REVEALED: Creative New Zealand’s $255,000 Global Spending Spree

The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that Creative New Zealand spent $255,819.91 on overseas trips for 50 staff and Arts Council members between January 2024 and October 2025. 

Taxpayers’ Union Investigations Coordinator, Rhys Hurley, said: 

“The worst examples from this list, like 12 staff flying to Hawaii for an arts festival, are little more than taxpayer-funded holidays for New Zealand's most unnecessary bureaucrats.”  

“The role of Creative NZ is supposed to be helping and funding arts in New Zealand – it's in the name. Do 50 staffers really need to be sent around the world for junkets? That's one international trip a week.” 

“The government is literally borrowing to pay the bills. Wasteful spending like this is why shows it is long past time to let taxpayers decide for themselves which art they want to support.”