Jason Walls: Political Editor on Nicola Willis' million dollar pledge for film subsidies and the ACC minister questioning ACC's role in sexual abuse compensation

The ACC minister’s questioning whether ACC is the right outfit for people needing compensation after experiencing sexual assault.

In 2023 the Court of Appeal ruled that sexual abuse survivors were entitled to compensation for the loss of potential earnings from when they were abused.

Newstalk ZB Political Editor Jason Walls told Heather du Plessis-Allan it’s not clear what the minister’s intention is.

“It sounds to me as if he’s looking to shift this liability to another section of government.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Wall's political leaders is with us now.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Jason, good afternoon, and happy Friday.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's been a week, hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's been a week?

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah, hey, listen, So what do you make of this
money that we're throwing at the film subsidies.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's an interesting one, isn't it, Because it is quite
a large sum of money, five hundred and seventy five
million dollars over four years, taking the total sum to
just over a billion dollars. So this is where eligible
productions can access about twenty They can access twenty percent
of her cash rebate on production expenditure when that production
costs more than fifteen million dollars for feature films, and

(00:34):
it's four million dollars when it's TV productions. If it
costs over thirty mil chuck another five percent on there,
says the government. Now. Willis argues that this scheme has
been very has been very successful in the past. Inbound
Productions invested nearly seven point five billion dollars in New
Zealand over the past ten years, she said, supported by
one point five billion through these rebates, So she argues

(00:57):
that's a pretty good payoff. And she says that you
know ten large international productions have come to New Zealand
after twenty twenty three twenty twenty three review of this scheme.
These include, for example, the Minecraft movie, which I know
you as the mother of a toddler has probably gone
to see three or four times now. So Nicholas actually
sat up front that she's not really a fan of

(01:18):
governments essentially shelling out to big businesses.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I'm going to be candid with you. Generally I'm not
a big fan of industry incentives. But the reality for
this sector is that we simply won't get offshore investment
without continuing the rebate scheme.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Now, despite this, the Taxpayers Union says this is just
another dose of corporate welfare at a time when the
public services are under pressure and the nation's books are
deep in the red. Now, I was while we were
at this stay, So it was it was in sort
of the wetter area of Mirima this morning, and it
was in a big film studio, and I was looking
around thinking didn't David Seymour have a real big problem

(01:57):
with these sorts of things when he was in opposition
and he's been relatively quiet today. So I asked Nikola,
willis you know how did you get libertarian David Seymour
and the act MP's on board with this?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Look, I persuaded him and the same way that I
presented the case to you, which is, how can we
be a government for economic growth if we allow a
major industry to die? And you know what, I'm very
persuasive with my cabinet colleagues from time to so you know.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm sure there's more to it than that. But apparently
she got him over the line with her good persuasion skills.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Now we're actually talking to David Cmore at ten person,
I might ask him a little bit about that. Look,
this business with the ACC Minister flagging that ACC might
not be the right outfit for people who want compo
for sexual abuse suggests to me that he's softening us
up for exactly that they're not going to accept this claim,
are they.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I don't know how to read this. There's not
a ton of detail in the story from the post.
I mean, there's a good story in terms of getting
Scott Simpson's thoughts on this, but you know this is
it comes down to this. There's judgment in twenty twenty
three called the TN Case, where the Court of appeal
ruled that sexual abuse survivors were entitled to compensation for
the loss of potential earnings from the time that they

(03:09):
were from the time when they were abused, and ACC
advised that this was expected to cost them three point
six billion dollars and that's the liability on their book.
But Scott Simpson told The Post that this was a
live and current question whereas where the government might make
changes that meant the claims that arose from this appeal
ruling weren't funded through a CC quote. When the scheme

(03:31):
was originally set up, the foundational setting up of ACC,
I don't think they contemplated an outcome of this sort
reflected by the judicial outcome in this case. Perhaps we
need to have a conversation as a nation about what
the best vehicle to provide that care, support and assistance
is and whether that's ACC. So it kind of almost
sounds to me as if he's looking to shift this

(03:53):
liability to another section of government, and at the end
of the day, you know this is Nikola Willis created
an entirely new way of measuring government surplus and deficits.
Because of the large deficit that ACC had because of
this case, you remember she called it Obergail X. It
sounded like some sort of Tesla remake. But it really

(04:14):
remains unclear as to how this is going to be,
where this money is going to go, Who's going to
have this liability. We asked Nicola Willis about it today
she was giving us practically nothing.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
As I said, Kebnet needs to consider that matter, as
you'll have to put the question to the Minister for ACC.
But that is a measure for Kebnet to consider it.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
So it remains to be seen what actually happens here,
because it's a head scratcher for sure.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean it sounds like because with ACC it's very clear, right,
ACC is a delivery vehicle for basically paying your money, right,
but another agency may deal with the differently, like they
may just provide you with some counseling or something like
that and may bring the cost down quite a lot.
So perhaps that's the I mean, that's obviously the thinking here,
right is to try and get rid of some of
this cost, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, I mean, it was ACC the right vehicle in
the first place to be the one handling this and
I hate to use the word, but it is this liability. So,
I mean, you're absolutely right. It could be somewhere else
within government that's better handled and better suited to this.
So it's not a bad idea. But the money's not
going to go away. The government still will owe the
people because of this judgment.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Are you sure well, I mean because I reckon, not
I reckon, You shift it, you take it to another agency,
and then it's different.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
So if the government thought they got bad pushback from
the pay equity issue, imagine the pushback they would get
if they tried to wiggle out of a judgment like this.
I mean, there would be the end.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Of them maybe, But they've softened us up so it
wouldn't be as much of a shock. Jason, I really
appreciate it. We'll talk to you later. We'll wrap the
political week that was at about quarter pass likes that
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