There's something about this Hobbit business that doesn't sit quite right with me. I need help to understand it.

The Hobbit saga (at least, the contemporary version) began with the actors union - backed up by overseas acting guilds - threatening not to work on it unless some vaguely specified terms and conditions got agreed to ... or, at least, talked about with them. It was, near as dammit, a strike.

Peter Jackson then got very upset, saying that Warner Brothers would pull out of filming in New Zealand as a result of this action. So the actors quickly backed down.

Warner Brothers then flew into New Zealand, purportedly seeking reassurances that its project wouldn't get hit with another strike mid-way through production. Oh - and some extra money would be nice, too.

Now we have a deal giving them a bit more money, and a law change saying that if a contract says someone is an independent contractor in the film industry, then they are "independent contractors" irrespective of the actual, real world nature of their work and relationship with the production company.

So here's what I don't get. How does that law change, purportedly meant to put Warner Brothers minds at ease about our industrial relations landscape, have anything at all to do with the actor's actions that allegedly kicked all of this off? Because I can't for the life of me see any linkage whatsoever.

In which case, what just happened here?