Public Service Announcement: Lest We Forget to Fund our Nation’s Memory 

Editor’s note: This is an extended version of NZMS CEO Andy Fenton’s opinion piece, “Lest We Forget to Fund Our Nation’s Memory,” published in The Post on 19 September 2026. It includes further context and proposals that were not part of the published piece.

Introduction 

Circa Theatre’s Public Service Announcement – Election Meltdown is sharp because the reality it mocks is already absurd.  At a time when Aotearoa New Zealand needs stronger public memory, reliable evidence, deeper literacy and greater institutional trust, Te Papa, the National Library, Archives New Zealand and the wider GLAM sector are again being asked to absorb reductions.  These institutions are not decorative extras. They are infrastructure for democracy, identity, accountability and shared knowledge. 

Preamble

The central question is simple: if our national memory institutions are essential to literacy, transparency, identity and democratic accountability, why are they treated as discretionary whenever budgets tighten? 

In May, I argued that library advocacy in Aotearoa had become urgent. Libraries create immense public value as trusted civic spaces supporting literacy, inclusion, wellbeing, democracy and resilience, but the sector must make that value visible to the people shaping funding, policy and public opinion. The same challenge now confronts our national memory institutions.  Funding pressure on Te Papa, the National Library and Archives New Zealand shows that statutory responsibilities and long-term public value are still too easily subordinated to short-term fiscal targets. 

The case for a transparent government 

The Professional Historians Association of New Zealand Aotearoa statement warns that proposed restructuring would reduce specialist capability, restrict public access to history and weaken the knowledge infrastructure that supports research, innovation and an informed citizenry. Its concern is constitutional as well as cultural: Archives New Zealand must preserve full and accurate public records so government can be held accountable, while the National Library has legal deposit and sector-wide responsibilities that cannot be met by buildings and systems alone.

That warning matters in a country already concerned about institutional trust. The 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index records a decade-long decline in New Zealand’s score.  Memory institutions are not the only influence on public integrity, but strong recordkeeping, preservation and access systems are part of the machinery that allows citizens, journalists, researchers and Parliament to test what government has done. 

The evidence is consistent across the sector. In a Newsroom report, historian Jonathan West described repeated cuts as a slow erosion of Archives New Zealand’s ability to keep the state’s record and enable accountability.  PHANZA argues that expensive new facilities achieve little without expert staff. The Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa likewise highlights risks to school-library support, literacy services, shared digital infrastructure, preservation, collection description and research capability.  These skills take years to develop and are difficult to rebuild once lost. 

Let’s Learn from Australia 

We have reached the same impasse and ‘funding cliff’ that Australia found itself in three years ago.  After a decade of chronic underfunding, Australia’s nine national collecting (memory) institutions faced deteriorating buildings, operating deficits, staff losses, reduced Reading Room access and growing conservation backlogs. The National Archives was struggling to meet duties under the Archives Act 1983 to preserve Commonwealth archival records and provide timely public access to non-exempt records in the open-access period.  Meanwhile, the National Library warned that Trove, Australia’s free national cloud-based discovery portal linking billions of items from libraries, archives, museums, galleries and other partners, could close without dedicated support. 

(NB.  I recall at the time this was VERY real, people were shocked at the prospect, and likely the catalyst for the wakeup call and revival.  Also, unlike Trove’s single national gateway, New Zealand relies on complementary services including DigitalNZ, Papers Past, the National Digital Heritage Archive and the Government Digital Archive).   

Outcome: in 2023, the Australian Government provided $535.3 million over four years to address immediate deterioration, followed from July 2027 by more than $117 million annually; indexed and ongoing, including $9.2 million a year for Trove.  In parallel, Revive: a place for every story, a story for every place – Australia’s five-year National Cultural Policy, launched in January 2023, was backed by $286 million over four years as a strategic roadmap to restore funding, rebuild sector infrastructure, and reposition arts and heritage at the centre of Australian public life. 

