The History - Act VI

The History - Act Six

Peter Cox, President of the Guild from 2009-2012, tells us about his time in the President’s chair, which coincided with an extremely turbulent time for the screen industry…“The Hobbit business”. Please note, nearly everyone has an opinion about his time, so we include three other links for different perspectives, truly there are many. We are very grateful to Peter for going there and be warned there is swearing, so use of everyday language may offend.

For the full version of Peter’s history please click here

Helen Kelly's (then President of the Council of Trade Unions) comprehensive article here

Ombudsman’s Report 2013 by David McGee here

NZWG's History of SIWA via the Hobbit Law and SIWA’S current status here

Act Six: 2009 - 2012 by Peter Cox (abridged)

So, here I am, late on a Sunday, writing a summary of my time at the Guild - after having been asked countless times by Adele (who is always professional and polite) to kindly hurry (the fuck) up. But it has turned out to be not really a summary and instead kind of a rant on a single topic (as you’ll see). So sorry, Adele: sorry I am so late and it’s wrong, and my apologies. I have no excuses, other than being constantly in a weird sweat of self-concern and selfishness that makes me forgetful of everything but my own problems. These problems are numerous but I won’t get into specifics. I am not here for that.

I am here to write a summary of my time as President of the NZ Writers Guild 2009-2012. My first thought is: who cares? I mean it’s all done now. Ancient history. But maybe some people do care. I’m not sure why, BUT… actually as I was thinking about what to write it occurred to me there was one exciting thing that happened. The rest was pretty calm. We had a good, smart board who made good decisions and kept me on my toes. I have very fond memories of everyone.

The one exciting thing was known as “The Hobbit Strike”. What happened was this:

In the early 2000s Actors Equity NZ (Equity) decided to amalgamate/affiliate with the MEAA (The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Australia's largest union and professional organization for journalists, performers, and creatives). Not a bad idea at the time: the Australian Guild could lend its help - advice, administrative support, representation, etc. From memory, the NZ Guild was not supported by govt funding like the other guilds, which made things difficult for the NZ actors, so this gave the NZers a bit of a chance to exist a bit less hand to mouth, which must have sucked. They didn’t even have money for an office space.

Now, you may be aware that every year the NZ Writers Guild meets with all the other overseas Writers Guilds and we have a conflab about issues and figure out where we can help each other out. The Actors Guilds do the same. So, around 2010, the MEAA who also represented NZ actors, met with all the International Actors Guilds and together they conflabbed about the plight of NZ actors and – from what I can tell – settled on a plan to help with the NZers attempts to negotiate better conditions with the NZ Producers’ group SPADA (Screen Production and Development Association). The plan was to leverage international actors’ participation in NZ productions. Specifically, they targeted the upcoming production of “The Hobbit” by sending a ‘stop work’ order to all international actors involved (meaning: they couldn’t show up on set) until the Hobbit producers negotiated a minimum basic deal with the MEAA. Basically: a stop work order against, “The Hobbit”.

As an aside for a moment - were local NZ Producers exploiting NZ Actors? On the whole, I would say: it sure looked like it to me, at least on occasion. I won’t name any names. But anyone around at the time knew the culture and tone of the local NZ film and TV industry, and it was not what I would call ‘best practice’.

Anyway: the problem with the MEAA’s plan was that The Hobbit was not a typical example of the local industry culture. Peter Jackson was - frankly - pissed off about being put in the middle of what was essentially a disagreement between SPADA and Actors Equity NZ. He and Fran went on the 7pm news and revealed to the country that The Hobbit was being taken down ‘by an Australian Guild’ and basically the shit hit the fan…

Read the full story here