In an almost night-follows-day type affair, Amazon is allegedly locked in negotiations with the Government over what is being called a $50 million sweetener for their Lord of the Rings TV series being shot here.
This has been going on for well in excess of a year, and thesad thing is, it was always heading this way.
Producers of movies and TV shows from offshore already get 30 per cent by way of a tax write off. It all began with the previous government and Peter Jackson, who lobbied heavily to cut deals, saying Hollywood wouldn't come here otherwise, given there was a line of countries like Ireland, Canada and India that were more than happy to sweeten the pot.
And in that lies the trap. Research has been done post the initial Jackson years around Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as to what we got back for what we gave away.
The upside is, it's worth it. But a big chunk of that is the tourism; people come to "Middle Earth." It's a phenomenon. And in that is probably a once-in-a-lifetime bonus that won't be recreated every time an American yells "action" on our turf.
It is true that there have been, are, and will be jobs. There is ongoing debate as to how many of those jobs should be local, and how many locals should get starring rolls in these movies. And there is, of course, no answer to that. It's a "how long is a piece of string" scenario.
But the dark side of this arrangement is it's a race to the bottom. We as a country have already upped the tax write-off once, and now it's apparently another $50 million on top of that.
Peter Jackson encouraged the Government to cut deals. Photo / Supplied
When does it stop? Is there another country willing to do more? Probably. When do we pull the pin? What is our bottom line?
No one, seemingly, has worked that through. There will be a point whereby, we are simply a landscape for hire. And by the time they've arrived, shot and gone home, the benefit will be the motels, hotels and restaurants that got the business and little else.
And the question then is, if we are prepared to artificially pave the way for film and TV, why not any other industry? For it is a simple economic truth, that if you subsidise anything, you can create work.
You can shift a head office to Timaru, you can promote a region using tax, you can entice foreign investment on anything or anyone, if you make the deal sweet enough.
So what's so special about film and TV? The glamour is the answer. We've become enamoured with the glamour.
But there will come a point, and it might well be sooner rather than later, where all the glitz and the gold of Hollywood actually isn't worth the price.
Or if we still decide it is, an increasing number of industries and businesses quite rightly will ask, "how come they get a deal and we don't?"
