Wagner Nicky: Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill — Second Reading 
Wagner Nicky: Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:19228] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 I rise to support this second reading of the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. National welcomes this bill. We believe that this issue should have been looked at a very long time ago. We support authors who have wanted this legislation to secure their genuine property rights for a very long time. 
As has been mentioned the bill is short and simple although it will need some more work and some Supplementary Order Papers. It will establish a stand-alone statutory framework for the Authors’ Fund and it obliges the Government to pay authors for the use of their books in our libraries. That is the right thing to do. Authors should receive fair compensation for their intellectual property and National welcomes this commitment. 
It is difficult for creative people to make a living in New Zealand. National is always keen to see creative people get fair compensation for their creative endeavour preferably through a simple cost-effective structure and as of right. Legislation that pays creative people fairly for their intellectual property must be supported. It is always preferable for creative people to be paid directly for the value of their work rather than to have them always seeking grants and having to go regularly cap in hand to beg a living from the Government or other arts-funding organisations. Too often we see our artists writers and performers having to put time energy and effort into applying and lobbying for grants rather than actually delivering their creative work. In this case the argument is simple: the public lending right provides for authors to receive annual payments in recognition of the fact that their books are available for use in New Zealand libraries. If their books are of value to libraries and to the public who borrow them authors should be paid for the recurrent use of their work. 
New Zealanders are avid readers and we have one of the highest rates of book borrowing and use of reference works so we should be paying authors for the use of their intellectual property. A public lending scheme is a common arrangement around the world with 28 countries having similar schemes. Of course this was the argument behind the setting up of the original New Zealand Authors’ Fund which was established in 1973 and which was a good first start. But there have been ongoing problems concerning its effectiveness in recent years. The fund is now administered by Creative New Zealand and there has been vigorous debate over the level of funding the process for determining payments and the way the fund is administered. 
In reality the Authors’ Fund has been neglected by this Government. There has been a lack of certainty around funding because the fund does not have direct-line funding. That means that although authors’ books continue to be borrowed in libraries the income stream to authors is not guaranteed. Funding comes out of Creative New Zealand’s budget and so Creative New Zealand has discretion over the total amount of funding. And there have been no increases since 2002. In real terms the returns to authors have decreased dramatically over the last 5 years because the amount—$500000—allocated by Creative New Zealand has remained static and the numbers of books entering libraries has increased. The payment rate per book has dropped from $2.78 in 2002 to $2.09 in 2007 so authors have gone significantly backwards in real dollar terms and even more dramatically so in value terms. We all know how much the cost of living has increased for New Zealanders over the last 5 years but the return to authors has decreased. In good faith the authors have supplied their intellectual property to our libraries for the enjoyment and edification of New Zealand readers but the value of that intellectual property has been underestimated and underpaid by this Government. 
Authors have waited a long time to see these changes. A promise to review the Author’s Fund was made in 1999 in Labour’s manifesto. Now 9 years later—9 long years later—something is finally happening. As members have already heard my colleague Christopher Finlayson National’s spokesperson on arts and culture commissioned a review of the Authors’ Fund in 2000 when he was the Arts Board chair. This bill is a result of that review but it has taken 8 years to get here. The bill was promised in 1999 and had the work done on it in 2000 so what has stopped Labour from delivering on it? It is a little sad that the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill is finally being read for the second time under urgency on the last day of the last term of the Clark-Peters Government. Do Government members really think authors will reward them for this belated vote-catching ploy? 
National will support this bill going to the Committee stage. We support the right of creative people to be rewarded for the use of their intellectual property. We are embarrassed that this Government has allowed the gradual erosion of authors’ property rights over the years and we look forward to the time that they are paid a fair return for their work. New Zealanders are avid readers we are proud of our writers and illustrators we delight in borrowing and using their books in our libraries and we want to make sure that they get a fair go. We want to make sure they get fair payment for the public enjoyment and benefit that we all derive from their work. Thank you.