Coddington Deborah: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21975] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The Government is seeking to spend $240 million in the coming year on arts culture and heritage. The Prime Minister made herself the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and the Associate Minister who is now taking the chair is the one who is usually poked out on a stick by the Minister herself to take the flack that comes with that portfolio. We have seen the funding go up and up every year. There was $17.2 million this year for Creative New Zealand. That is taxpayers’ money—up another million dollars on last year and over a million dollars on the year before. It is just vote-buying from the politically correct arty-farty pompous precious self-appointed elitist experts who spent half a million dollars sending a pile of rubbish to the Venice Biennale and making us the laughing stock of the art world. As I said Creative New Zealand received $17.2 million. 
What did the Prime Minister say this time last year when the controversy first arose? The Prime Minister the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage said she was not happy with that selection. She believed that the conditions and selection criteria had been breached and that in the future it might affect her thinking. What did she say? “It might affect my thinking about future funding for Creative New Zealand.” Did she go back and order a review? Has she ordered a report? Are we any the wiser? No! We now see that another million dollars will go into Creative New Zealand. 
Just a few minutes ago in question time another Minister stood up and boasted that the Government is spending $14 million on cancer prevention but we are spending $17 million of taxpayers’ money on arts and culture and we are not allowed to know where it goes. Why are we not allowed to know where it goes? Because the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage allows her Creative New Zealand to get away with not forcing the recipient of that money to front up to taxpayers and she allows Creative New Zealand to breach the selection criteria. 
In 2003 when we sent a pile of Land Rovers to the Venice Biennale the Minister was not amused at that either. She made it known to Creative New Zealand that in future the recipient of that funding of half a million dollars must act in an ambassadorial role. So what did they send this year? They sent something called  
Fundamental Practice 
 which is a pile of fences and old computers said to be “menacing wire fences computers Dalek-like moving sheds images and sound recordings” for half a million dollars! And that is while 111 calls are abandoned by New Zealanders and while people die on waiting lists. 
I do not want to live in a country that does not have any arts. A person like me is considered a Philistine when I criticise the selection of that rubbish to go to the Venice Biennale—something I think is actually irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money that we are spending while people are dying on waiting lists and while schools have fund-raising to buy things like basic maths text books. To buy dictionaries schools have to have sausage sizzles and the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage tut-tuts about it. Of course she could not tut-tut too loudly because the person who received that money—et al p mule the et al collective or whoever we are led to believe is the recipient of the money was actually quoted in one of the reports as saying that the artist is the very person who is allowed to mislead the public. So of course that translated to the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage goes all the way down to misleading the public about who actually painted a painting that was signed and handed over for an art auction. 
That is the whole culture of this arts culture and heritage portfolio—another million dollars of it. It is a typical example of the “we know best” “we know what’s good for you” politically correct attitude. That is why this Government will not be around to spend up large on piles of rubbish after 17 September.