{"id":456904,"date":"2026-06-02T10:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/456904\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T10:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:27:08","slug":"dame-lynda-topp-stands-by-budget-blast-theres-no-holding-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/456904\/","title":{"rendered":"Dame Lynda Topp stands by Budget blast: \u2018There\u2019s no holding back\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen you feel passionate about something, and Jools and I were passionate about the arts for, you know, for so long, I think it\u2019s time that we stood up<\/a> and said, you know, to the Government, \u2018you have to acknowledge that the arts is something that you need to invest in\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the creative sector contributes around 4.2% of the GDP but the Government invested about 0.1% into the arts.<\/p>\n

Like most agencies in Budget 2026, the Ministry for Culture, Arts and Heritage had its baseline funding cut by 2%, with savings of $27 million over four years.<\/p>\n

\"DameDame Lynda Topp says she and Dame Jools Topp were passionate about the arts industry throughout the decades. Photo \/ Alyse Wright<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the artists that have made impacts in this country and globally,\u201d Lynda said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yes, it\u2019s time to stand up and say to the Government, you need to be really clear on what you\u2019re doing here because you are not helping the arts, you are hindering them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that still meant $1.48 billion over four years for the industry, Dame Lynda said once sport, heritage and recreation took their cut, music and arts weren\u2019t left with much.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what governments do, they go broadly, this is how much money we\u2019re putting into things.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when you strip it back, music gets absolutely a tiny, tiny bit of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said young artists in particular need backing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it only takes one small grant to let that artist rise<\/a> up and then what happens is, and what\u2019s happened over the years, is those artists become big enough to look after themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

She acknowledged times were tough and many in the country were struggling to put kai on the table, including young artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if you are a young artist trying to get ahead in the world, how much is it costing them to survive?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynda again said it was unfair arts funding got cut while the defence budget was boosted. She said services such as search and rescue and disaster relief were a good use of that budget, but it needed to be used for these causes and not war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is our enemy, that we would even consider buying, you know, weapons?\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Goldsmith responded to Lynda\u2019s comments at the awards by saying it was the \u201csame old cliche\u201d of Government criticism at the annual event.<\/p>\n

Goldsmith told RNZ he had no interest in \u201cgetting into a fight\u201d with Lynda, but rejected suggestions the coalition did not value the arts community.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen you feel passionate about something, and Jools and I were passionate about the arts for, you know,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1863,45290,11357,3595,24140,2947,156,21666,170562,111,139,7805,69,23742,4504,170558],"class_list":["post-456904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-back","tag-blast","tag-budget","tag-by","tag-checkpoint","tag-dame","tag-entertainment","tag-holding","tag-lynda","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-stands","tag-theres","tag-topp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456904","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=456904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}