Delahunty Catherine: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15193. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Ngā mihi nui ki te whānau whenua o te Paremata i tēnei pō. It is nice to have an opportunity to speak briefly on this Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill because we agree with many of the sentiments that we have heard tonight from New Zealand First and from the Labour Party. We will not be supporting the bill as written. My colleague Asenati Lole-Taylor was just referring to the marginalisation of Pacific people through the overall process of the bill. But we are on Part 2 so I am going to address my comments primarily to Part 2 and to tautoko the comments of some of my colleagues about the confusing nature of it.The first statement in clause 14(1) of Part 2 seems clear that the Arts Council may designate community arts providers. “Any body involved in community arts including any local authority may apply in writing to the Arts Council to be designated as a community arts provider.” That statement is quite clear. After that the whole thing goes to hell and I do not understand it. It is incredibly contradictory and confusing. You do not know whether the community arts provider is part of the Arts Council or part of the local council or whether the local council is part of the arts provider. It is honestly very badly structured and I am sure the Minister had something in mind but I do not know what it is.I think that if we are going to reform Arts Council structures in funding it is very important to recognise the flax-roots and grassroots dimension. I think that my colleague Grant Robertson talked about support for the higher arts but for those of us lowly people who spend a lot of time in small communities where the arts are a thriving part of our unique identity the way in which arts funding is structured is a critical matter. It is not clear exactly who is relying on whom here but we have changed the powers of local authorities in other pieces of legislation from this House. We have stripped the well-beings as a key priority for local authorities which is where the arts used to fit and we are now focused on a very narrow definition of the responsibility of local authorities.The fear that I hear from other parties and from the Greens is that when we do that we lose that sense of the vitality of the local arts as an essential part of what a local authority might be responsible for. If a local authority is not responsible for it then we need a local arts council or arts provider that is. We need to know clearly how that is going to work who is going to fund it and who gets to decide who is on it. A centralised process is not going to work. In order to make sure that everything that happens at our flax-roots grassroots level—from kapa haka through to community painting murals drama cultural contributions from all of the tangata whenua metauiwi katoa in our communities—is going to be vibrant and successful it cannot happen from a centralised authoritarian perspective and we really need that vitality.It may be that something is envisioned but I have been reading through these clauses and trying to figure it out. There seem to be more clauses about how to get rid of these bodies if they are not performing than there is clarity about what their performance relationships and jurisdictions actually are. It is disturbing to see all of these clauses that talk about how to get rid of community arts councils if they do not fit with the Arts Council’s national criteria. I really am at a loss to see why this is a step forward.We have concerns about the bill overall but we would have liked to support it. We are great believers in the arts. We passionately believe that the success of our communities is through the success not just of sports and economic activities but also of the arts. They are an economic activity in themselves and provide an incredible amount to communities but they do often need that small grant that seeding funding.I have been a recipient of arts funding grants myself in the Mahurangi area. I know how important it is to community organisations to get these grants. In the Hauraki where I live I know how important it is to our communities that this money is made available in ways that are transparent and accountable—not just nationally through this bill where they can shut you down if you are not doing it according to their rules but from a local perspective. This money is highly contested. It is sought after. People sweat blood over what might be only $1000 but for them it is the difference between participating in the local kapa haka competition and not participating and between doing the community mural with the children on the foreshore and not doing it. They want to know that they have some accountability here. They want to know that they will be able to say who is going to decide about this.It is a shame that we do not know more about what Part 2 actually means and who is going to end up with the resources and the power. I think these questions of power are very important in all bills and in all types of issues but particularly for arts at the community level because often they are marginalised. [Bell rung] I just want to take a short remaining call on this. If at the community level community arts providers end up being disenfranchised and people who are active at that level feel that they have less power than before then Parliament will have failed. It will have failed to do something that could be useful which is to look at the arts sector and ask whether it is working and for whom it is working.Those are critical questions. Unfortunately from reading Part 2 I cannot give a critical answer to those questions because I do not think it is well drafted and I do not think it is clear. The word “may” appears in virtually every clause. There is not a direction. The Arts Council “may designate a body” and “may if satisfied” do this; it “may establish community arts councils” that “may apply in writing …”. If we restructure and get rid of all other legislation pertaining to community arts there needs to be a lot more rigour a lot more accountability a lot more clarity and a lot more commitment to making sure that the flax-roots and the grassroots have the power.At this point Part 2 to us is something that we absolutely cannot support. At the moment we cannot support the rest of the bill either. It is with regret that we express that because community arts are the lifeblood the identity the meaning and the uniqueness of being a citizen in a group of other citizens creating your own reality. We should be supporting that in a coherent manner. Thank you.