Steriogram play for the suits at Parliament

Courtesy of Williams Upfront Sky TV - 2005-05-05

PRESENTER (Larry Williams): New Zealand Music Month, what's it all about?

JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts and Culture): Well New Zealanders are great at art and music, they've been doing it because they're so far away from the rest of the world since the beginning of New Zealand. And we looked in the mid-90s at what was happening in New Zealand music, the fact that many great bands had gone overseas and come back with... with their tail feathers burnt.

Image: A public information campaign against burning music CDs.Steriogram play for the suits at Parliament

Courtesy of Williams Upfront Sky TV - 2005-05-05

PRESENTER (Larry Williams): New Zealand Music Month, what's it all about?

JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts and Culture): Well New Zealanders are great at art and music, they've been doing it because they're so far away from the rest of the world since the beginning of New Zealand. And we looked in the mid-90s at what was happening in New Zealand music, the fact that many great bands had gone overseas and come back with... with their tail feathers burnt.

Image: A public information campaign against burning music CDs.And we thought okay, do we have to put in a strategy around this, because other countries were making a lot of money out of music. One of the stories is that Volvo makes less... has made less money for Sweden over all these years than Abba has.

PRESENTER : We're still not making much money out of it though are we?

TIZARD : We're not planning to...

PRESENTER : Five million, in export earnings?

TIZARD : We're not planning to in the short term. It's a bit like the wine industry, you've got to get it... we've got a good product, we've got to get it up to export quality and then market it well.

PRESENTER : Sweden, Ireland, six hundred million dollars a year...

TIZARD : They're just... they've got the population of Europe straight off their coast, we've got a bit further to go.

PRESENTER : How much are we spending on this?

TIZARD : Right now, if you include the NZSO, you include Maori kapa haka which is of course more than music, it's probably about twenty-one million a year.

PRESENTER : How do you decide where the money goes?

TIZARD : I don't and that's something, that's the whole point.

PRESENTER : Who does?

TIZARD : Basically people who have already demonstrated their ability to get hit records, to get them on radio and to get sold in New Zealand, they get the money. And that's how we're working it.

PRESENTER : But how many hits are you funding here, how many we seeing?
TIZARD : Oh, you've seen lots. Last year for the first time we saw five New Zealand albums on the top five selling lists. That's fantastic, never happened before.

PRESENTER : That's in New Zealand?

TIZARD : In New Zealand.

PRESENTER : All the money's overseas though isn't it?

TIZARD : No no, no no no. What we did was we, in 2000 we set up the Music Industry Commission...

PRESENTER : No, I clarify that. The money to be made is overseas?

TIZARD : Oh absolutely. But we've got to have a product that is capable of going overseas and capable of maintaining itself when it gets overseas.

PRESENTER : What is this Music Expo ?

TIZARD : It's another music export. There's a whole lot of trade shows around the world. We did quite a fun one in 2000, we call it The World Series of Music. We brought people like the guy from Triple J in Australia, the programmer. They'd had almost no New Zealand music on, we regularly get New Zealand music, Evermore's huge on Triple Group (phon) J. They are selling in Australia in ways we've never sold before. So Mus Expo's one of those. We go to where the specialists are, the people who sell music internationally, the people who program music, and we are making some really major efforts. Blind Spot, who I hope you've heard of, had ten thousand screaming fans when they arrived in Indonesia. Goodshirt have had a top-selling record in Japan...

PRESENTER : And how do you assist these bands, these artists?

TIZARD : Okay. What we do is we say to them, the music is yours. We have Brendan Smythe at New Zealand On Air, if they can send a tape that they've made, a... a burnt CD that they've made in their bedrooms. They can send it to him, he sends it out to people who decide what goes on commercial radio. They say, yes we'd play it; we might if it... if you made some changes; no we wouldn't. If it's no we wouldn't, it goes out regardless of if it's good music. It's about getting music on air. If they then get Top 40, they can apply for five thousand bucks to do a video. They all get all their mates to do it with them, it's... it's a really cheap industry in New Zealand, and we've got...

PRESENTER : Why should the taxpayer be doing this for the music industry?

TIZARD : For the same reason that we do it for... that we support apprenticeships, for the same reason that we support tertiary education, for the same reason that we have put hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions into dairy exports over the years. It's about marketing something we do well in New Zealand.

PRESENTER: Why do you think Kiwis want to listen to Kiwi music?

