Dialogue: The arts will develop in spite of politicians

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

As one of the 10 members of the Heart of the Nation strategic working party, my gripe at the Government is probably best expressed in part of a letter I wrote last week to Associate Minister Judith Tizard in which I said how dismayed I was by the response to the report.

"It's not that I think for a moment you had any obligation to agree with the report or unreservedly accept its proposals but I do believe its authors were entitled to the dignity of a considered and intelligent appraisal and not just patronising, offhand sniping through the media.

"I regarded the strategic working party project as ... interesting and important and, indeed, would have done it for nothing ...

"And yet the only acknowledgement of much hard work over a condensed period has been a series of casual, insubstantial public remarks about the report's inadequacy. I'm also astonished by Helen Clark's facile, isolated remark that we 'appeared not to know the difference between capital funding and operational funding' (NZ Herald, July 10), followed by what seemed an abrupt abandonment of the whole project.

"I've read press and radio clippings of your comments and nowhere can I detect any coherent indication of where you think the report deviates from the terms of reference, or which figures are supposed to be inaccurate, or where it spends too much time in the past. It would have been good to have the courtesy of an intelligent response before you began your public campaign against the report."

And still there's no coherent response. The comments from the associate minister have been largely confined to catchcries. The Government, she said, wanted something "evolutionary not revolutionary." There would be no "restructuring for the sake of restructuring" and "we asked for fish and chips and they gave us a fishing-boat and a flour mill."

All very metaphorical. But it would be as difficult to dislike Judith Tizard as it is sometimes to understand what she means.

One problem is the excitement that overtakes new governments which have been in opposition for a long time. Everything is done in a kind of jerky hyperactivity like an old movie speeded up. They remind me of that marvellous passage from Stephen Leacock: "Lord Ronald ... flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." This whole project would have profited from a more measured and reflective approach. For one thing, the report would have been more clearly written.

And so, by the end of this week the discussion about the report had narrowed to whether or not it had recommended the abolition of Creative New Zealand and whether that would be a good or bad thing. Yet there is little mention of CNZ in the 150-page document which makes policy and, yes, structural recommendations covering the whole $10.8 billion arts and culture industry.

The two reasons that reduced the argument to this are that the public perception of this major industry narrows down to the subject of arts funding, and that the report was held from the public for too long and journalists sniffed out that piece of information.

In fact, most of the report is not about restructuring but about creating structures to support economic development and individual creativity where none at present exist, or are dispersed and fragmentary where they do. But we do recommend the replacement of Creative New Zealand by other agencies we think could do the job better.

Let's look at CNZ. It's an organisational monstrosity, and don't just accept my word for it. The chairman, Peter Biggs, told me he agrees. With 28 committee members and 38 staff, it was entirely dysfunctional for several years after it was set up in the early 1990s, not only because of its structure but also because it was run by people ideologically prejudiced or, perhaps, ideologically confused would be a better phrase.

To his great credit, Biggs consulted widely, and has applied common sense and energy to make CNZ work about as well as it can, given its grotesque shape. But I hope the Government, if it does nothing else, makes it easier for him and his staff to do better what they're doing well by recreating the organisation. (I write "recreating" because "restructuring" seems to make Labour politicians rear up like startled horses. Perhaps it reminds them of when they did do it for the sake of doing it.)

Many people have asked me whether I'm disappointed by the Government's determination to shelve the report and ignore its recommendations.

My answer is that I've been around long enough to be insouciant about this sort of thing and, anyway, I believe the need to develop the arts and cultural sector is so economically compelling it will happen anyway.

Unfortunately it will now take longer and grow more haphazardly, more Topsy-like, than if the Government attacked the issue more ... well, yes, more creatively.