Mr Joyce offers an anecdote to illustrate his argument: in a visit to India last year, he found “everybody was talking about how massively beautiful New Zealand was”.

When he asked about this they told him, “Oh, these two Bollywood movies that were done in New Zealand, it’s just lifted the profile of New Zealand so magnificently in India.”

Joyce squirms all through this doughty defence of the dodgy, and if Key still believes there were votes in the Hobbit capitulations he’s not as in touch as he was.

As for the “anecdote,” how much did we pay Bollywood to bring NZ attention to India’s billion odd?

As for the movie industries special needs, because it provides special benefits, FFS.