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Opinion: Act, whose leader David Seymour will be Deputy Prime Minister in a few months’ time, has been locked in an unhealthy battle with the arts sector. Now, the party is openly threatening it – and not even with a coded threat. It was blatant. Here’s a text sent out by the party last Friday after the annual Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards ceremony at Parliament:
Christchurch-based Tusiata Avia is an award-winning poet and Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit whose works have been adapted into a couple of successful stage plays. Act’s rather ugly battle with Avia started over her poem 250th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand, from her 2020 book The Savage Coloniser Book. That collection won the Mary and Peter Biggs poetry award at the 2021 Ockham NZ Book Awards.
Since then, Act and Seymour have repeatedly played the “reverse race card” – falsely claiming the poem is racist against white people – and causing angst on social media with all sorts of dog-whistle claims that wind up arch conservatives.
Seymour’s first press release, sent in 2023 before he was part of the coalition government, was headlined: “Govt funding hate with show about murdering white people”. The agencies who responded to Seymour’s complaint basically binned it.
It sounded off again last December after Avia received the poetry award and $60,000 in the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement.
Act just won’t let it go. Last week, Avia won the $25,000 Senior Pacific Artist award at the Arts Pasifika Awards, and Act hit the roof with the above social media post.
It appears the party is desperate to line up “enemies” and strip them of not just their mana and dignity but also whatever government funding they get. Essentially, it’s as if it wants people to be paraded and stripped of any public money they rely on – especially if Act doesn’t like them or understand them, or it thinks they’ve crossed the party in some way.
It’s a dangerous way to do politics and a ridiculous way to fund or not fund anything. It also ignores the fact that we have a Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Paul Goldsmith, who says New Zealand needs an arts and creative sector.
The arts community contributed $16.3 billion to New Zealand’s economy in 2023, according to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and the government puts two-fifths of nothing into it. Art, by its nature, is open to all sorts of interpretations and it always will be.
Here’s what worries me about Act and its leader’s stance: Seymour is a powerbroker in a coalition government that has a weak leader. Soon, he’ll have a sharper axe to swing from his new high office, he knows his target, and he’s fixated on the arts sector.
It’s chilling in its intent; the power imbalance is obvious.
It’s not the job of ministers, or their party, to threaten funding based on how they see and interpret certain artistic endeavours. It’s bloody dangerous having any politician do that. I mean, if the All Blacks disappointed the Sports Minister, would their funding be threatened?
Christopher Luxon needs to pull Seymour aside, remind him of his cabinet responsibilities and that he’s coming across as a bully. But of course, Luxon hasn’t done that.
Punching down seems to be par for the course for this government – witness cabinet minister Andrew Bayly’s recent behaviour, where he called a staff member at a small business a loser.
Luxon’s silence is not good enough. Has he even understood what’s going on here? It’s simple: Politicians should not be threatening anyone due to matters of taste or mocking New Zealanders in their workplaces.
It’s unbecoming of the incoming Deputy Prime Minister. He needs a cup of tea and a stern chat from the boss - just don’t bet on it being that stern, if it happens at all.
Seymour told me recently $4b-5b in cuts are needed in next year’s budget. The arts are clearly in his sight. He has the power, he knows it, and is wielding it in a highly threatening way.
Who has the sector’s back?
