No votes in the arts

By JOHN GARDNER

There are no votes in the arts, it seems. As the election campaign came to its end after what had seemed an interminable six weeks, the silence remained deafening.

As Linda Herrick observed in her report on the Walters Prize award ceremony, there was laughter when Helen Clark noted no party had made any reference to cultural policy.

In fact, I saw one reference which quoted a disgruntled voter complaining that Clark spent far too much money on her favourite things "like those artists".

The complaint does seem a little odd when, as Judith Tizard pointed out this month (but she would, wouldn't she?), more than 1.3 million people had attended an art gallery or museum in the past year and that 93 per cent of adult New Zealanders had engaged in at least one cultural activity.

Perhaps we treat art like sex, a strictly private matter in which there should be no Government involvement.

There isn't much. In the May budget the art spend, which includes broadcasting, was put at $186 million from a total Government expenditure of close to $40 billion - not quite enough to make much difference in the balance of payments.

Mind you, we are not alone. The chairman of the British Arts Council, Gerry Robinson, has warned the Blair Government that arts organisations are in danger of collapse because their spending of £237.3 million ($804 million) is so inadequate when, for example, The Netherlands and France spend twice as much per capita. Graham Berry, chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, says its arts budget of £36.3 million ($123 million) represents just 0.162 of Scotland's spending.

And the view expressed there could well be matched here. One arts representative said, "If we complain, they might not give us anything next time."

So in the spirit of being thankful for small mercies, we noticed the unusual sight on our television screens on July 20 of a symphony orchestra. Backed with the help of New Zealand on Air coughing up $130,240, TV One screened extracts from the Young Musician of the Year competition final. It had been held in May. We couldn't expect it live, of course, like the Young Farmer of the Year, or to see an uninterrupted concerto. But it did make the screen.

The winner of that contest was the Auckland cellist Victoria Simonsen (above). And another young Auckland musician, Andrew Conley (left), could land another of the country's most distinguished music prizes in Wellington on Wednesday.

The baritone, 22, who has already won this year's Tower opera scholarship, is one of six finalists in the Mobil Song Quest. The competition has recently produced such names as Jonathan Lemalu and Andrea Creighton who, like Conley, is in New Zealand Opera's The Marriage of Figaro.

The top prize is $10,000 and a study scholarship of up to $15,000 with international air travel. Nice to see someone cares.