IF blunders like the Hobbit saga are not to occur again, Australian influence needs to withdraw from New Zealand, local actors are saying.
“MEAA [Media Entertainment and Artists’ Alliance] has to go. That’s all that needs to happen. The issue here is that an outside union has become involved, and their interests are not the same as the interests of New Zealanders,” says an actor who would like to remain anonymous.
Alongside fellow actors, Greg Ellis has taken this attitude a step further. He is in the process of setting up an alternative guild “to provide advice and advocacy for actors”, the NZ Actors Guild.
“Kelly has no concept of what New Zealand actors want or need. She reminds me of a missionary pushing Catholicism onto a small island nation. Her goal is making actors “employees” and yet I don’t know of any actor or technician that has said they’d prefer to be an employee.”
“There really is a demand from actors out there for some representation that is New Zealand-based, that consults with them and that acknowledges they are independent contractors and respects that status,” he says.
The NZ Actors Guild has not yet sought official registration as an incorporated society.
“We’re at very early days at the moment. We’re finding out how many people are interested, which is about 130 so far. It’s grown big fast,” he says.
Ellis says the NZ Actors Guild is not aiming to replace NZ Actors’ Equity.
“We’re acting on a whole lot of people saying ‘we want a voice and we want to get together to have one, but not with Actors’ Equity because of the way its being run and managed right now’,” he says.
Gareth Ruck, Wellington actor, says, “The executive of NZ equity has lost control of that union, it’s now held between Simon Whipp and Helen Kelly. I can’t see Equity in its current form surviving this. They’ve done so much damage and yet publicly done so little,” he says.
“Kelly [Trade union leader] has no concept of what New Zealand actors want or need. She reminds me of a missionary pushing Catholicism onto a small island nation. Her goal is making actors “employees” and yet I don’t know of any actor or technician that has said they’d prefer to be an employee,” he adds.
Auckland actor Mark Harrison started Facebook group “Keep The Hobbit film shoot in New Zealand”, which now has close to 12,000 members.
“Actors’ Equity hadn’t got together with their members to find out what they wanted. You can’t issue a stop-work order and then get your members together to see what they want. That’s appalling behaviour,” he says.
In response to reports the Government may be prepared to sweeten tax incentives to keep the production here, Harrison responded, “Thanks to the union the rest of the country has to pay for it, thanks a lot union.”
The NZ Actors Guild is still drafting a list of core values.
The ten drafted values speak of the importance of acknowledging the collaborative nature of the film industry, of altering public perceptions of the acting profession, and of acting as a “a place for actors to share information and engage in robust debate”. Most importantly, the NZ Actors Guild will be indigenous.
“I think that an actor’s destiny needs to be controlled by New Zealand actors who are aware of our industry. There’s no point having people outside the country deciding our destiny, especially not people like Helen Kelly who don’t understand how our industry works or the relations inside it,” Ellis says.