TIZARD: Because everybody wants to hear their own but more importantly even if Kiwis don't want to listen to all Kiwi music, and I don't like it all and I don't pretend to, what I think is happening is our young are putting their time and their money and their education into music, and I would be a fool if I said technology having completely changed the way we export something that we've always done instead of exporting people we can export products. We've got two million tourists coming in every year, we've got a comparatively young population here in New Zealand, our young are fascinated in music, it's actually also very good education.

PRESENTER: This Kiwi music station that's just started up 0.6 nobody wants to listen to it.

TIZARD: Yep just started up. Just started it up and I think the survey started about a week after it came -
PRESENTER: But Kiwi music's getting a fair deal, what, about nearly 19 percent on commercial radio?

TIZARD: Yes, it's getting better.
PRESENTER: That's got to be good.

TIZARD: Up from about two percent ten years ago.

PRESENTER: How does the tax payer know that we're not funding dross rubbish, mediocrity here?

TIZARD: Well many of them are voting with their ears and there's a lot of New Zealand music now on television and on radio. A lot of people . . . we are buying more New Zealand music, we're certainly listening to more. Sadly a lot of us are breaking the law and burning New Zealand music but it's one of those things, it's like New Zealand film, it's not going to get better if we don't have some support. In my passionate view as a New Zealander I want to see things that we do well done better. We are investing money in developing food and beverage because that's a good export industry. I'm prepared to bet that this is going to be a good one for us too.

PRESENTER: Yeah we'll come back to that in a moment because we're getting a return on those other things, aren't we. We'll talk about that in a moment.
TIZARD: Only now.

PRESENTER: After the break more from Judith Tizard.

PRESENTER (LARRY WILLIAMS): Welcome back, yes welcome back. Judith Tizard is with me for the full half hour. Don't forget free interactive voting on tonight's question, should tax payers be funding New Zealand arts and culture? Owen, your question for Judith Tizard please.

OWEN (CALLER): Yes many years ago I managed the applied technology programmes for Develop and Finance Corporation, and we used taxpayers money to stimulate, you know, the development of hi technology and electronics and bio technology for all the reasons that you're stimulating music. We didn't make grants. We actually built in a royalty agreement so that if we did happen to strike the Beatles then we'd get a royalty payment until we'd got our money back, say five times over.

PRESENTER: That's a good question, Owen, royalty, what is the deal?

JUDITH TIZARD (MINISTER OF ARTS AND CULTURE): It's a major debate that's going on particularly in film. I mean for example tax payers supported Whale Rider; it happens to have been the best tourism promotion that New Zealand's ever seen. I hear that tourists down in Bluff come looking for whales and hobbits but the problem is that the industry in New Zealand is still so fragile that most people are barely making a living now.

PRESENTER: So there's no pay back in other words?

TIZARD: There's no pay back except in jobs and in people's . . . being prepared to invest their time in it. I mean for somebody like Neil Finn of course there's a pay back but when you see what he's . . . . he and his parents have put in - not yet, I think at some point, but what we're building now is not so much investing in individual projects; at this level we're putting platforms in place. For example the, you know, bringing the programmers here, building the business skills of New Zealand music. Five years ago nobody would take business seriously; they do now.

PRESENTER: There's an argument that 90 percent of the earnings are made overseas and they'll stay overseas.

TIZARD: They may well but what we find is somebody like Neil Finn comes home, he brings an awful lot of his earnings back with him. The same argument could be made for Peter Jackson. Peter's chosen to live in New Zealand. I don't think we can stop talented New Zealanders from going overseas but we do think that the change in technology means that increasingly people are choosing to live here.

PRESENTER: Piracy, what is the Government doing about that?
TIZARD: Well we've had a major survey, Arthur Basting from . . . some of your viewers will remember being a comedian and a musician way back, he now works for the Music Industry Commission. He went to a really nice girls school in Auckland and found that . . . asked them to bring their record collections in, CD collections, found that something like 90 percent of them were burnt, it's a huge problem and [interruption].

PRESENTER: What are you doing?

TIZARD: We are putting out a public information campaign; it is against the law to burn CDs and we are trying to say to people do this. The police occasionally move but they move at flea markets – it's not against individual [interruption].

PRESENTER: So off the music into arts, PACE, Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment. What is this?

TIZARD: Exactly the same principle as that we're applying in music. We are saying that there is a future as an artist and when you look at people like tattoo artists, how many people do you know with tattoos? They will pay a lot of money for them.

PRESENTER: You wouldn't fund tattoo artists, surely?

