Opera House hopes are in the picture

THE ROYAL Wanganui Opera House is seeking donations from the public to buy a painting.

It has a target of $7000. It has a Givealittle online page.

Excellent idea. Publicly funded purchases are all the rage right now. The people of New Zealand have just bought a hefty chunk of sand for a hefty chunk of change - Awaroa Inlet in the Abel Tasman National Park (though not sufficiently in the national park for it to already belong to Aotearoa).

So, the good folk at the Opera House have caught the zeitgeist and are after the Felicity Priest painting, Sara.

To secure the fabled beach, all it took was 39,000 pledges and somewhere north of $2 million. Oh, and some money from every single one of us via a Government contribution of $350,000.

The Opera House's target is more modest, and they are particularly looking to the citizens of Whanganui to chip in. That said, I believe they would not be averse to the statutory government contribution now that the "Awaroa precedent" has been set - they could snap up 50 Priest paintings for $350,000.

Perhaps more likely than a handout from the Treasury is the prospect of millionaire philanthropist and ailurophobe Gareth Morgan going on television and offering a substantial contribution to the Opera House kitty ... as long as he can hang the work on his lounge wall for the first 10 years.

But we shouldn't need Gareth or cash from the Government's vote-buying fund to purchase the painting of performers rehearsing at the Opera House.

Think of it this way, there's a chance we will pop into the Opera House for some occasion and happen to gaze on and admire Priest's handiwork. How many of us will make it to Awaroa Inlet and roll on that expensive sand that we've just paid for.