Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill

Art is important to life, and the art of political rhetoric has been quite big in this House lately. Unfortunately, we lack minimalists and we have a lot of surrealists. But let me get away from those surrealists, because the Greens are naturalists and we would like an extremely natural way of dealing with a very important restructuring issue. Restructuring of the Arts Council in this second reading is very interesting. Like all restructuring, we have to ask the question whether it will make things better. We have looked at the bill and unfortunately we are not yet convinced.

The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill presents some major challenges to us. We voted in the first reading for it to go to the Government Administration Committee because we were hoping to get clarity on the views of the arts communities from around the motu. There were 15 submissions, and three were presented. Unfortunately, these did not really clarify our position. We had to then talk to a number of artists from the Māori and Pasifika communities, and they expressed serious concerns about the need for this particular change. Although we do believe there are some good changes in the bill, unfortunately we cannot fully support it.

Former Green MP Nandor Tanczos, who is on the arts board, gave us considerable assistance. He is in favour of these changes because he believes they come to grips with some of the issues. But the possibilities around arts development in business, which are excellent in the bill and which Nandor drew our attention to, are not our central concern. We do think it is a good thing that artists, through this bill, will receive more opportunity to understand the business side of arts development because, as we all know, the artist struggles with business. It is not a natural synergy. So this bill does a good job on that. But our major question is, like all restructuring, is this really justifiable in terms of equity? Unfortunately the feedback remains extremely mixed, and there is strong proof that Māori artists and Pasifika artists do think that subsuming Te Waka Toi and the South Pacific Arts Committee will not necessarily be a positive step for them. So there is a question of the principles at play. The principle of mainstreaming to get to the table and get more share of the pie is one principle in terms of those cultures, versus the other option of strengthening and improving the functionality of Te Waka Toi and the Pasifika arts committee.

Senior Māori artists have expressed concern to us that this process was a fait accompli, and although they agreed Te Waka Toi needed to be changed, they did not support mainstreaming. In fact, their desire was for a Māori arts council. That is what they felt manifested the Treaty most effectively, and in the absence of strong evidence otherwise, we continue to support that Te Tiriti perspective from those Māori artists. The history of mainstreaming, even in a strong, dynamic, and established Māori arts lobby, has not been great. A minority voice does remain a minority voice at the table. But equally we recognise the effect of being sidelined, and this is the question that we must consider in terms of the benefits to Māori and Pasifika artists.

Pasifika artists were even more concerned than Māori artists about the loss of the Pasifika committee, because it is quite difficult for many Pasifika communities to get engaged around funding for Pasifika arts, and although the committee existed, and even though there will be two members on the restructured board, should this bill go through, the Pasifika artists whom we spoke to already find it an unfamiliar and alienating process. To lose an identifiable committee where they feel that they can identify with the people on it, to be replaced by those two positions on the main committee, is not seen by them to be a step forward. So, again, that issue of mainstreaming versus an independent voice is a difficult issue. We do not believe that the bill is a disaster, but we are concerned it may be a Eurocentric approach to restructuring. It may be Eurocentric in terms of who actually gets heard and who actually gets their funding.

There are some other really important issues in the bill—community arts providers. This issue of community arts is very important in terms of maintaining rural involvement and community engagement, and I agree with some points that Tracey Martin made about this. We do need community arts funding, and although I do believe that there are some good aspects in the bill in terms of practical restructuring, there are some fundamental flaws around the loss of a strategic plan. So if we do not have strategic direction, if it is completely controlled through a central body and you do not get that feedback from the flax-roots and the grassroots, and if you do not have those two committees representing groups that have been marginalised in the past, it is difficult to give the bill our wholehearted support. The Green Party would very much like to be able to do that. At this stage we do think that possibly this restructuring, which may go through, will then be changed in a few years and we will have those committees set up again, because humans often do this. We often think that what we need to do is restructure the structure and everything will be OK. But the Green Party stands with the Māori artists and the Pasifika artists who said to us that they wanted this not to happen. So at this point we still are unable to support the bill. Thank you.

I acknowledge the natural display of art there. I think as a New Zealander, as someone who enjoys art, I want to celebrate all forms of art. It does not matter where it comes from within our community; it is about supporting all parts of art. I want to take just a short call on this in support of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. Really, this comes back to simple principles. We can put all sorts of suffixes like “-centricity” and so forth at the end of our comments, but this is a bill of a simple principle, which is streamlining and making more effective the systems we have in place within New Zealand to support our arts and culture. It is moving from a board of about 28 people down to 13 to make the decisions on behalf of 4 million Kiwis who enjoy a range of arts. The board, as it is to be devised, is representative of that and of those New Zealand people in its forms across all the various cultures and peoples and interests.

I want to turn my attention to two of the objections we have heard a little bit here today and certainly the last time the House sat. The first one is about this whole need to keep the arts area divided. Well, I always thought about art as actually bringing things together. If you think of the analogy, you know, we bring the canvas and the paint together. We bring the various people together in a symphony to bring about that orchestral work, if you like. It is about bringing things together. And so I do not really understand the logic, artistic or otherwise, of wanting to continue this separation within our artistic community. The second one, and it was not raised immediately today but it needs to be engaged with—

💬 Chris Hipkins: Is South Park art?

Well, my peaches, indeed it is, you see, with great words like that. The second one is that there were lots of objections that artists were afraid to speak out. I find this a bit odd. It may be within Labour and the left that artists are afraid to speak out because they will be punished, but that is not the National way. See, in National we understand that, actually, artists do speak. That is what their art is about. It is about speaking to the public. And from my time working with people in the artist community, I have found that they are not afraid to say what they think, to give their opinion, and to paint that boldly.

I acknowledge those who have spoken beforehand. I acknowledge the art that is South Park; in some speeches it can be used there. And I acknowledge the importance of this bill. Thank you very much.