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: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koutou katoa. I enjoyed being part of the debate on the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill at the beginning. Then Holly Walker took over so I missed the select committee process. I am really sorry that I was not present for the submissions to the Government Administration Committee but now I am back because Holly Walker cannot decide whether she should have her baby now or wait for us to win the America’s Cup. She seems to be in a state of limbo along with the rest of the country.I am now back on to this bill. The Green Party is opposing it not because we are against reviews—I think possibly it is high time there was a review of the Arts Council—but because we also have reservations about the nature of the streamlining and the logic behind that streamlining. Initially when we looked at it we could see the logic of it but our test was when we went out to communities and had a talk to a range of people—not arts bureaucrats but people who are practising artists. I think that the arts bureaucrats know a lot and they have a lot of experience in dealing with these things but artists are the ones who have to use the facilities in order to create a genuinely vibrant and creative community whether that is in a rural or an urban area.What is important to us is what they are saying about the end of Te Waka Toi and the issues around Pacific representation so we thought long and hard about this. We wantedto be able to support the bill but when we had that feedback and listened to what people were saying we were unable to do so.If you look at both Te Waka Toi and the Pacific communities—this is an old question that is not often resolved in any country and it goes back and forth and back and forth—does one group better represent the marginalised majority if they are at the table or is it better for them to have a separate identity and a separate ability to lobby to have their own money and to stand their own ground? That is not a simple issue and there is debate both ways but in the end the artists from Te Waka Toi and Pasifika communities said to us that they still want to have that distinctive and unique identity of practice which Grant Robertson just described in a quote from the Human Rights Commission. In the end that has to be their call. If that is what they still want that is what they need.If you are talking about Te Tiriti o Waitangi andMāori art if those people still believe that the best way to acknowledge the Treaty is to have a separate Te Waka Toi committee—which has served them well in the past—then their voices should be heard in this debate. That is what we are prepared to speak up for.The voices from Pasifika communities were actually stronger. They were even more concerned.Māori art has definitely always been the centrepiece of art in this country for hundreds of years and it is definitely still widely acknowledged but Pasifika groups still feel that they are not heard. It is really interesting that if we think about the number of Pacific cultures in the changing demographic of Aotearoa it is not just two different ones. It is not just about Samoan or Tongan. It is not about assuming that all Pacific Islanders can represent each other. It is about recognising the diversity of Pacific groups that have enriched our culture as we are part of the Pacific and them feeling that they are still on a journey towards being strong enough to want their own representation. If that is going to strengthen their position and that is what they want I think we should recognise it. I think that is an important part of it.We are also concerned about community arts development and the regional arts issues that were touched on by Grant Robertson. We do not think that it is—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is in Part 2. We are on Part 1.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Thank you very much Mr Chair. In terms of Part 1 we are very concerned that clause 10 and clause 11 do not solve the problem that this bill is purported to solve. It has been set up to make sure that we have a better system but we are not convinced that those two committees being dissolved will make for a better system so we are going to continue to strongly argue throughout this process that ifMāori want Te Waka Toi and if Pasifika people want a separate committee that is legitimate.In my life I have had quite a lot to do with the arts and particularly with the theatre and with creative arts in various forms and it is not a happy day and we are not in a golden age when we start to look at issues like the loss of Creative New Zealand funding. Creative New Zealand does need to be streamlined in the sense of where it prioritises and where it puts its money. It is tragic for those of us who grew up with Downstage theatre to see the cuts that took place so that that theatre was operating only part-time and so that it actually became a slow death which in the minds of many people Creative New Zealand facilitated.That kind of issue suggests that Creative New Zealand and the Arts Council do have work to do. If we lose culture if we lose theatre and if we lose unique cultural arts championed byMāori and Pacific artists we are worse off as a country. I think that is why this issue is so passionate and why people on both sides of the Chamber care about it. It is an important issue and Part 1 is an attempt to deal with it but we do not think that it does.