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Paperwork

Entry 163, on 2005-04-26 at 21:11:57 (Rating 4, Comments)

The right-wing political party here in New Zealand, Act, want an enquiry into what happened to $1 million allocated to Creative New Zealand for funding art projects which they can't account for. The grants went to around 90 artists (so they average about $10,000 each) and can't be traced because the people they were given to haven't done the paper work which updates the progress of the projects being funded.

There's two perspectives on this. First, the artists accepted public money and must have agreed to do the administration work involved. They haven't done it, so they shouldn't be surprised that questions are being asked by people who put more emphasis than most on tight monetary control. Its also unfair that they put a controversial organisation like Creative under the political spotlight.

On the other hand, these people are artists. Some people just don't cope with "administrivia" (if you haven't come across this word before, it means trivial administration tasks). I speak from experience here, because I am one of those people. To me administration is the lowest profession in the world, suited only to mediocre people who have got nothing better to do with their time. I am engaging in a bit of hyperbole here and I'm being deliberately provocative. And yes, I do know many great people who are administrators - I just don't have respect for the profession.

The situation is worse than that though. I believe, on balance, administrators have even less than zero value. Their mere presence in the world has a negative impact on everyone else. They are very good at telling us why we can't do things. I say, let's just get things in perspective and put money and bureaucracy in the secondary place where they really belong.

So on balance I would tell Act: get a life. Let these artists get on with their lives and forget about the mindless nonsense a bunch of anal-retentive politicians would try to make us all believe is so important. It just isn't, OK?

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