Creative Kāpiti Project:

Consultation – Creative New Zealand & Creative Kāpiti – 2019

On 13 November 2019, we invited Creative New Zealand’s Senior Manager for Strategy & Engagement to the Kāpiti Coast to join with Creative Kāpiti in a discussion about ways for creative practitioners to develop sustainable careers, which is one of our key strategic goals. We hosted more than 50 people at this workshop at Māoriland Hub, including invitees from neighbouring regions, Manawatu and Whanganui.

We discussed and endorsed Creative New Zealand’s proposed six principles which match the group’s strategic goal to increase sustainable income. We also put forward a number of suggestions including that:

• a whole of government team with representatives from crown entities, MBIE, the Ministry for Culture & Heritage and Creative New Zealand meet quarterly to review progress of the six principles;
• a regular national esearch programme be implemented to track artist incomes across artforms;
• the provision of skills training for the creative sector be reviewed (as there has been a demise in provision and accessibility in recent years);
• the visibility of the sector in terms of its overall economic and employment contribution to the New Zealand economy be raised (for example that design is a greater contributor to GDP than agriculture or that 6% of the national workforce comes from the creative industries, etc)
• increased support for emerging artists and creative practitioners through funded mentorship programmes, access to creative business capability skills training, and creative apprenticeship opportunities;
• a marketing campaign to educate and incentivise financial payment for creative services as with other business services (exposure does not pay living expenses)
• the suggested $25 per hour for a self-employed artist be raised to $40 +

Further information about this research is on the Creative New Zealand website.