Prime Minister Helen Clark has a shakeup planned for the arts. She tells BRIAN RUDMAN what she has in mind.
The hazards of Helen Clark's holiday pastimes - alpine rock climbing and kayaking in the Chatham Islands - were nothing compared to the minefield she now faces in her role as Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage.
After a few days negotiating the details of her post-election briefing papers she admits to feeling "a bit weak" and laughingly threatens "to retreat to the broader vision."
When on the election trail last November, Labour promised to inject at least $25 million extra into the arts over the next three years. The briefing papers reveal how inadequate that sum now seems, with major institutions like Te Papa, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the Auckland Philharmonia all desperate for help.
The $25m, sighs Clark, could all be swallowed by Te Papa alone, which wants another $11m a year to cover depreciation. "But it can't be." This shortfall in Te Papa funding is just one of the many "time-bombs" left behind by the Shipley Government Clark says.
"But I'm still smiling. The important thing for me is not to get bogged down in the horror of the money side."
Lack of cash is not the only thing ailing the arts. There is also a lack of vision and strategy. Clark inherits a ministry "that has no capacity for strategic development at all. As I see it, Creative New Zealand basically handed out money and the ministry reported to Government on how others handed out the money. But there hasn't been any strategy at all."
Clark wants a strategy that encourages the arts not just for their aesthetic and intrinsic values, but also for the potential they offer in establishing national identity and creating jobs.
"It comes down to a matter of values," Clark says. "For 15 years we've had economic pragmatism preached at us and everyone's been told to look at their own economic self-interest and nothing matters except making money.
"Actually, there's a yearning for something different. People value the non-material. This is not going to be a government obsessed with hard economic rationalism. People are more than economic units. At a community level there's a real hunger for a different value structure."
Clark is an unabashed opera fan. She loves the drama of it and the music. What impresses arts professionals about the new minister is that she's also a genuine patron of the performing arts, a regular annual subscriber to orchestras and opera both in Auckland and Wellington.
At home, the walls and flat surfaces display a cheerful jumble of artworks.
Local painters like Nigel Brown and Claudia Pond-Eyley share space with tourist souvenirs such as pig-tusk earrings from Irian Jaya, a Portugese pottery soup tureen in the shape of a turkey - something of a hit at Clark dinnerparties - and a glittering little mantle clock, the gift of a visiting dignitary, stuck on perfect Korean time for the past two years because no one has discovered how to adjust it.
First step for Clark in creating the arts and culture strategy will be the Heart of the Nation Process, described in election policy as a dialogue between government and stakeholders to take place in the first three months of the new government, to be conducted by associate minister Judith Tizard.
Clark envisages a rolling process taking somewhat longer than that and possibly culminating in regional and national conferences. But she is wary of spending millions of dollars on meetings - money which could be better spent on the underfunded organisations being talked about.
One innovation Clark is keen to pursue is an arts allowance for developing artists which will be set at a level at least equivalent to the unemployment benefit and be available for a maximum of one year.
It is a scheme that has already had trials in a couple of pilot schemes, one organised by Winz in conjunction with Auckland City and other organisations.
Aspiring pop musicians could be a prime beneficiary of this scheme and, Clark says, why not? "It seems better than cutting thistles, which is the principle behind the so-called community wage." She says the scheme will be phased in so that structure can be established and abuse avoided.
"I imagine the news media caning we would get if hundreds of unemployed kids were getting up at two in the afternoon then strolling off to band practice.
"But look on the bright side. I believe in the old adage about idle hands make mischief. So if people have talent and work is not otherwise available, why not get them involved in something like this?"
"I'm convinced there are plenty more OMC's - the Otara pop group - out there with talent like that. Quite a lot of kids are interested in a career in music. With a bit of a leg-up with local content quotas on radio and television and the art allowance, you may actually get them self sufficient and able to go on to be quite successful."
Local content quotas on free-to-air radio and television is a key part of the policy.
Clark says the present voluntary system does not work. "TVNZ will sit in front of you hand on heart and say, "We have so much local content. The fact is most of it is Suzie Whatshername, the infomercial person. It's complete rubbish."
The government is also planning to subsidise the wages of community-based arts and cultural enterprises set up to market their art to those sections of the community not normally able to afford the professional arts - places like schools, hospitals, prisons and homes for the elderly.
Clark is also keen to "mainstream" arts and culture through initiatives like cultural diplomacy.
"Through the 90s there has been very little effort to project the creative side of New Zealand through diplomatic activity," she says. "There's been nothing really since Te Maori toured in the mid-1980s and the NZSO went to Seville in 1992.
"As a small country we can only do a fraction of what bigger countries can do. But think what the British Council does. And the French. If you have a festival here the British, the French, the Japanese are all sponsoring a show or exhibition."
Clark sees New Zealand developing its artists, then sending them overseas to project a positive image of the country. She is also keen on encouraging cultural tourism.
Nelson, she says, has been very successful in attracting tourists to experience its arts and products. "If it works for Nelson it could work for other places. The beauty of cultural tourism is it brings the market to you.
"You don't have to think about exhibiting overseas or having to export product. Many places I've visited I've stopped to watch someone paint or sculpt or blow glass. I'm sure it has enormous potential."
The role of government in such a strategy is to signal to government agencies like the Tourism Board and Foreign Affairs that the Government wants them to incorporate such initiatives into their strategies. Tourist promotions, for example, would be expected to emphasise cultural activities, not just mountain peaks and jetboating.
Arts organisations look enviously abroad to places like the United States, which offer generous tax breaks to private benefactors. Clark rejects this. Tax breaks mean less taxes raised.
They also "empower the wealthy philanthropist to even more dictate what's considered the appropriate art at the time. I like to think that if you gather more tax you can have broader strategies which maybe encourage a wider range of talent and creativity."
Clark also acknowledges "the huge problem" of the imbalance of funding between regional institutions like the Auckland Museum and the Auckland Philharmonia and Wellington-based national institutions like the NZSO and Te Papa.
As far as museums go, Government funds "can't just be concentrated on Te Papa." Clark is promising "a good hard look" at Te Papa.
"Crowds are pouring in, but critics both on the museum side and on the gallery side are very vociferous - and not without reason. The very purpose of funding a new New Zealand gallery was to enable the national collections to be more adequately displayed. The criticism that they are not adequately displayed at all hundreds of millions of dollars down the tracks is pretty tough and there is substance to it."
Despite the perennial shortage of money Clark insists that an awful lot can be done. The key task is getting the strategy right.
Culture coup
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