Brooke and the PLR leave me lost for words
Seriously.
Being lost for words isn’t good for an author. Words are what we do!
First, Brooke replied to my last polite request with an equally polite, “It’s not on the work programme”, suggesting I talk once more with the staff at the National Library – they won’t be thrilled to read that.
In response to the complete lack of action I took up my metaphorical pen to vent my umbrage. I started four times but couldn’t come up with anything new to say. Have you ever tried debating with a bouncer who thinks you’ve had one too many? It felt similar … I imagine.
The legislative changes required to knock off some of the rough edges from the PLR will take little work. Take an example from the earth-shattering amendments made in 2024. 'In regulation 10(3)(a) replace "30 November in that year" with "15 November in that payment year"'.
The 2024 amendments to the PLR changed nothing. They were an illustration of Weber’s idea of bureaucracy’s self-perpetuating inertia. Picture a dog trying to dig a hole in a marble floor to bury a bone – plenty of motion but zero progress.
As for talking to the staff at the National Library, there’s no point – they will be pleased to read that! They work for Brooke, not for me or for New Zealand authors. If I asked them what the best way to get under Brooke’s skin would be to spur her into action, they wouldn’t answer.
The outcome from all the endeavour focused on modernising the PLR, including a massive and expensive review, is the status quo. In the face of this, most people would be tempted to give up, but I’m reminded of George Bernard Shaw.
The reasonable person adapts themself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore all progress depends on unreasonable people.
I wear my unreasonableness with pride.
My second speechless moment came a few weeks after I received my annual "Dear Riley, it’s not good news" email from the PLR scheme, detailing how many books they estimate I have in public libraries. I have three eligible books with counts of 40, 42 and 21, equalling a Christmas payout of $0.00. At least I don’t have to think about what I’m going to spend it on.
I’m not one to complain, but … The count for my latest book of 21 was so far away from my records that it stood out like the proverbial. I complained.
For those who don’t know how it works, the number of books is determined by a survey “in accordance with the advice of the Statistician”. If you follow the links in the legislation, the “Statistician” referred to is the Government Statistician – the chief executive of Statistics New Zealand.
I would expect a statistical survey conducted under the watchful eye of Statistics New Zealand to be robust, and any recount of my books to move counts by at most a few copies. The result of the recount for my three books was 50, 47 and 45.
I was again lost for words.
First count total – 103. Recount total – 142. In technical terms, that’s a statistically significant result. In lay terms, what the … If their counting were that unreliable at an election, we’d be alarmed. We might even discover that we’d elected the wrong government. Just saying.
And 50 is even more significant. One of my books, tired and sweating profusely, somehow cleared the Trump-esque wall that keeps the majority of authors below the payment threshold. This is how I imagine it happened.
PLR Person 1: “Jesus, Chance is complaining about the count – again!”
PLR Person 2: “Make one of his books fifty, that’ll shut him up.”
PLR Person 1: “Oh, alright.”
And it did shut me up … for a minute.
I don’t have the raw data to calculate a standard error, so I asked AI for an estimate. After a screed of calculations, the takeaway was that the uncertainty is large.
The following advice can be found on the PLR website:
… you may find your title count is (frustratingly) 49.
It should read:
… you may find your title count is (frustratingly) between 23 and 75 which we estimate as 49.
They go on to say, “To maintain the fairness of the fund, we can’t increase counts to meet the threshold for payment.”
I don’t have a clue what the first part of that sentence means. The fund is a social construct which is already demonstrably unfair and, as politicians have fiddled while it has been devoured by inflation, drained.
I need to say that I empathise with everyone involved in running the PLR, my struggle to have it changed is not personal. The buck stops (and is covered in dust and cobwebs) on Brooke’s desk. Everyone I have met along the way has been patient, helpful and kind.
That leaves the question – what to do next?
For those who remember the statue of Nick Smith, the then environment minister, on the footpath outside of the Christchurch ECan office, I’d like to build something similar. I would locate it next to the entrance to Parliament and call it – Waiting for Brookot.
