A leading political lobbyist has described the timing of a new initiative to increase state funding for New Zealand literature as the best of times and the worst of times. The worst of times seems to have the edge.<\/p>\n
The mightiest quango in New Zealand literature, the Coalition of New Zealand Books, has the backing of 40 representatives from government ministries and the books sector as it prepares to knock on doors and present its new five-year strategic plan. Among the chief aims of the Mahi Tahi:2025-2030 document is to increase the funding pools for writers festivals and the Public Lending Right, modernise IP laws, include writers in diplomatic missions, and ultimately create a dedicated literary funding system similar to the recently established model in Australia.<\/p>\n
Essentially it sets out to boost local readership, improve literacy, and increase sales of New Zealand books. The Coalition\u2014the literary one, not the National-led government one\u2014represents a unified approach, a combined effort, a single voice. Well-known political insider and lobbyist Ben Thomas from Capital NZ regards that as a head-start.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can unite people in the literary sector behind the agreed goals, then you\u2019re ahead of most art sectors in terms of advocacy. It seems as though they do have got a united front and that sounds like a good thing for them. <\/p>\n
\u201cRight now it\u2019s like the best of times, worst of times. You know, you\u2019ve got a minister for the arts [Paul Goldsmith] who\u2019s both very engaged in the arts and an author himself. So you could take a pretty good hearing at the political level, but of course, we\u2019re in a fiscally constrained environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t control the fiscal situation obviously. You can only sort of control what you can control. And I guess any group advocating for more funding, then the things that you can control are your messages and your efforts to recruit people to your cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
Huzzah, then, to the Coalition of New Zealand Books, which represents publishers, the society of authors, booksellers, and other important components of the literary industrial complex. They are in supreme control of their message and their recruitment. As Coalition chair Mel Laville-Moore put it, \u201cIt\u2019s about giving the appearance of being mobilised, of being something that\u2019s bigger than all the little organisations within the sector. All of the state funders, like Creative New Zealand, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, the Ministry of Education, all of those folk, they\u2019re just so used to having to deal with lots of small organisations all asking for lots of small things. And it\u2019s \u00a0never gone anywhere, whereas at least now, we\u2019ve got a plan that we can all play to.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when somebody\u2019s in front of Minister Goldsmith, or God help us if we can ever get in front of Brooke van Velden, God bless her, then we can say, \u2018Here is the document to work from.\u2019 \u00a0And so it will literally involve us just constantly knocking on doors and constantly asking the questions and challenging the way in which arts funding is currently carved up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Velden is minister of internal affairs, which oversees the Public Lending Right. She has resisted meeting the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) to discuss increasing the puny PLR funding pool. \u201cYou absolutely have to wish us luck there,\u201d said Laville-Moore, \u201cbut we still have to try and have those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZSA claims the minister hasn\u2019t responded to any of their attempts for a meeting. Asked what message that sends, Laville-Moore acknowledged, \u201cTo me it would say it\u2019s not a priority for her. But even though there\u2019s that disinterest there, it doesn\u2019t mean we should give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Arts minister Paul Goldsmith is seen as more sympathetic. Wellington lobbyist Ben Thomas said, \u201cThe issue is not necessarily Goldsmith\u2019s receptiveness. It depends on the ask. And if the ask is just, \u2018We would like more money because literature is good,\u2019 then you\u2019d probably find it pretty easy for people to agree with that second part, but not necessarily the first part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of negative headwinds against any hopes of \u00a0getting additional funding beyond what exists. The economy\u2019s still got some, you know, issues to work through before we see that promised growth. The government is not flush with cash. And when they are restricting spending on everything else, you\u2019re not going to see new money coming into the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n
There may even be less. In 2026, Creative New Zealand will scrap its long-established arts investment structure which guaranteed funding for three to five years for particular clients. Laville-Moore: \u201cFrom a literature perspective, it will actually mean that from next year books has no guaranteed funding stream. Every single dollar that comes into the arts sector from government will be contestable. We\u2019re going to be fighting with all of those other art forms.\u201d<\/p>\n
It strengthens the need for a single, separate body, like the New Zealand Film Commission. A better comparison is up and running across the Tasman. In July, the Albanese government launched Writing Australia. Arts minister Tony Burke announced, \u201cOur writers, illustrators and publishers have been historically overlooked. Writing Australia and our funding will help rectify this.\u201d The government is providing over $26 million in funding over three years, with ongoing funding of around $8.6 million annually to support the sector.<\/p>\n
Mel Laville-Moore laughed for pretty much the only time in our interview, \u201cHow galling is it that the Australians got there first?\u201d She continued, \u201cTwenty six million dollars\u2026.I mean, can you imagine?\u201d<\/p>\n
I could not imagine, and only asked, \u201cIs Writing Australia the exact model you want for New Zealand?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPrecisely,\u201d she said. \u201cYeah. Precisely.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Laville-Moore already sees encouraging signs that government departments are taking a more serious approach to literature funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a little hint of that with that regeneration grant, which was the very last pot of cash that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage had with all of the COVID funding. It was the bit that was left after they\u2019d given ridiculous sums of money to Narrative Muse.\u201d<\/p>\n
She meant the $500,000 that the Ministry wasted on the scarcely credible Narrative Muse outfit in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were far more careful and judicious with how that got carved up in the throes of that. The Coalition had lots of conversations with them and I think they are starting to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are signs that state funding for the books sector is in decline. These are anxious times for literary festivals and writers residencies. Laville-Moore: \u201cThey\u2019re all a hugely valuable part of the ecosystem. Steve, you\u2019re a very important part of that, with ReadingRoom, and I don\u2019t know if we thank you enough for that. We possibly don\u2019t. It\u2019s so, so invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n
ReadingRoom relies on CNZ funding. Its annual grant was spread over two years in the 2024 round. I said to Laville-Moore, \u201cPersonally I was grateful to get anything. Something is better than nothing. And anyway this particular government is trying to cut down on public spending and so it could be argued that your initiative could scarcely come at a worse time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I agree,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then there\u2019s possibly never a good time either.\u201d<\/p>\n
It chimed with the comments of Ben Thomas. He formerly worked for Chris Finlayson, arts minister in the Key administration, and said, \u201cHaving worked in an arts minister\u2019s office, there\u2019s worse and better times to ask for anything. It just comes down to what\u2019s in it for the government at the time, you know, whether it\u2019s a policy which is politically beneficial to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s probably it. And leveraging arts money for any government is usually pretty unpopular with the non-arts community, and generally hated by members of the arts community who aren\u2019t the specific group being funded.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a particularly tricky political proposition. There aren\u2019t any votes in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked Thomas, \u201cAre you saying they don\u2019t have a shitshow?\u201d<\/p>\n
He replied, \u201cNo, not if they have good policy that can appeal to the government\u2019s needs. That\u2019s essentially it. There\u2019s no real magic to it. No one\u2019s going to change policy or do funding as a favour. There has to be something in it for them. You have just got to put to the powers that be, who are holding the bank PIN number, that there are good reasons in line with their priorities for making that kind of shift in funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Onwards, then, with the door knocking. I asked Mel Laville-Moore of the Coalition for New Zealand Books, \u201cWhat happens now?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cThe plan has gone out. We\u2019re sending it to all of the various government departments and ministers that we were talking about. We\u2019ve got the strategies. We\u2019re asking, \u2018What are the things we have to do to make it happen?\u2019 And we need to start putting some timelines on it. But this is our starting point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading political lobbyist has described the timing of a new initiative to increase state funding for New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69,766],"class_list":["post-22540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}