Hayes John: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hayes John: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13269. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I am very proud to speak on the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill this evening. It is an excellent bill from I think New Zealand’s finest-ever Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Ha ha! 
JOHN HAYES 
: That member may laugh. I remind my colleagues opposite that they should think back to just 18 months ago to the mess that they left us. Labour left us an economy that was in financial strife an absolute administrative mess a $2 billion shortfall in the accident compensation scheme and a whole lot of other problems. In the 9 years that Labour was in power real after-tax wages in New Zealand grew by only 3 percent in total. The Labour members might say this has nothing to do with the arts but I will tell this House that it is fundamentally important. 
The economy is a fundamental part of the Wairarapa cultural and heritage arts strategy. I can assure members that the Wairarapa is a wonderful place in which to live and I will be perfectly happy to live there in another 20 years when I retire from this House. It is rich with interest and strong with involvement and we celebrate a highly visible arts culture in every one of our towns whether it is Waipukurau Waipawa Carterton or Masterton particularly centred around the Aratoi Museum. Economic matters are important because if we have a strong economy we can give strong support to the arts. We can support artists and we can support arts-related activity. That is why the economy is so important. 
I will come back to the point that I began with. In the 9 years to 2008 annual inflation was frequently running at 3 percent per annum and power prices jumped by 70 percent. How could someone afford to go out and buy a painting for example or a piece of sculpture? In September 2008 annual inflation was 5.1 percent with no compensation for that paid to anybody. Labour spent 9 years in office without cutting taxes which made sure that nobody had money in the pocket to go out and support the arts. In September 1999 people who were on the average wage paid 19 percent of their income in tax and by September 2008 they paid 22 percent. That was Labour’s legacy. That was absolutely its legacy. We had a bad economy so what did people do? They left this country in droves. Where did they go? They went to Australia. Those who stayed worked as public servants. We inherited more public servants local and national than this country could afford. 
That is why we are changing things. John Key and his excellent band of Ministers are leading this country forward so that we can give a lot more support to the arts and arts-related activity in our communities. Part of this suite of measures is that we have to also streamline bureaucracy. The Minister suggests that we streamline Creative New Zealand’s four governing bodies into a single board with the responsibility for determining strategic direction priorities and a policy framework for the whole organisation and for funding allocation decisions. It stands to reason that if we can come down to having one streamlined board requiring fewer resources fees and staff we can focus on what is important: artists arts organisations arts development and an economy that enables all of us to support the arts through our pockets. The Minister proposes that we pass this streamlining legislation because it will save us at least $200000 per annum through the benefit of freeing up staff to concentrate on core responsibilities to the arts sector rather than on servicing the bureaucracy. This will be extremely significant. 
I am very pleased to be able to support this bill. I am very pleased that it is coming to the Government Administration Committee and with those words I support the bill and end my speech here. Thank you.