Our Nation’s memory is not optional infrastructure.  It’s an investment for, and a gift we cannot fail to pass on to, future generations 

Polite concern is not a strategy. LIANZA, PHANZA, Museums Aotearoa, ARANZ, sector leaders, iwi partners, researchers and communities should work alongside the national institutions to protect essential services and professional capability. They should also say plainly what is at stake. A national library, archive and museum hold the evidence of government, the records of communities, the taonga of iwi and hapū, and the stories through which a country understands itself. Expecting unchanged statutory performance after repeated staffing and funding reductions is not efficiency; it is accumulated institutional risk. A national disaster looms.

Museums Aotearoa chief executive Jaenine Parkinson’s argument about Te Papa applies equally to the National Library and Archives New Zealand: success cannot be measured by revenue alone. Collection care, insurance, energy, buildings, digital preservation, research and specialist staffing are continuing obligations.  A national institution cannot discontinue its core responsibilities when circumstances become difficult.  The public value lies not only in today’s visitor numbers, but in ensuring that evidence, taonga and knowledge continue to exist and remain accessible for generations. 

One restructure can be presented as temporary; repeated rounds reveal a pattern. Reduced hours, lost specialists and deferred preservation work compound over time. Physical and digital collections still require active stewardship, while researchers and communities face greater barriers to access. Capital investment in impressive buildings is undermined if the people who preserve, describe, interpret and provide access to the collections are removed.

Advocacy therefore needs to be coordinated, public, and evidence-led. We must explain not only what these institutions do, but what fails when they are weakened: access to history, literacy support, government accountability, research, collection care, cultural confidence and the ability of future generations to inherit knowledge rather than absence. We need to learn from the lessons in Australia. If decision-makers hear only cost, the sector has not yet made the risk clear enough.

The satire still has a place. But a country that trims its memory institutions and calls it prudence should not be surprised when it later struggles to remember what it promised, who it served and why it mattered. The practical question is who can carry that message to those willing to act?

A Potential Solution: A Cross-Party Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Cultural Heritage:  Fund the Memory, or Own the Forgetting 

Aotearoa New Zealand needs a cross-party Charter for Cultural Heritage, backed by a minimum sustainable funding model for the institutions that hold the nation’s memory. Leverage Australia’s National Cultural Policy, Revive. Our charter should recognise that the National Library, Archives New Zealand, Te Papa and the wider cultural heritage sector carry responsibilities Parliament itself created: preserving records, protecting taonga, supporting literacy, enabling research, upholding accountability and ensuring future generations inherit knowledge rather than absence.

And referencing Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, to ensure our library remains a vibrant hub for knowledge and community well-being, consider a linked funding model.  This will support not only the care of our collections and infrastructure but also the transformation of our workforce. By investing in staff development, digital infrastructure, and community engagement, we will shift from being mere keepers of information to innovators and trusted truth-tellers, cultivating a knowledge garden that benefits all. 

While the costs of collection care, infrastructure, digital storage, and research will continue to rise and require integrated funding, the most critical change is in workforce strategy. Libraries and similar institutions must move beyond traditional roles and metrics, embracing new identities, skills, and measures of success. This shift will enable them to remain relevant, innovative, and impactful in a rapidly changing world.

The immediate ask is for government to pause further reductions and commission a serious cross-party framework for long-term stewardship. “More with less” is not a strategy when the work is statutory, cumulative, specialist and intergenerational. At some point, less becomes loss. Sustainable funding should reflect unavoidable operating costs, preserve specialist capability, maintain equitable public access, and plan beyond the electoral cycle.

Help me make the argument harder to ignore. Share it, improve it and challenge it. Ask candidates, Ministers, board members, journalists, iwi leaders, educators and researchers what they will protect, what risks they will accept and on whose behalf. If we do not fund the memory of this country, we should be honest about the choice: not efficiency, but forgetting. Let us build a movement serious enough to stop that.

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