Smiles all round as minister plays Santa

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

The Honorable Chris Finlayson can come across as a rather cold fish, a tightly-buttoned intellectual.

But yesterday he was all smiles and jokes as he played Santa, bringing an early $10 million Christmas present to Whanganui.

That funding for the $35 million Sarjeant Gallery redevelopment project leaves the grand plan just $9 million and change short of glorious triumph. So it is no time to be resting on laurels - yesterday's cash boost should be a spur to re-double efforts with 12 months and counting to find the rest of the money.

The former Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage was here to make good on his promise of a couple of years ago that the Government would put its hand in its pocket.

With him shedding the arts portfolio at the end of 2014, becoming attorney-general and, as he put it, "Minister for the Spies" (he is responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau and our Security Intelligence Service), there were concerns his replacement, Maggie Barry, might not look so favourably on the Sarjeant.

Yesterday those fears were allayed. Mr Finlayson proved himself a man of his word, something he has displayed in Treaty negotiations over the Whanganui River settlement, a fact noted by kaumatua John Maihi who performed the official welcome at yesterday's ceremony.

Mayor Hamish McDouall described the dapper Mr Finlayson as "a tireless champion for the Sarjeant project", and Whanganui MP Chester Borrows - himself a tireless champion for the project - said Mr Finlayson was probably Whanganui's favourite minister, adding ruefully that he was also "probably its favourite Member of Parliament".

And the minister had some words for "those who say investment in art galleries is a waste of money". And we have a few of them in Whanganui.

He noted that the nay-sayers who complained when the Len Lye gallery in New Plymouth was proposed were now silent as the visitors flocked to it.

Even those whose artistic aspirations never rose above stickmen drawings should see that a $35 million investment in the city paints a beautiful picture.