The search and surveillance act seems to have given a bit more protection in this regard;

Effect of privilege on search warrants and search powers
A person who makes a claim of privilege (being a privilege recognised by this subpart) in respect of any thing that is seized or sought to be seized has the right, in accordance with sections 143 to 148,—
(a)to prevent the search under this Act of any communication or information to which the privilege would apply if it were sought to be disclosed in a proceeding, pending determination of the claim to privilege, and subsequently if the claim to privilege is upheld:
(b)to require the return of a copy of, or access to, any such communication or information to the person if it is seized or secured by a person exercising a search power, pending determination of the claim to privilege.

http://prd-lgnz-nlb.prd.pco.net.nz/act/public/2012/0024/latest/DLM2136852.html

I may be reading too much into this but it seems to me as though this may be a reason for why the police raided while Nicky was in Auckland. He may have been able to prevent the search entirely if he or a representative had been present at the time

Graeme Edgeler previously discussed the search and surveillance acts effects on journalistic privilege;
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/search-and-surveillance-an-occasional-series/

It strikes me that maybe section 249 of the crimes act is possibly relevant to this incident if 252 is not.

249Accessing computer system for dishonest purpose
(1)Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, directly or indirectly, accesses any computer system and thereby, dishonestly or by deception, and without claim of right,—
(a)obtains any property, privilege, service, pecuniary advantage, benefit, or valuable consideration; or
(b)causes loss to any other person.
(2)Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years who, directly or indirectly, accesses any computer system with intent, dishonestly or by deception, and without claim of right,—
(a)to obtain any property, privilege, service, pecuniary advantage, benefit, or valuable consideration; or
(b)to cause loss to any other person.
(3)In this section, deception has the same meaning as in section 240(2).

I'm keeping track of the "who's been telling fibs". Warners got caught lying about when they were told that the boycott was lifted. NZAE seems to have been caught lying about "talking to the production for months". 1-1, several still to come?

Did they? I must have missed that... How were WB caught lying about when they were informed of Boycott lift?

@Peter Cox, they have verified that statement themselves
From the latest letter sent to NZAE members from MEAA:

All NZ Equity sought was to meet with the production and discuss the
conditions under which performers would be engaged. The request was in the first instance made privately, without the glare of the media on August 17

From the latest letter sent to NZAE members from MEAA

All NZ Equity sought was to meet with the production and discuss the
conditions under which performers would be engaged. The request was in the first instance made privately, without the
glare of the media on August 17

From that letter dated 17th August 2010

Recently, The International Federation of Actors (FIA) became aware that the production of “The
Hobbit” intends to hire performers under non-union contracts.

For this reason FIA, at its most recent meeting, unanimously passed the following motion:

“Resolved, that the International Federation of Actors urges each of its affiliates to adopt instructions to
their members that no member of any FIA affiliate will agree to act in the theatrical feature film “The
Hobbit” until such time as the producer has entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the
Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance for production in New Zealand providing for satisfactory terms and
conditions for all performers employed on the production”.

FIA therefore encourages you to meet immediately with representatives of the Media Entertainment and
Arts Alliance in order to reach an agreement covering all performers engaged on this production.

Therefore in their own words MEAA asked their affiliate unions to enact the boycott BEFORE requesting to meet with 3foot7!

at any rate we can't have it both ways: was this a shambles of an honest industrial action, or a dishonest one that achieved its objectives? If critics could make up their mind either way it would help the discussion.

Actually this is quite possible with One NZ union recently incorporated into an Australian union, you could quite easily have the NZ actors thinking or being told one thing and the Australian union aiming for an entirely different goal... I'm not saying this is the case, just that one does not exclude the other

From someone who could say this far better than I...

"The sad fact of it is that it no longer matters why The Hobbit is leaving New Zealand – it no longer matters whether a union boycott or our tax incentives are the root cause. Because a few weeks back, an organisation put their hands up and tried to halt progress on the production until their demands were met. When they were informed that a cost of this action could be the loss of the production, they publicly chose to call the filmmakers' bluff. Now that it turns out they may not have been bluffing, this organisation has precious little room to point the finger of blame elsewhere."

Continues...

"Surely the thing to do now is not to point the finger elsewhere and say, "It was someone else's fault anyway." Surely the thing to do now is to say, we got what we wanted – we're having our discussions. We've lifted the boycott. Now what we can do to help address the fallout – what can we do to ensure the jobs we were fighting over are still there for our actors to take?"

Although I agree that there has not been enough emphasis on how tactical and skilful the sport is. I would argue that publicity highlighting on the more sensational aspects of the sport is probably a large reason for the huge turnout on Saturday, if that meant some of those new spectators were as impressed as I was by the skill and tactics of the game then that has to be good.