Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi CE Alison Taylor speaks with Susie Ferguson at Radio NZ to discuss recent funding support for the arts, culture and creative sector. This support followed our statement on the impact that Omicron is having on our sector.

We’re extremely glad to see much needed additional financial support being delivered to the arts, culture and creative sector as a result of the move into red restrictions. It’s encouraging to see the ministry pivoting to support the sector so quickly.

As we said last week, the government needs to work with the arts community to model wider impacts on the sector during and beyond the emerging Omicron outbreak so that potential longer-term mitigation and support responses can be identified.

We’d like to see this work undertaken in the context of the development of a long-term strategy for the arts, culture and creative sector. This is something we’ve been advocating for, for some time and the disruption of pandemic impacts makes it even more poignant.

We need to both address the short and medium-term impacts of the pandemic while ensuring we have a clear long-term vision that can inspire and sustain sector confidence.