John Mckay: Screen Music and Sound Guild NZ Chair on the changes to film rebate settings

Good news for our screen sector as it looks to become more competitive globally. 

The Government's set to lower the minimum spend for feature films to qualify for a 20% cash rebate next year from $15 million to $4 million. 

It'll also expand eligibility for an extra 5% rebate to include post-production, so films can be finished locally. 

Screen Music and Sound Guild New Zealand Chair John Mckay told Mike Hosking incentives like this are the backbone of film financing. 

He says we're not even competitive with Australia's rebate of 30%, so more flexible rules are welcome. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news for the local movie production. I can tell
you the government are about to announce the minimum spend
for feature films to qualify for rebates, dropping from fifteen
to four million. It's also expanding eligibility for the extra
five percent uplift to include post production that allows you
to finish the film locally. John McKay's the chair of
the Screen Music and Sound Guild and as with us, John.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Morning, Good morning Mike. How are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Indeed? Thank you? This the good stuff? Is this the magic?
Is this what we want?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, any relaxation of guidelines is always welcome. And by
dropping it to four million, you're going to open another
whole slew of production that can that is possible to
come here.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Is this just a race to the bottom, ar I mean,
eventually we're going to get to zero, aren't we. I mean,
as everybody sort of madly competes with each other to
give better and better deals around the world.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, currently you know we're not even that competitive with Australia.
Australia have thirty percent. So we need to have rules
that are flexible and easy to access, but also have
the strong other principles, strong infrastructure at ease of work,
all those other things are as just as important as incentives.

(01:07):
But incentives are the backbone of how film financing works worldwide.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Right, the five percent uplift from thirty to twenty million
to finish? Is that a thing? I mean? Will there
be tangibly many more movies in that particular category that
will stay here because of that?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, that's interesting to see. I see basically these rules
are trying to reconstruct or make the maximum of what
we already have without saying, hey, we've reve increased the incentives.
But essentially it's saying that, really we've gone from twenty
to twenty five without saying it, because I know the
government has within the coalition there are people who are

(01:48):
against incentives.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So see that's the problem. See John, I'm against incentives
in theory. But what I've been told, and I have
no reason to believe that it's not true that you
put a dollar in your get more than a dollar back.
Therefore it actually works, it pays its way.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, there's been studies saying you put a dollar in
and you yet six back. Yeah, so you're not going
to have you're not going to have a film industry
without incentives. Because that's just the way it runs worldwide.
So you know why we didn't want to change the
rules on an international system.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You know, No, I've got sympathy for that. Where are
you at with the Trump thing? Has that sort of
come to fruition in any way, shape or form. Does
anyone know what he's on about with a foreign film
and how it affects US.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I have no intellent, not that at all, because that's
just a changing a changing landscape day by day. I
don't know if it's affected inbound production. I just know
that there's been a lack of inbound production for about
the last years. So anything that puts out the welcome

(02:53):
sign is welcomed.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
So the government is pulling the right lever of Weldon
John Good Insight have a good week in John McKay,
who's the chair of the Screen, Music and Sound Gilded
New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
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