Not The Arts Minister David Seymour Threatens to reduce Funding to Creative New Zealand
David Seymour wants to be the 'Walt Disney' of Creative New Zealand, deeming who gets funding according to his tastes...
David Seymour’s ongoing public battle with poet Tusiata Avia, over her poem, ‘250th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand’ from The Savage Coloniser (published in 2020) took a very worrisome turn last week.
Seymour has been battling with Tusiata Avia and her poem, playing the reverse race card and causing a flutter on the platform formerly known as Twitter, since before the election, in one of the many ways to dog-whistle to racists.
Seymour laid complaints to the Human Rights Commission and media council, which are, obviously, not upheld by either, but he has continued to “fight for the taxpayer” and stop our money from supporting racism against white people.
That brings us to last week, when it was announced Avia was awarded the Senior Pacific Artist award ($25,000) from Creative New Zealand, and Seymour once again came in hot with his opinion, with a thinly veiled threat in the end…
Now, what we have here is a minister (who isn’t in charge of arts) threatening to reduce CNZ funding because he doesn’t agree with their decision-making. This should be ringing alarm bells, a politician essentially threatening censorship and government over-reach because he doesn’t have the reading comprehension skills to understand the complexities and nuances of a poem.
Threatening to reduce Arts funding (which I should stress isn’t that big to begin with) and using ‘wasting taxpayer money’ as your defense is pretty rich considering New Zealand's arts and creative sector contributed $16.3 billion to New Zealand's GDP last year.
We as a country constantly consume arts, pretty much for free, and at the same time undervalue it, and use it as a political ball. And this includes David Seymour, who seems to enjoy my comics:
If you’re reading this David, that Raro comic will be available in my new book ‘Slices of Heaven: Uniquely Kiwi Comics about Aotearoa’ if you truly care about the arts, go grab a few pre-orders.
But despite his okay taste in political cartoonists, we don’t want David, or any government official deciding who and what gets funded, nor threaten to reduce funding because you don’t like the art being produced. The lack of pushback from National or tbh most of the press on this, really makes me worried about future arts funding and arts in New Zealand overall.
Maybe we can take that $16.3 billion to a country and government that can appreciate its worth.
Danz.
Speaking of supporting the arts, my new book ‘Slices of Heaven: Uniquely Kiwi Comics about Aotearoa’ is available for pre-order now! It’s a print collection of warm and witty comics about the DNA of Aotearoa, celebrating our quirks, institutions, identity, and shared experiences.