TIZARD: They, Moko artists, traditional New Zealand Moko, people like Otis
Frizzell - are you saying Otis Frizzell's not an artist?

PRESENTER: It's artists on the dole, isn't it?

TIZARD: No it's not. It's people who have training, who want a job in the arts who are not yet able to get that job, who are on the dole anyway, being given business skills towards a business career. If you want to be a window cleaner, if you want to be a window cleaner and you're unemployed, and you're on the dole they'll help you get the business skills. Why shouldn't you, if you've spent three years at university doing some training?

PRESENTER: Is that enough to get me in Judith? (shows picture of hand prints)

TIZARD: No.

PRESENTER: It's not, you sure?

TIZARD: I think it lacks a certain philosophical and metaphysical basis.

PRESENTER: I do spuds as well.

TIZARD: Oh that's so cute.

PRESENTER: Lettuce, macaroni.

TIZARD: Are you trying to make a living out of it, Larry? Are you trying - I'm trying to give you some mentoring here.

PRESENTER: Yeah well if somebody came along, I mean I think it's pretty good I've been working on this for a while, if somebody came along and they . . . you know what, arts a very subjective thing, isn't it.

TIZARD: It is very subjective and the test is is there a full time job in it and can you live on that job?

PRESENTER: Right, no full time job in that, I've seen worse in the art galleries.

TIZARD: Yeah and you've probably paid for it.

PRESENTER: More with Judith Tizard when we come back on art, culture and heritage along with issues affecting the City of Sails.

PRESENTER (LARRY WILLIAMS): Welcome back. I'm talking with Judith Tizard questions. Going back to the arts, explain to me, convince me that the taxpayers are not funding plonkers here.

JUDITH TIZARD (MINISTER OF ARTS AND CULTURE): Okay. Half of it's like sport, it's good for us, you know, singing, dancing, being involved in the community is a good thing so you're not [interruption].

PRESENTER: Of course but you're not paying for people to play sport.

TIZARD: Well we do actually. We pay an enormous amount of money through the old Hilary Commission and through SPARC, through schools, we pay an awful lot for sport, and it's that community level sport there's . . . Trevor's got, that big fund for the Olympic level athletes; of course we pay for sport.

PRESENTER: But the Government agenda, the hip hop tours, the braying toilet, do me a favour, come on.

TIZARD: The braying toilet is worth having a look at, because it makes you laugh.

PRESENTER: Yeah I'm sure, yes.

TIZARD: And the explosion was off, was the Mururoa explosion off Fangataufa; it's very interesting, makes you think occasionally.
PRESENTER: Yes but how much, how much money did the artist of the braying toilet get to make us laugh?

TIZARD: Almost nothing, almost nothing.

PRESENTER: How much?

TIZARD: No that was . . . the braying toilet was nothing to do with Government at all, that was a show she had on which was part of why she was chosen to go to Venice.

PRESENTER: Oh okay but [interruption].

TIZARD: So that was nothing to do with us.

PRESENTER: Who paid for her to go to Venice, or who is paying for her to go to Venice?
TIZARD: Creative New Zealand.

PRESENTER: Exactly, which is the taxpayer . . .

TIZARD: Yes, okay, but she's also an art lecturer at Auckland University so the tax payers are paying . . . but look, we do the arts ‘cause it's fun. It's energetic, it's community, it makes you think, makes you listen, makes you connect up, connects up with your granny and all of . . . I mean [unclear] it's fantastic and then . . .

PRESENTER: A braying toilet makes you think?

TIZARD: Oh come on, that's one - I mean, what are we talking about? You know, a bad rugby game where we lose to the French and we all give up and go home. Come on.

PRESENTER: You're other hat.

TIZARD: Yes, Auckland.

PRESENTER: I have to cover off [sic] a few things . . . Auckland issues, why you're not fixing the gridlock? I mean where's the evidence you've cut through the crap and we've got on with it?

TIZARD: Well we have cut through the crap but it's going to take a while, we're dealing basically with 40 years of under investment. The rest of New Zealand's done very well in comparison to Auckland just on a population basis. So what we've done is we've turned the assessment round. We've said that there's got to be someone who's responsible and the Regional Council is now responsible, and ARTA who are directly funded by the Regional Council. They're responsible for public transport for all of the planning, they'll get the local roads any moment and they've got to connect up with the highways. Look what's happening on spaghetti junction that's what we've done.

PRESENTER: Yes and they have to get through the useless RMA don't they.

TIZARD: No.

