10 June 2026
On stage at New Zealand’s Aotearoa
Music Awards on May 28, entertainer Dame Lynda Topp issued a
powerful rebuke of the National Party-led government’s
soaring defence budget compared with its paltry arts
funding.
Speaking just days after the death from
cancer of her twin sister and fellow performer Jools, the
68-year directly challenged Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith who
was in the audience. In a blistering speech, Lynda said that
the government’s budget, released the same day, did not
allocate any money for music, while earmarking billions for
defence.
The coalition government, which includes the
far-right ACT and NZ First, and the opposition Labour Party
have agreed to double the military budget from 1 to 2
percent of GDP. This is only the beginning. US Secretary of
War Pete Hegseth has demanded that NZ and other allies spend
at least 3.5 percent of GDP on the military, as part of
US-led war preparations against China.
The
militarisation of society is being funded with sweeping
attacks on public services, thousands of job cuts, an
increase in student fees and cuts to welfare benefits. The
2026 budget also cuts $27 million from arts and cultural
agencies over 4 years.
Lynda Topp’s speech was a
significant intervention by one of the country’s most
prominent entertainers. After initially taking up busking,
the Topp Twins became a celebrated folk-singing and comedy
duo known for their country music influences and comedic
characters.
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The duo, who were openly gay at a time
when homosexuality was still against the law in the early
1980s, have since won numerous awards, including induction
into the NZ Music Hall of Fame. A 2009 documentary, The Topp
Twins: Untouchable Girls, won the Audience Award at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
At last month’s
music awards ceremony, Topp took the microphone following a
tribute performance by musician Tami Neilson and
singer-songwriter Jenny Mitchell, eliciting loud cheering
and clapping from the audience when she blasted the
government.
“When we performed 40 years ago there
were hundreds of venues in this country. We played in cafes
and pubs, rural halls, woolsheds, house parties, and now
we’ve lost so many of those places for young artists to
perform in,” Topp declared.
She continued: “We
need support for artists in this country, we need a
government that says the arts is more important than a
defence budget. Way more! I see young artists struggling not
because they’ve got a gig on Friday night—because they
are trying to put through some sort of crazy mother****ing
arts submission to get a few lousy dollars from the
government. This is not fair!”
Addressing Goldsmith
she declared, “We are not defined by a government. We are
defined by people and our culture and our art.” She noted:
“I did a speed read on the budget this afternoon, there
doesn’t appear to be any money for music, but in big, big
letters in the top of the news: $2.1 billion for defence.
What the f***!” The total defence budget is now $4.29
billion.
Topp received a roar of laughter and a
standing ovation after questioning how the increase in the
defence budget would help in the event of an invasion,
saying “passionate musicians” could do more on the
battlefield than the country’s defence
force.
Goldsmith later dismissed Linda’s criticisms
as the “same old cliché” and said he expected artists
to critique “centre-right” governments. In response,
Topp told Radio NZ (RNZ) on June 2 the arts sector was
“not a luxury,” and contributes some 4.2 percent of GDP,
$17.5 billion, while the government only commits 0.1 percent
of GDP in arts funding.
Contrasting the arts with
defence, she declared: “One of those things bring joy and
happiness, the other brings death and destruction. Which
side do you want to be on?” Challenged by interviewer Lisa
Owen, who cited “humanitarian” work supposedly carried
out by the defence force, Topp posed the question: “But
who exactly is our enemy?”
She denounced as
“extreme” a recent suggestion by Defence Minister Chris
Penk that his government would be open to having “a
discussion” on NZ’s long-standing anti-nuclear policy,
which bars nuclear-powered vessels from entering the
country. The Topp Twins campaigned for the “nuclear
free” policy in the 1980s.
Tens of thousands of
people watched and shared the video of Topp’s speech on
social media and made supportive comments. It tapped into
widespread opposition to war, including the genocide in Gaza
and the criminal US-Israeli war against Iran.
Leila,
writing on RNZ’s Facebook page, called the level of
defence spending “a massive transfer of wealth to the
weapons industry whilst people are literally suffering.…
We need investment in people. Not propping up the obscenely
rich so they can play war games.”
Amalli called for
money to go “towards something more positive that’s
going to encourage our people and inspire people instead of
getting ready for a war we don’t even
want.”
Simone said it was “A pity to see arts
funding slashed—it speaks of a certain narrow mind that
knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing.”
Wayne, a worker on the Cook Strait ferries
wrote: “Ironically, if we want to participate in the arts,
or watch a concert, we usually have to pay, but we have war
thrust into our living rooms, by way of biased TV news
reports, every night.”
Meanwhile a vicious backlash
was fomented by right-wing commentators, attacking Lynda
Topp personally and the entire concept of public funding for
the arts. Host of the far-right Platform NZ podcast, Sean
Plunket, denounced her as an “ungrateful hua”—an
insult in Māori approximating to “boiled
head.”
Plunket, whose online operation has been
funded by a multi-millionaire private benefactor, declared
that “good artists” are not “welfare beneficiaries.”
Artists seeking public funding, he announced, was equivalent
to homeless people sitting outside cash machines demanding
money.
Right-wing blogger Ani O’Brien joined in the
pile-on, declaring: “occasionally you meet a musician with
a good grasp of politics, but for the most part you don’t
want to hear their political opinions.”
Serious
artists and musicians cannot remain indifferent to the
deepening crises of social inequality, poverty, genocide and
ever-expanding wars. Musicians such as Bruce Springsteen,
Macklemore and Roger Waters and others have gained a popular
response from audiences worldwide who are seeking
expressions of opposition sentiment. Philistines who call
for politics to be kept out of music have had their
day.
In her speech to the music awards, Topp said she
hoped that “future governments” would make different
choices. The opposition Labour Party, however, has made no
commitment to reverse the National-led government’s cuts
to arts funding—or any of its austerity measures—while
fully supporting the militarisation of the country and the
alliance with US imperialism. The anti-war sentiments
expressed by Topp find no expression in the established
political parties.
The assault on public arts funding
has its own agenda which is ideological, not primarily
fiscal. The real motive is fear. As WSWS Arts editor David
Walsh has argued, the ruling elite “is frightened by
everything it cannot control, cannot understand, everything
that does not serve the interests of the market. It is
instinctively hostile… to truthful and penetrating
depictions of life.”
The questions of public arts
funding and escalating militarism are tied together as
fundamental class questions. As Walsh notes, a ruling class
that presides over permanent war, staggering social
inequality, and continuous attacks on democratic rights
cannot inspire serious art—it can only inspire disgust.
The artist who honestly portrays this society must
inevitably be driven toward opposition—and socialist
conclusions.
By John Braddock, Socialist
Equality Group
9 June 2026
Original url: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/06/09/blgn-j09.html
