February 5, 2011

What happened to the Pace scheme?

Editor    posted 3 Feb 2011, 02:54 PM

What happened to the Pace scheme?

TOM FITZSIMONS

The Dominion Post: 03/02/2011

… If Social Development Minister Paula Bennett’s tone is anything to go by, [PACE] might not last much longer.

    “As valuable as the arts are to our society,” she says, “now is not the time to be turning down available work to follow an artistic dream.”

    Mr Finlayson, now Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister, declined to comment.

    Much confusion has been caused by what the Pace scheme actually is, so let’s try to be clear.

    It’s not worth extra dole money to artists. They go on the ordinary unemployment benefit. But it does allow them to list the arts as their preferred job field, which was not acceptable before the scheme. [More]

Rita Baboon        posted 5 Feb 2011, 11:58 AM / edited 5 Feb 2011, 12:18 PM

I’m not on the Pace scheme, never have been, because God forbid, if I were to identifiy myself as a lowly ‘artist’ with such foolish ‘dreams’ (as Paula Bennett so kindly describes my career).  I work my butt off in crappy part time jobs so I can fund myself and my creative endeavours like the rest of our dying creative community.  New Zealand is systematically crushing it’s arts industry, and in a nation so young, still developing it’s voice, it really can’t afford to do that.   

John Key, and his other ballscratching mates, are so hell bent on ramming the rugby world cup down our throats, in a feeble and shameless effort to give our nation a name, that we come out looking like a toddler in their mum’s highheeled shoes and smudged lipstick.  And for who’s benefit?  We were almost doing ok before you and your mates came along.  And for the record, it’s: ‘General Election’, not ‘Gennnnrrrection’ – perhaps if you’d attended your speech and drama classes you’d know that John.

Kate Morris         posted 5 Feb 2011, 12:59 PM

 And thus continues the devaluation of the Arts under the National Government…  Their election slogan should be “National:  Leading a Nation of Abandoned Dreams” or Paula’s own quote herself:  “National:  Now’s not the Time for Dreams”.  Somewhat less inspiring than Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’, in NZ it’s: ‘No We Won’t. 

Furthermore if PACE is cancelled I bet its not going to be redirected into any other artistic support i.e. more residencies etc…

Shame on New Zealand, this is embarrassing.  We’re seriously dragging our feet in this area.  As it is most artists are having to significantly self fund their own work these days and the little help we do get is being pulled out from under our feet. 

What does Paula do on the weekends?  Does she go to theatre?  Did she ever take an arts class or a drama class?  Learn a musical instrument?  Does she play a musical instrument?  Does she go to the movies?  Read books?  Been to a concert?  Listen to the radio in the car?  Stuck a children’s piece of artwork on the fridge or a wall?

How empty her life would be without art, well if she keeps going the way she is, she’ll be putting Finlayson out of a job because there won’t be anything left in the Arts for him to govern over.