By GILBERT WONG arts editor
You may not know it, but you are a citizen of the Creative Nation.
Sure, rugby is the national sport, but more of us have been to the library or visited a museum than have gone to watch rugby. We are a nation of readers.
Culture in its broadest sense is the domain the Heart of the Nation report maps, and while the dust continues to fly over whether the panel did or did not deliver what it was briefed to do, the 450-page report does provide a comprehensive definition of the value of the cultural economy.
Research by McDermott Miller, the strategic planners who managed the project, shows that the leisure boom - $10.8 billion in 1998 dollars - is the fastest-growing part of household spending.
The report points to unrealised potential for economic growth in domestic and international markets. More jobs and more money coming in is the promise if the Government gets its cultural strategies right.
Cultural goods (excluding films) earned $33.4 million in foreign exchange last year, according to a conservative estimate - up 16 per cent on the year before.
Books brought in $16 million, newspapers and journals $2.4 million, paintings, engravings, sculptures and other works of art $7.6 million and antiques and collectables $7.1 million.
Combining exported cultural goods, exported cultural services and visitor spending on cultural products suggests foreign exchange earnings by the cultural sector of $340 million to $500 million annually.
Consultant Richard Miller likens the cultural economy to the early days of the tourism industry.
"There was crossover with other sectors, but once it was defined it never looked back. Tourism became a major contributor to economic wellbeing."
But creativity is about more than dollars. It should also be crucial to identity. The Heart of the Nation report, also known by the acronym HOTNation, expresses the belief that identity is an essential conduit to knowledge and that New Zealanders should recognise "as strategic assets the complex patterns of identification that will become apparent in our increasingly diverse society."
This is feelgood stuff.
There is strong acknowledgment of the need to build biculturalism into arts administration. The report is based on the widest consultation yet with individuals and groups.
But does it deliver the goods, setting out a strategic vision of how the cultural sector can grow?
A so-called "cultural tree" outlines a dramatic reorganisation of the political framework that oversees the cultural sector.
Prime Minister and Culture Minister Helen Clark would get an arts policy specialist in her department, and the culture and heritage budget would come under the control of two associate arts ministers, one dealing with Maori arts policy, the other with the rest. Existing organisations such as Te Mangai Paho, the Maori arm of New Zealand on Air, Te Waka Toi, the Maori arm of Creative New Zealand, and others would come under one associate minister; institutions such as the symphony orchestra, Te Papa, the Film Archive and regional bodies would sit under the cloak of the non-Maori associate minister.
Creative New Zealand would disappear, although its functions would be reinvented by three new agencies.
The Creative Resources Foundation would run the grants scheme that provides support and training money to creative individuals and groups. It would work with other agencies to develop job programmes and address such issues as taxation plans for self-employed artists and small cultural businesses.
A Creative Industries Development Agency would provide a strategic overview and support for industry organisations responsible for film, music, literature, design, performing arts, architecture and other disciplines. It would also help with the recruiting and training of creative talent and developing and marketing artistic and cultural products for local and international audiences.
A Cultural Management and Research Centre would monitor the performance of the cultural sector.
A fourth agency, the Heritage Commission, would develop and market a national portfolio of heritage products. Administration of historic sites and artefacts would remain with the Historic Places Trust, the Departments of Conservation and Internal Affairs and private operators.
The Associate Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Judith Tizard, damned the report with faint praise yesterday.
"The report contains many good ideas, and we thank [panel convener] Hamish Keith and those who have assisted him. As Government continues to develop its cultural policies, it will be referring to this document," she said.
"However, it is fair to say that while there is a lot in the report which is interesting and will be useful to the Government, the report does not provide the sector with the overall strategic direction that it needs and for which the Government asked."
She said the Government would not embark on a major restructuring of the sector.
"Abolishing Creative NZ and establishing new bodies in its place would be both very expensive, costing many millions of dollars, and highly disruptive."
HOTNation panel member David Gascoigne, a Wellington lawyer and former chairman of the Film Commission, said the minister had got it wrong.
"The notion of a huge, costly restructuring is wrong. The word we would use is transform. We think that the report has not received the careful treatment it requires and has not been understood, which is clearly demonstrated by Tizard's reaction."
Mr Gascoigne denied that the panel, which includes Auckland writer Witi Ihimaera, journalist and Herald columnist Gordon McLauchlan and economist Tim Hazledine, sought a complex arts bureaucracy.
"No, we intend to reduce bureaucracy. These proposed organisations are coordinating bodies. They provide linkages for creative people and their organisations. This will not require more money."
Creative New Zealand chairman Peter Biggs said he had been dubious from the beginning of the project.
"They had one meeting with us and our alarm bells went off. They had some preconceived and outdated views on Creative New Zealand. They saw us as a funding agency, and we're not. We're a creative development sector agency and moving rapidly to be even more so.
"Why put the sector through massive restructuring and more change to set up an organisation to do what is already being done successfully?"
Mr Biggs' other reservation is that the HOTNation "cultural tree" model would put arm's length funding at risk.
Creative New Zealand is the principal funder of arts activity and acts independently of the minister and Government.
Mr Biggs said arm's length funding existed to take the issue out of the political arena and was "at the heart of a democratic arts policy."
Major institutions such as Te Papa, the symphony orchestra and the Royal New Zealand Ballet already received direct Government funding, he added.
Mr Gascoigne's response is that if a minister acted improperly, it would soon be widely known. Creative New Zealand was behaving in an unnecessarily defensive way, he said.
Mr Biggs: "Not so. We embraced the Heart of the Nation project because we thought it was a way forward. What we've ended up with is a good discussion document, and that wasn't what the Government was after."
The brief given to the HOTNation panel in February was wide-ranging. It was charged with devising a development strategy that would shape the cultural sector for the next 10 years.
As the briefing document states: " ... the strategy will also constitute a base document for Government when reviewing its policies, considering its funding patterns and reshaping the present administrative machinery within the cultural sector."
Radical restructuring or transformation to free creative individuals? After the expenditure of $220,000, the arts professionals disagree about which phrase applies.
Art of the nation: in search of a future
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