobbit, and Avatar. But our film industry has now become completely dependent upon the whims of overseas production executives, the ever-fluctuating exchange rate, and the pool of scripted material that requires Mt Taranaki to double for Mt Fuji or Mt Ngarahoe for Mt Doom.

This reliance is clearly demonstrated by our Government’s recent courtship of Hollywood - its willingness to alter employment laws to suit foreign studios, its eagerness to change immigration regulations to assist overseas producers, and its readiness to provide one off cash incentives to the studios on request.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the GATS agreement on steroids. Only this time it’s not just performers – it’s health, environment, education, Treaty obligations, the list is endless. Make no mistake this is a corporate power grab on a scale never before seen in human history. This treaty is so repugnant that if a full text of the negotiations were released to the public tomorrow it would cease to exist by the end of the week because anyone with a brain and a gag reflex would reject it outright and the politicians involved in the negotiations, in our case John Key and his Trade Minister Tim Groser, would be forced to pull out due to overwhelming public pressure, a tsunami of condemnation!!