The Aotearoa New Zealand book sector says the next government has a defining opportunity: to lift literacy, grow local readership, and back a thriving literature ecosystem that produces New Zealand stories for New Zealand readers.
“New Zealanders already love reading, and research consistently shows that reading participation is fundamental to our success as a nation,” says Coalition for Books chair Melanie Laville-Moore.
Reading improves life outcomes, lifts economic productivity, and strengthens social wellbeing. “But the literature sector also faces core challenges that only a coordinated government response can help overcome,” she says.
The Coalition, a collaborative organisation representing all parts of the sector, has identified four priority issues in its Election Manifesto.
Firstly, the Coalition wants the future government to commit to strategic and more focused funding of the sector.
“New Zealand readers engage strongly with books, yet books still lack the stand-alone, targeted support enjoyed by music and film through their government-funded commissions. A piecemeal, uncoordinated approach is preventing the book sector from realising its full potential,” says Laville-Moore
Secondly, they want the government to join with the book sector to launch the New Zealand Year of Reading, similar to recent initiatives in other developed nations.
“The UK, Australia, Norway – our peers are on to this, let’s join them through our own co-funded major nationwide campaign to get more New Zealanders reading our stories, reading our books,” says Laville-Moore.
The final two issues are ones only the government can move the needle on: legislative reform and local purchasing commitments.
“These can be easily done if there is government will to do it,” says Laville-Moore.
She points to a directive issued last June requiring 130 government agencies to buy New Zealand woollen products for government construction projects.
“If the government would also direct its ministries and libraries to stop the damaging practice of offshore contracts with overseas based books wholesalers, it would have the same benefits and economic outcomes.”
Copyright Act reform, Public Lending Right reform, and new legislation to address AI are all bills which should be on the next government’s agenda.
“Any government which will help the sector work towards these goals is a government ensuring the future is for, and also full of readers. We are asking, will political parties who form the next government open the book for all New Zealanders?” says Laville-Moore.
