a day ago
Historians call for Ministry for Culture and Heritage job cuts to be reversed
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is proposing to cut up to six historian roles.
Photo:
RNZ / Quin Tauetau
Historians are calling on the government to reverse proposed job cuts at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
It is proposing to cut up to six historian positions, leaving about four in place, among a total of 24 positions slated to go.
In a statement, eight historian organisations said this was profoundly alarming and threatened to "dismantle decades of world-class historical scholarship, shutter vital resources for history research, and harm public education."
"Our history deserves better," said the joint statement from The Professional Historians' Association, New Zealand Historical Association, History Teachers' Association, National Oral History Association, Archives and Records Association, Archaeological Association, Historic Places Aotearoa and the Society of Genealogists.
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH) said in its proposal document
it no longer had the focus, or the resources, to create history content or keep what it had up to date.
It proposes to axe most positions working on digital content.
The job of carillonist, who plays the bells in the tower of the Pukeahu war memorial in Wellington, would also go.
The historian organisations said the characterisation of this work as somehow separate from the MCH's legislative mandate demonstrated a troubling narrowing of vision about what constitutes essential cultural heritage work.
"Far from being peripheral activities, the creation and maintenance of historical content is essential cultural infrastructure that allows New Zealanders to better understand who we are."
The ministry has been asked for comment.
Its restructure last year set it up as "cultural system steward and policy adviser to government", its proposal said.
With Budget 2025 cutting $8m from the ministry over four years, it would have to do less, "focused on activities that are required due to legislation, regulation or other mandate", and fewer activities in the community.
Read more:
How many public sector jobs have really been axed?
The historian organisations said "irreplaceable" expertise would be lost in order to make only modest savings.
"We call upon the government to ... ensure continuity of the oral history and research funding programmes that have supported New Zealand scholarship for over 30 years", they said, as well as preserve education outreach programmes to schools.
Matt Woodbury, co-president of the Professional Historians' Association, one of eight groups, said the ministry was putting irreplaceable roles and online history resources in jeopardy.
"I just wonder if they're not fully aware of the high standard and rates of use that these resources have."
They were not niche, specialist online resources, but ones the likes of schools used.
Getting rid of MCH historians who created and updated the content seemed to run against the work being done to introduce a new Aoteraoa histories curriculum, Woodbury said.
Co-president Rebecca Lenihan said: "The impact on teachers if these resources are lost is going to be absolutely horrendous, for secondary history and social studies teachers, but for primary teachers too - how teachers are supposed to implement the new history curriculum efficiently and effectively without such resources at their fingertips is beyond me."
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Finance Minister Nicola Willis has directed public service departments to identify savings] options of either 6.5 or 7.5 percent to help reduce annual public service spending by $1.5 billion. National had campaigned on cutting back-office expenditure across 24 public agencies, as part of its "Back Pocket Boost" tax plan.
