We’re having an election tomorrow, so I thought I’d mention for the benefit of Kiwis that visit this site, that your vote affects whether movies get made in NZ, whether people write or read (or learn to read, for that matter)
This is part of the “Hard News” article on scoop. I couldn’t see who wrote it.
“It’s not expensive to have a culture. New Zealand On Air’s total wage bill is about $665,000 a year – not much more than Don Brash’s own salary. And our public investments in our own culture tend to pay off.
“Prebble had either the cheek or the ignorance to tell Kim Hill that Peter Jackson bringing in $360m in foreign exchange to make Lord of the Rings showed that the creative industries could stand on their own two feet.
Well, I suppose so. If you don’t count the first four movies that the Film Commission helped him make, or the pervasive roleof NZ On Air in building the kind of skills base that lets you even think about projects like Lord of the Rings – or Xena, WarriorPrincess, for that matter. Similarly, there’d have been no ‘How
Bizarre’ as a worldwide hit without the Otara Music and Arts Centre.
What I really like about Labour’s Arts Policy is that it’s written like an industry policy – indeed, it’s explicitly linkedto Labour’s industry development policy. There are contestable Arts Capital grants, short-term artists’ allowances at the level of the dole to get businesses rolling. And there are local content broadcast quotas. It is coherent and it will pay off.”
See the whole thing here
Tehanu’s political broadcast.
November 25th, 1999 by Tehanu
