Pacific tourists not exempt from Te Papa international visitor fee, 'human rights' issue, museum says

Friday, 23 August 2024

Te Papa says it sought legal advice on whether to keep the museum free for people visiting from the Pacific Islands, from next month.

On September 17 the national museum will begin charging international tourists a $35 entrance fee to offset rising costs.

A Pasifika artist and an art historian say the decision to charge tourists from the Pacific is wrong given the vast volume of Pacific items the museum has.

Te Papa has confirmed it sought legal advice on whether to keep the museum free for people visiting from the Pacific Islands, when it begins charging international tourists a $35 entrance fee from next month.

The museum, which announced the fee last week to offset rising costs, boasts one of the world’s largest collections of work from the Pacific, with 13,000 items including a significant Samoan ie toga (fine mat) gifted from the island nation in 2020.

However, Te Papa decided against the move after obtaining legal advice that found excluding Pacific nations from the $35 cost from September 17 could be in “breach” of the Human Rights Act.

Instead, it decided to allow anyone from any country outside New Zealand who had “connections to taonga” at the museum to have the fee waived by prior arrangement with Te Papa staff.

Auckland-based Fijian artist Vasemaca Tavola said it was unfair that Pacific people would have to pay to see work made in their own countries, with Pacific items a major part of Te Papa’s cultural capital.

“What this decision does is it creates the opposite of social inclusion and creates a barrier for people who are considering visiting Te Papa,” Tavola said in an interview with Stuff.

Pacific Island nations were developing countries with weaker currencies, she said, which meant $35 was “a lot of money” for each family member, with most Pacific families travelling in large groups.

She acknowledged Te Papa had kept entry fees free for people living in New Zealand, New Zealanders overseas and those from the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau, who were New Zealand citizens, but said links to other Pacific nations were just as strong.

“The decision really overlooks the fact that those objects that come from the Pacific and connect to our communities here in Aotearoa are something much wider,” Tavola said.

“We’re still very much connected by our ancestries, our wallets and our spirits in the Pacific. By severing those connections and only giving access to Aotearoa citizens and residents, it’s a very problematic positioning of New Zealand’s role in the region.”

Art Historian Peter Brunt said it was disappointing Pacific Islanders were not exempt given many of the museum’s past and present exhibitions were tied up with the region’s relationship with New Zealand.

“Putting Pacific Islanders on the same kind of level as visitors from the United States or Europe or other parts of the world seems to overlook that special connection that the Pacific has to here,“ Brunt said.

Museums were “changing” when it came to understanding the obligations they had to making colonial art accessible to everyone, he said, including the indigenous cultures the work came from.

“Because the Pacific is such an important part of Te Papa's collection and history it seems it should be a factor in how this decision was made,” he said.

Te Papa said more than 1.2 million international tourists visited the museum last financial year, with the new fee expected to raise several million dollars of extra revenue annually.

It said visitors from the Pacific accounted for around 1% of all international tourists annually, which was the equivalent to around 6000 to 10,000 people.