Creative New Zealand wants to make changes. At the moment, Creative New Zealand has four organisations: the Arts Council, the Arts Board, Te Waka Toi, and the Pacific Arts Committee. Together these organisations have 55 staff including 28 directors. The number of directors will be cut to 13. Four of these must be Maori and two must be Pacific Islanders. With only one board instead of four, funding decisions will be faster and money will be saved. This money will be used for the arts.

The Minister for the Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson, used to be the chair of the Arts Board. This change was his idea and the Arts Council chair, Alastair Carruthers, agrees it will be an improvement.

What does Creative New Zealand do? It provides funds to support artists, writers, musicians, festivals, theatre, dance and film. The New Zealand ballet, the New Zealand opera, Pasifika Festival and many other groups receive money from Creative New Zealand. It has $42m to give each year. Half of this money comes from the government and the other half comes from Lotteries.

This seems like a lot of money but it is never enough. For every three groups which apply for funding, only one is successful.

Questions to think about

Why does Creative NZ need to fund the NZ ballet and opera?

Why does Creative NZ fund some writers like poets?

Is it a good idea to fund new writers and artists? How would you choose which people to fund?