If you want to check out the post it is here, but I don’t want to spend too much time on it as it is about time that Labour’s contributions to the arts are recognised.

The Fifth Labour Government invested $90 Million into the industry within New Zealand and the boost that Mr. Finlayson talks about in his post can be attributed to down to this allocation of funds. We have seen as massive expansion in the film sector, but I think most importantly we have seen many events that have given the dance industry a stable base in New Zealand.

DANZ (Dance Aotearoa New Zealand) was set up in 1997 as a charitable trust, but since then has come forward in leaps and bounds and is now our leading dance organisation.  Since 2005 DANZ has had NRO (National Recreation Organisation) status with SPARC, Sport & Recreation New Zealand, recognising DANZ as the peak body for leading the recreational dance sector. If we are to have any chance in catching up to the Arts in Aussie then we need to make sure that we don’t look past dance in New Zealand and I am proud that under Labour this never happened.

If we are looking at how we can create jobs, we need to look at the jobs we can create in the Arts industries as people will always watch movies whether it is a recession or not. It is people that produce shows and movies that have a lot of money in society and are ones that are not feeling the recession as hard as others. We can expand our film industry a lot more and that opens up dance, music and acting opportunities.

This is a very interesting topic and I hope that Labour take the step in proposing a strategy to the Government to ensure that we are growing arts for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

-Live Rouge

Just a notice that we are looking other people to join the blogging team, if you are interested visit the Contact Us page.

- Live Rouge

Does it make you want to vomit as well?

We have had to put up with him for a year already and it is interesting that our first post shares the day with the one year anniversary that John Key and his Cabinet were sworn in. Despite the fact that I certainly don’t agree with his actions, at least he must have achieved something, right?

Wrong! Even his staff haven’t bothered to make something up to go on his wikipedia page, under his “Prime Minister” section is only mentions 5 things, he won 45% of the party vote, he was sworn in on the 19/11/08, for his first trip overseas as PM he went to APEC, he appropriated $50Million for the cycleway and his electorate office had a motolov cocktail thrown thrown through the window. That what wikipedia says, not much really considering that two of those things are to do with him becoming PM, one of them is about someone not liking him and the other two are actions which considering we are in a recession are extremely trivial.

Mr. Hyde seemed to agree that he hasn’t done anything, but I think it is a little harsh considering he had to distance himself from the failure that was the Mt. Albert campaign, a rouge minister who had to resign and the rest of the caucus disobeying his tough line on partners traveling the world and playing up like children in a playground. In all honesty it has not been a great year for the National Party to do with achievements, but I will hand it too them that their spin doctors do an OK job in making it all pleasant for the 6 o’clock news.

For youth however, as Fran Sullivan pointed out the other day, there is little sugar coating that can be done to make the message about youth unemployment any less bitter and to top it off (if you remember) one of the first actions of the Government was to chuck workers rights out the window with the 90 day Fire at Will stuff. That legislation will do nothing to stop the problem and it will,  in fact, add to the amount of young people that are being sacked.What amazes me is that the Right talk about it like they have been doing some great stuff, lies lies lies!

It is only a year until election year rolls around, lets just hope that by then the public, particularly youth, will wake up to the Tories.

Here’s to the first post!