Prime Minister Helen Clark has announced that she will continue as the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage if Labour wins a record fourth term on Saturday.
Miss Clark took over the portfolio in 1999 and since then funding has increased from $97 million to $286 million, setting up the likes of the Film Production Fund and the Music Commission.
"There's no doubt the huge boost the arts, culture, heritage sector has had, has come from having prime ministerial leadership," Miss Clark said. "And I've seen it as really being important in promoting our country and having us seen as a creative dynamic country."
National's spokesperson for the arts, culture and heritage, Chris Finlayson, joined the party in 1974 when he was head prefect of his Wellington high school.
He is now 51-years-old, a lawyer, the party's only openly gay MP, and a patron of the arts.
"I love classical music, I love theatre," Mr Finlayson says. "I'm a fairly regular gym attender because I maintain you can't have the intellect fed, but not the body."
Mr Finlayson has been National's arts, culture and heritage spokesperson since late 2006 and he is not afraid of going up against Helen Clark.
He says he his not intimated by Miss Clark and suspects that the arts have suffered under her.
"The arts may not have prospered as much under the Prime Minister as they might have under another minister because she's had to hold back on putting in bids for various projects," Mr Finlayson says.
Mr Finlayson says that should National win the election, they will maintain current levels of arts funding. National's policy is to retain the Music Commission, New Zealand on Air and the Pace Scheme.
However, Mr Finlayson wants to reform the Author's Fund and the Arts Council, which directs Creative New Zealand.
He also wants to reform the Film Commission and update the Film Commission Act.
"I think the Film commission Act was passed in 1978 - that's overdue for review," he says. "And that's not me talking, that's people within the film industry."
Mr Finlasyon says that he is also looking at adding a commercial imperative and a research component.
As a former chair of the arts board of Creative New Zealand, and as a current member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Foundation, Mr Finlayson appears to have a firm handle on the arts.
However even if he does take over the portfolio, it will likely take some time to earn the kind of sustained applause Helen Clark received at the recent New Zealand Music Awards.
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