Chadwick Steve: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chadwick Steve: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13270. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 If that is the best the Government can do on a very important bill the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill then it is a tragedy really. I will begin as I intend to carry on by saying that the value of arts to New Zealand society is critically important for the well-being of people in communities. At the moment we have a Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage who loves the arts; I will give him that. But in no way could he match the calibre of the previous Prime Minister Helen Clark who over 9 years put in an arts recovery package after the previous National Government spent nothing on the arts and never understood the economic value of the arts let alone the social well-being of the arts. Helen Clark said that she was going to lead an arts recovery in this country and she did. She went around the country and met every group not just the few elite but the many involved in the arts. She led a resurgence in the arts in this country. 
Labour will support this bill to the Government Administration Committee but with reservations. The previous speaker John Hayes talked about streamlining but this legislation is not about streamlining bureaucracy. I tell Mr Hayes that it is offensive to say that Alistair Carruthers who is the chair of the Arts Council Dame Judith Binney Helen Kedgley Professor John Davidson Erima Henare Anne Rush and Jimmy Wallace are bureaucracy that is being streamlined. That is how little that member understands of the arts in New Zealand society. 
Arts are the soul of the country. They reflect our unique identity and they are also how we express and reflect ourselves as New Zealanders. Everybody in this House values that. The cultural diversity in our country is the driver of social and cultural capital and we understand that economic value. 
Because of research done on the value of arts to society we value any structural changes that will give efficiency but I feel that this bill will marginalise input into this newly structured council. What was once a pipeline of applications into Creative New Zealand has been narrowed to a little straw. The arts community—the arts developers the artisans and the artistes of this country—have very little say on what the previous speaker said is a streamlining of the bureaucracy of arts funding in this country. What nonsense. 
The Minister has carried over everything that was in the previous legislation about the value of arts to New Zealand and the purposes of Creative New Zealand. He has rationalised board membership and replaced the Arts Council which we know as Creative New Zealand. It was a council of 27 members and it goes to seven members with two arts boards. This is the offensive bit. Te Waka Toi which was a fine brand in New Zealand no longer exists. That is offensive. It is as offensive as having no Maori representation on the super-city in Auckland. Te Waka Toi as we know it as every community in the regions of New Zealand knows it no longer exists. Do members know what? The seven members of Te Waka Toi are now replaced by four Maori members on the Arts Council—four. They have their own board now and answer to huge funding. In fact in the last 3 months $600000 of funding went out to dance to literature to moving image and to visual arts and this will now be managed by only seven members on the new council. I know that those voices will be marginalised. There is no way that four Maori members on the new board—and there were seven members on Te Waka Toi—can ever represent the diversity and the demand that is coming from the growing arts community of Maori. 
The South Pacific Arts Committee has also gone. Where are the Pacific voices on this new council? Where are they? Where is the ethnic representation on this new council? It is not stipulated at all. Yet the Government is talking about growing diversity in the ethnic communities. Where are those communities stipulated as being represented on this new council? They are not and that is worrying to many in New Zealand. I think that taking away the brand of Te Waka Toi and the South Pacific Arts Committee for a $200000 gain per annum is simply offensive. 
Tim Macindoe 
: They don’t find it so. Have you asked them? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: I just remind the member opposite that this Minister has only just held arts funding. There is no new funding. He has just held arts funding so with the CPI adjustments he has not done as well as one might think. The funding has gone backwards. 
This rationalisation of membership will marginalise people on the margins of the arts community. They saw under Labour that they had a voice and outsider art felt it had a place. Where now will we see Arts Access Aotearoa the Artists Alliance and mental health providers providing wonderful programmes for people recovering from mental health conditions and illnesses? Those providers use arts as an outlet for recovery. Where will children’s art houses get funding? Where will those little non-governmental organisations in the arts community like the brass bands and the recreational organisations like spinners and weavers get funding? Does the Government think that their voices will be heard on this council? No it marginalises arts access for the community. It turns New Zealand art lovers into just an audience and takes away their right to participate creatively. 
There is another worrying little aspect about this bill. The Minister does not require a strategic plan of this new organisation the Arts Council of New Zealand. He requires only a statement of intent which means he will tell them to do his bidding with the bit of funding that they get—he did well to get the same level of funding for the Arts Council—but not to develop a strategic plan for the country or the arts community in New Zealand. They should not bother with that! The Minister has done away with the strategic plan which gave some certainty to organisations like children’s art houses like Arts Alliance like those marginalised arts groups that can get a voice heard on the current council. 
Tim Macindoe 
: They didn’t get a cent under you. Go and talk to them. They didn’t get anything under Labour. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Actually they did. 
Tim Macindoe 
: They didn’t get anything under Labour. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Yes they did. 
Tim Macindoe 
: It all went to the elite art groups. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: No it did not. The functions are carried over from the old— 
Tim Macindoe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The deputy leader of the Labour Party has just made an insinuation that I take personal offence to. It is completely unfounded and I ask her to withdraw and apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Was such a comment made? 
Hon Annette King 
: I didn’t think it was offensive. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to members that it is not appropriate to make comments about people having had a drink or telling them to have another drink which is what I heard. The member will withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Annette King 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to take account of the fact that that member has given a barrage of abuse—and what I consider not to be the truth about the previous Labour Government’s policy—across to this side of the House. When he is doing that he might consider that he may get something back. 
Tim Macindoe 
: The deputy leader of the Labour Party is aware of the fact that I have been in the House for most of this evening. Therefore the suggestion that I may have been drinking is absolute rubbish. My interjections during the course of the speech being made by the member sitting beside her have been based on the fact that I consider the contribution she has been making to be completely wrong. I am inviting the Labour Party to go and look at the facts of where the funding went under the Labour Government. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is a debating point. Firstly the member was OK up until he started to go over the point that I had ruled on. The member sought a withdrawal and an apology and I granted that. The member is not entitled to go back over that ground; let us be very clear on that. I say to the Hon Annette King that if in fact the member finds the interjections from the other side of the House to be objectionable she should raise a point of order. Let us recall that this is a House of robust debate and people are entitled to interject but not unreasonably so. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: I come back to the point that I was about to make. The functions have been simply carried over from the old Act into this new bill. Those functions are about encouraging promoting and supporting all New Zealanders and promoting the New Zealand identity. I thank National for carrying on with the Labour brand. 
In summary we want this bill to go to the select committee so that we can call for submissions and put Creative New Zealand under the spotlight to see how successful it has been in funding those very arts services that Tim Macindoe said we failed to provide funding for. That will certainly come out in the Government Administration Committee. We are concerned at the reduced representation of Maori Pacific Island and ethnic people on this new council. We are also concerned that it will be a long time before the funding guidelines are put in place so that the council knows how to operate within the new funding guidelines. 
We have some genuine concerns about this bill. We are not opposed to reorganisation if it gives efficiency but we want to see advocacy of the voices that have just started to flourish in the arts and we want them to still feel that they have a place that is valued and treasured in the arts community.