Right-wing insider Fran O’Sullivan makes an interesting comment about the government and the Hobbit in her column today:
Key will try to pull off a solution. It will inevitably be a commercial one that could result in New Zealand taxpayers giving Warner Bros an even better tax break to keep The Hobbit here.
The actors would get to stay in work and New Zealand would forgo some tax revenue. Not the brightest of results, really. But Key and co can’t afford to keep on giving in to Malcolm and her fairweather friends.
Fran often gets the inside running on this government’s spin which makes me suspect that the government is going to try to blur the tax issue and the (settled) dispute together as a way of giving the tax-breaks that are at the heart of this matter while trying to keep the blame on the union.
And interestingly John Key has said he’s taking advice on increasing the tax-breaks.
But on Campbell Live Peter Jackson made it clear that the problem wasn’t tax but it was the (settled) dispute (although he failed to mention the dispute was settled at the time he launched his campaign against the union).
So a solution involving tax breaks would be no solution at all, right?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what shakes out over the next week.
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