I don’t think anyone outside of Creative New Zealand (CNZ) could look at the organisation and consider it to be functioning properly or to purpose.

You can tell the government to “give them more money” but that really isn’t the core issue you might think it was. Smaller amounts to more groups may well be more effective in, say, a major recession - but distribution and priorities seem to be the most significant factors.

It goes without saying that yes, CNZ should get more money, not less, but it also goes without saying that creativity in Aotearoa will never be sustainable on its own and Government should stop pretending that it might be with the right pressure. (Also I don’t see any sudden cash injections under the Hipkins government or a National government.)

Certainly, CNZ could spend less on surveys that show what we already know – that creatives don’t make enough money to live. The creative community could have told them that for free.

Most of CNZ’s funding money comes from Lotto revenues, which is shrinking, though perhaps rather than using that as an excuse, CNZ should have identified that as an ethically undesirable source and begun divesting from it a long time ago.

In my wilder moments, I do sometimes ponder whether it would be better just to burn the whole lot down and start afresh. 

Assessing the situation

One thing that definitely needs addressing is the tendency of CNZ to hide from controversy behind their assessors when criticised. 

From what I have observed from CNZ assessor feedback, there is a paucity of ability to understand financial information, seeing surpluses and salaries that aren’t there. They might very well come from the sector, but they don’t come from the parts of the sector that write up the budgets and know how to talk to the muggles.

Assessors often don’t really have that much influence on how applications are prioritised and frequently appear to lack the essential skills to understand the more technical data before them. What assessors receive to assess has already been filtered by CNZ itself.

Sometimes, as seen with the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival, and Arts on Tour in 2022, the feedback is unhelpfully and divisively framed in terms of cultural and colonial imperialism when it isn’t warranted.

In other cases, rejection is a mystery, as in the cases of Wellington’s CupaDupa and Fringe festivals. 

It’s a tricky situation and I don’t really know what to do about it - except suggest perhaps looking back to how the old QEII Arts Council operated, where you had professionals who understood the practicalities and diplomacies of the industry.

Standing up for the 'little guys'

CNZ is reviewing its processes, but will it tell us anything we didn’t already know?

There is very little transparency for a Public Crown Entity. CNZ seems reluctant to state outright, in clear language exactly what they are looking for, which gives them room to fudge decision reasoning but realistically that only results in funding decisions looking arbitrary.

There is very little point, for example, in berating a small arts organisation for lacking diversity and inclusivity, when it is an entirely voluntary organisation struggling to staff itself in a community that is low in population and lacks diversity in the first place (ie much of the South Island, a region which anecdotally really struggles to secure CNZ funding due to limited population reach, especially outside Christchurch and Dunedin).

Even when individuals and organisations go to the effort of trying to interpret the tea leaves of the guidelines and making their applications conform, they are just as likely to be refused for arbitrary or ambiguous reasons rather than simply say that there isn’t enough money.

In this regard, CNZ needs to front up more about what agendas are in play so that these can be publicly debated. Otherwise, you just get a lot of paranoia and negativity in the sector.

This opacity in what CNZ actually wants also made it nearly impossible for individuals and smaller, less experienced organisations to get a polished application in during the tiny window of time made available. Hopefully recent changes made to the system will alleviate this issue.

These smaller grass roots organisations don’t get enough time with CNZ staff beforehand to craft their applications, but I don’t understand why this can’t be spelled out in clear, comprehensive language on the website. Why can’t CNZ simply provide a mock-up of a correctly filled out application and take all the guesswork out of the equation?

The CNZ website warns not to apply for COVID recovery or operations costs funding, and yet I’ve seen organisations not apply for those – things which many of these important organisations at the coalface desperately need to keep going – and still get nothing, yet similar organisations apply for both and get funding. 

Terry Sheat, the son of the late arts advocate Bill Sheat, called for a public enquiry into CNZ operations, asserting that the organisation was favouring contemporary and “intrinsically New Zealand” art forms over others.

I endorse the need for a public enquiry, but I think it’s a lot more complicated than that, especially the “intrinsically New Zealand” bit, which seems to me to be code for “Māori and Pasifika” – demographics long neglected. That said, there should still be room for all forms of culture and expression.

There is a noticeable transfer of priority away from smaller, community and emerging projects to high profile overseas projects and big names and organisations. 

Local organisations are being starved in favour of projects that most New Zealanders will never see.

This operates in tandem with what I perceive as a bureaucratic attitude of centralisation: X already does this, so why do we need to fund Y? This has a stifling effect on the national culture, ignoring regional differences, small but important niches, and diversity in general.

Arguably it’s the voluntary organisations that provide a public good that the public are unwilling to pay for directly, that are most in need of that funding. They are the ones doing the mahi at the coalface to keep the arts, culture and creativity in Aotearoa alive.

I’d also argue that if individual creatives had better access to funding, entitled opportunists like James Wallace would never have the power to exploit that they do.

It’s a horrible situation when the country’s legacy literary publications and local events are folding, but money can be found to send a big-name creative to an overseas festival that you may never have even heard of.

Splitting the pool

I suggest that it is deeply wrong and unfair for these to be in the same funding pool. Much of the distress could be alleviated by splitting funding into grassroots national applications and big international events and large festivals the way the New Zealand Film Commission – an organisation that CNZ could learn much from.

As it stands, the lion’s share of CNZ funding is ringfenced by a conglomeration of larger professional organisations that already receive significant corporate sponsorship and sales revenue, paying themselves salaries, offering relatively conservative programmes and not doing very much to develop audiences and creatives at home.

By “larger organisations” I mean the larger arts festivals, and events like the Venice Biennale, not organisations like the Royal New Zealand Ballet or New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, which both receive their funding directly from government, which arguably so should said “larger organisations”.

If CNZ isn’t keeping grassroots arts, culture and creativity alive at home, what good are they?