Ludicrous to subsidise millionaire film-makers
The economy began to open up over the weekend as New Zealanders flocked to their favourite holiday spots. The film industry roared into life too, after 56 film workers from the United States were waved through New Zealand’s strict border restrictions to quarantine at Wellington’s QT hotel after they had chartered a flight from Los Angeles, a coronavirus hotspot.
They’ve arrived in Wellington to begin working on sequels to the Avatar movies. As New Zealand looks to reopen its economy, we should cautiously applaud moves by businesses who are looking to base themselves here, but New Zealanders might rightly question the speed with which the Avatar filmmakers were allowed to return to the country.
There’s no doubt restarting film work will bring economic benefits and, at this stage, the Government is rightly doing as much as it can to save jobs, but the speed at which the Government budged for the film industry raises the issue of fairness – especially when so many are still struggling to enter the country on humanitarian grounds.
It’s a particularly pressing question for the film industry, which appears to exert an outsized influence on the hearts of our politicians. While Avatar producer Jon Landau told RNZ the production was able to return to Wellington thanks to New Zealand’s leadership in tackling Covid-19, the reason the production is here in the first place is New Zealand’s generous screen production grant, whereby productions are able to claim back large amounts of the money they spend here.
The Avatar producers have made four interim applications under the scheme and have been awarded $66 million from the Government so far, with the option of applying for even more. The amount of money is staggering. It’s just a bit less than double the amount of money the Government has set aside for a Covid-19 vaccine.
It’s also far more than the Government spends making movies for New Zealanders. Taika Waititi, who this weekend received a Queen’s Birthday honour, made his own films for far less. According to production grant records, Boy cost just over $5 million, while Hunt for the Wilderpeople cost just
$4.1m. The Government could have funded 12 Waititi films for what it has spent on Avatar so far.
In the case of Avatar, the Government is in the awkward position of spending more money subsidising a film about a fake indigenous culture (Avatar’s Na’vi) than it does funding the broadcasting of the real indigenous broadcasting made in New Zealand. Ma¯ ori broadcasting funding is distributed by Te Ma¯ ngai Pa¯ ho, which is given
$60m each year to fund itself and distribute money to Ma¯ ori broadcasting. It uses this to fund a host of Ma¯ ori programming on mainstream TV, as well as Ma¯ ori television and iwi radio stations.
Ma¯ ori broadcasters have been fighting to increase that funding, noting that it’s spread far too thinly. The Avatar producers have had no such struggle. They’ve simply filled out a few forms to claim more than Te Ma¯ ngai Pa¯ ho’s annual budget.
There’s nothing wrong with funding the arts – in fact, many would argue it’s absolutely necessary. One wonders whether axing the subsidy and disbursing the savings to Creative New Zealand might be a better use of public funds. Paying New Zealanders to create New Zealand art seems more reasonable than subsidising foreign film-makers to base their productions here.
It’s true that Wellington in particular has benefited from having so much film production work. Film-makers argue that the research and development money spent by companies working on visual effects work has led to the creation of new intellectual property, the kind of high-value exports that New Zealand wants and needs.
The same argument is often made about the America’s Cup, which also seems to charm vast sums of money out of even the most parsimonious finance ministers. The claim is valid. Developing high-value intellectual property is important, but New Zealand already has incentives for that (its research and development tax credit being one).
It remains to be proven whether the value of the schemes is outweighed by their manifest unfairness. This argument is especially pressing now.
With hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders anxiously awaiting certainty over their employment, it’s hardly surprising there’s so much outrage over a pack of wealthy foreign film-makers holing up in a luxury Wellington hotel thanks, in part, to a generous Government subsidy.
New Zealand is about to enter the most difficult and painful economic realignment in living memory. The Government is right to want to save as many jobs as possible, but there are limits. The country’s film subsidies stretched credulity at the best of times but, in the age of Covid-19, subsidising the jobs of a handful of North American millionaires seems outright ludicrous.
The Government could have funded 12 Waititi films for what it has spent on Avatar so far.