New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Mr John Key, has defended his government’s estimate of the number of jobs created by the $67 million subsidy to shoot the Hobbit films in New Zealand.
Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce told Radio New Zealand that Wingnut Films provided a breakdown of the quoted figure of 3,000 jobs, despite not being able to state how many of those jobs existed before the Hobbit films were made: ‘What I do know is all three of those organisations would be considerably smaller today, if existing at all, if those movies weren’t being made here.’