Page 222 - Constructing Craft

Creative Defiance

All wholesale taxes, including the tax on craft, were merged into a goods and

services tax in 1986. However, the imposition of the sales tax politicized
craftspeople and encouraged them to become more enterprising. Some potters

simply refused to pay it, but others interpreted the variety of descriptions of art and
craft in the widest possible way. As a ‘work of art’ was exempt it was rumoured that

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many potters began creating ‘works of art’ that had handles and lids. Other means
of avoiding the tax appeared to be the type of reaction the government might have
anticipated. The tax applied only to craft sold in New Zealand. The appearance of

articles in craft magazines about selling overseas signalled an increasing interest in

exporting. In 1980 for instance, a Department of Trade and Industry official
suggested that the reason for the increased interest in exporting was, ‘[r]ecent
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developments in taxation on craft industries’. For a time craft magazines published
articles about exporting, but as the official pointed out: ‘Export ambitions can wither

overnight on the discovery that to remain competitive, the producer’s return on a
typical consumer article sold, for instance, on the West Coast of the United States,

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can often be no more than a third of the eventual retail price.’ Exporting by
craftspeople appeared to be a reaction to changing financial regulations but the size
of most operations made such activity impractical for most craftspeople.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Whereas the sales tax issue had seen studio potters and Crown Lynn at
loggerheads, the proposed lifting of import restrictions by the National Government

in 1983, which would start in 1985 and continue over a seven year period,
presented the two sectors with an issue that both believed threatened their future.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Hugh Templeton, was sympathetic, but made a
distinction between competition potters faced within New Zealand and competition

from abroad:

I agree that the craft potter has established a niche in the
marketplace for his or her product which is distinguishable from
the product of the larger commercial producers. ... However,
whereas it is possible to make a distinction between the two
types of operation at the production level it is very difficult to
make that same distinction at the industry import protection
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level.

Constructing Craft