Creative NZ defends the indefensible

Creative NZ, not content with making NZ a global laughing stock, has hit back:

The Government has recognised that the MoE is better placed to provide this funding.

This highlights the positive impact that additional government investment can have on the arts.

While it’s great that a solution has been found for this one organisation, questions remain about other arts organisations and individual artists who find it difficult to mobilise or who don’t have the international pulling power to draw attention to their funding needs.

Whine, whine we want more money and it is unfair that we got mocked around the world.

The facts are their funding has gone up massively from $57 million in 2017 to $101 million last year. They should be grateful to taxpayers for the 77% increase in funding.

This is a great outcome for SGCNZ, but we’ve found some of the rhetoric over the last few weeks alarming, misleading and racist. 

Of course criticising them is racist!

Sixty-two organisations submitted proposals to our Kahikatea programme for funding from 2023 to 2025. Fifty-eight proposals were successful. We have a limited amount of money to invest, and we had to make some tough decisions. Unfortunately for Shakespeare Globe Company New Zealand (SGCNZ), their proposal wasn’t as strong as others and didn’t align with the Kahikatea programme requirements, and so they missed out this time around.

So 94% of applications were approved for funding. Yet there was no money to continue supporting getting the works of the world’s best playwright to secondary school students. What Creative NZ is saying is that they rate Shakespeare in the bottom 5%!

The Toi Uru Kahikatea investment programme that SGCNZ applied to is contestable funding – in other words, applicants compete for funding because there’s only so much money to go around.

The annual budget of Creative NZ is now over $101 million. Their suggestion that they could not afford a measly $30,000 to Shakespeare in Schools is laughable. It represents 0.03% of their annual budget.

Many people have taken exception with some of the comments made about SGCNZ’s proposal. These comments have been taken out of context; they were a small component of a thorough decision-making process.   

The comments are not out of context. They explain perfectly why Creative NZ decided not to continue funding them despite it being such a meagre amount and approving 94% of other applications.

However, we’re appalled that some of the criticism has become about race. 

The criticism has become about race because that is what Creative NZ did with the comments from their assessors. If you decline to fund Shakespeare because it doesn’t fit a decolonised New Zealand, of course it takes on a racial aspect.

We challenge the narrative that our decision was driven by reverse racism and that we are the “cultural Taliban”. Creative New Zealand’s mandate is to fund New Zealand made work within the limited resources we have.

Actions speak louder than words and to whine about limited resources when you have had a 77% increase in funding is insulting to taxpayers.