PRESENTER: So if you wanted to put a bridge over near the other one or a tunnel underneath the harbour will take 15 years to do.

TIZARD: Yes and when I was on the Regional Council, 12 years ago, 15 years ago we had 17 Acts we had to get through to put that piddlely little bridge over south east of the airport.

PRESENTER: Well do something about it.

TIZARD: We have; we've put the RMA in.
PRESENTER: Yeah exactly and look at the trouble we're having.

TIZARD: No look, you talk to anyone who's got any experience of the old act the RMA she says you've got to look at what the consequences of what you do might be and it's down to two months for an urgent appeal. Now come on, we've put a whole lot more people in the Environment Court. We've put a whole lot more work and it is not holding anything in Auckland up right now I can tell you, not one roading project.

PRESENTER: And yet Sydney has spent $7 billion over the last ten years they've borrowed it and got on with it, and we're still waiting around with our finger up you know what.

TIZARD: That's right and they're a population of, what, about 15 million.

PRESENTER: There is no evidence that construction of Auckland's critical State Highway projects has speeded up as a result of this $1.6 billion.

TIZARD: I'm sorry that's an absolute lie. If you haven't [interruption].

PRESENTER: I wouldn't lie.

TIZARD: Well I'm sure you're quoting somebody who's telling you fibs then. If you look at spaghetti junction, if you look at what's happening up past Hobsonville Bridge [interruption].

PRESENTER: Western corridor?

TIZARD: The Western corridor, the tenders have closed; that project is on its way. The next step is they're looking at the final options; they have, we've got the Pauanui interchange, that's happened since I've been there. I'm happy that a great deal of work is done. But delivering the roads depends on having the land, having the planning, having the design and having the crews ready to go. The other thing we've got to look at very seriously when people just say just chuck more money at it is what we want to happen to inflation. It's already almost impossible to get big construction gangs in Auckland now but were doing it as fast as we can.

PRESENTER: Thank you. Now the final result from tonight's poll. The question was should tax payers be funding New Zealand arts and culture? Yes 38.1 percent, no 60.4 percent, undecided 1.5, pretty categorical answer from the public.

TIZARD: I don't think that that's a general view.

PRESENTER: You don't think so?

TIZARD: No and if I can explain to people what we're doing. It's about being New Zealanders, it's about how we say who we are, it's about how our kids learn our stories, it's about how we earn our livings in the future, it's about how we make films, how we have hi tech high-paying jobs and how we talk to each other and the world. I think it's worth investing in it.

PRESENTER: Thank you Judith. A couple of your comments via e-mail from the Bertrand, Auckland transport issues need more than another couple of agencies blocking progress, it needs to shed loads of money, billions right now, shed loads of money, billions right now otherwise watch the warning light com on New Zealand's economic engine. Now Tony, the Finn Brothers, Crowded House etcetera do well because they have incredible talent. The rest is history apart from this equation, e = m x + 2, which is algebra. Thank you Tony, you have a good night. My thanks to Judith Tizard and I look forward to your comments and feedback via e-mail, thanks for joining me this evening.

ENDS

New Zealand Music Month was established in 2001, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Judith Tizard.

Initially, New Zealand Music Week was organised in 1997, by the Kiwi Music Action group, which was a collaboration between NZ on Air, Australasian Performing Right Association, the Radio Broadcasters Association and the Recording Industry Association. It ran for two years and focused exclusively on commercial radio but it did not have official support from television or retailers.

New Zealand Music Month was first established in 2001, by the New Zealand Music Commission (NZMIC). The government established the NZMIC in 2000 to foster New Zealand popular music composition, performance, recording and marketing, and promote New Zealand music both here and overseas.

NZ Music Month is a partnership between government and commercial organisations, with the NZMIC acting as the main 'hub'. The partners are:
∑ NZ Music Industry Commission
∑ Radio Broadcasters Association
∑ NZ On Air
∑ Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)
∑ Recording Industry Association of NZ
∑ Independent Music NZ
∑ Music Managers Forum

"New Zealand Music Month is about all Kiwis celebrating our great home-grown music, through radio, television, media, live music, schools and record retailers.

"There is a diverse range of home-grown brilliance to be brought into the spotlight over this month, as evidenced by the number and variety of shows being performed this month," Judith Tizard said.

NZ Music Month:
www.nzmusicmonth.co.nz

Contact: Catherine Field-Dodgson, Press Secretary, (04) 471 9871, 021 579 871, catherine.field-dodgson@parliament.govt.nz