By Chris Trotter*
The discovery of “Utopia” has been the highlight of my summer. Only eight years after the series first screened on Australian television, I have been savouring its humour and insights on Netflix.
If the classic television series “Yes Minister” showcased the arguments for the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s, then Utopia serves up its consequences forty years down the track.
The series creators and principal writers, Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner, have captured to perfection the excruciatingly solipsistic world of the professionals and managers who keep our neoliberal society and its institutions running.
The use of the word “running” is, of course, entirely ironic. At the heart of Utopia’s humour is the sheer impossibility of a neoliberal bureaucracy running anything at all – other than its own self-promotion. (Otherwise known as: “Communicating government policies to key stakeholders.)
Tellingly, the writers of Utopia do not describe their work as “satirical”, preferring instead to call it “observational”. Judging by the shrieks of recognition from real-life employees working in institutions reality-adjacent to Utopia’s fictional “Nation Building Authority” (NBA) the writers’ claim is valid. Apparently, not even comic geniuses like Sitch can make up absurdities to equal the all-too-real absurdities of the contemporary white-collar office environment.
For those of us who have attempted to keep track of the success or failure of the multitude of government initiatives announced over the past few decades, however, Utopia makes for extremely uncomfortable viewing. In episode after episode, the viewer is confronted with massive infrastructure projects that defy every attempt by CEO Tony Woodford (played by Sitch himself) and Nat Russell, his long-suffering Chief Operations Officer, to convert them into reality.
Watching Utopia, it suddenly becomes clear why KiwiBuild’s ambitious promise to build 100,000 houses was never real. Like the fictional NBA, KiwiBuild was a political construct, fashioned by political publicists, to meet a very specific set of transitory political needs.
While the rest of us believed (rather naively as it turned out) that KiwiBuild was about constructing real houses from concrete, timber, glass and roofing iron, its creators always understood that what they were actually promoting were symbols. Symbolic houses are not built with hammers and nails, but with ideas – the most important of which is the idea that the Government is committed to doing something about middle-class homelessness.
This explains why, in Utopia, the two most effective characters are Media Manager, Rhonda Stewart, and consultant Karsten Leith, her ever-willing media and marketing content creator. In painful contrast to the NBA, these two institutional bulldozers are absolutely brilliant a getting things done. If the media needs to be seeded with the first tentative musings concerning a yet-to-be-approved scheme, then Rhonda is your woman. Should the Cabinet approve a scoping study, Karsten is right there to whip-up a glossy brochure, or wow everyone with a flashy promotional video.
Reality poses no obstacles to Rhonda and Karsten. Always keen to “push” the achievements of the NBA (keeping the billions flowing) these two media manipulators are constantly re-announcing projects and re-launching them. Told that a major building project had yet to pour a single slab of concrete, they work up a glitzy multi-ministered “launch” of the fence surrounding the building-site!
Nuts? Well, yes, it is. But just cast your mind back to the number of media events organised to mark the “progress” of KiwiBuild. There were the ministers in their hard-hats and hi-viz vests: silver shovels in hand; smiling bravely for the camera.
Symbols piled upon symbols, but never bricks upon bricks.
Being Aussies, Sitch and his fellow writers invite their older viewers to recall the grand, nation-building infrastructure projects of yesteryear. CEO Tony references the Snowy River Project of the early post-war period. New Zealanders of a certain age will, likewise, recall the great hydro-electric schemes on the Waikato and Waitaki rivers that punctuated the same era.
The point which the creators of Utopia are constantly making throughout its four series (so far) is that the institutional madness depicted on-screen is the inevitable outcome of a neoliberal system which has set its face ideologically against the idea that the fundamental role of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus is to serve the needs of its citizens – especially those services out of which the private sector finds it almost impossible to extract a profit.
In both Australia and New Zealand neoliberal advisers and administrators have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that even if politicians are tempted to “do something” about an issue of genuine public concern (housing, public transport, climate change) the legal and institutional machinery needed to make it happen is no longer at hand.
The most obvious victim of this process in the New Zealand context is the Ministry of Works. Imagine what this government might have achieved on the housing front if it had had at its disposal a state-owned and controlled construction organisation which was capable, historically, of throwing up entire towns – Otematata, Twizel – to house workers engaged in building vast hydro-electric dams and canals for the state-owned electricity generator.
But, the long-term future focus which state ownership makes possible simply does not compute in the minds of the twenty-first century’s politicians and bureaucrats. Even if the future-proofing of society is a concept enjoying massive public support, the dangers associated with giving the voters what they want are simply too great to be risked.
This is the inconvenient truth which Utopia’s plot-lines are constantly presenting to the viewer. People want nation building. The country urgently needs the massive infrastructure planning and investment required to future-proof their security and prosperity. But, what do the politicians and bureaucrats do? They set up a flash Nation Building Authority and install an idealistic CEO to run it. But they don’t let it actually do anything – other than announce plans and launch fences.
Perhaps the most objectionable character in Utopia is Jim Gibson, the Government’s liaison man. The squinting, leering Gibson (superbly played by Anthony Lehmann) is nothing more nor less than a neoliberal commissar. Always there to steer any project offering too many public goods into the hands of private profiteers. Always working behind Tony’s and Nat’s backs, hand-in-glove with Rhonda, to preserve the public’s faith in the NBA’s nation-building mission while making sure that no project ever gets beyond being re-announced and re-launched.
The big reveal, politically-speaking, in 2022 is whether our own CEO, Jacinda Ardern, proves herself to be an idealistic but ineffectual “Tony”, or an amoral, but surprisingly effective, “Rhonda”. Will New Zealand continue to go nowhere fast? Or, will its people continue to accept the endless re-launches and re-announcements of its media savvy prime minister?
Utopia tomorrow and Utopia yesterday – but never Utopia today.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
97 Comments
The animal farm proved to be a good read. Every animal believed that the pigs and the dogs are better managers of the farm who would liberate them from the slavery of men and create a perfect utopian farm.
The joke is; in doing so; they affirmed pigs and dogs are far more superior then humans.
This is the gist of all mantras in socialism and communism and a testament to the intelligence of its believers.
CWBW,
Well, if this a testament to your English writing ability, some work is required. Example; "are far more superior then humans". You might instead have written, are superior to humans.
Dogs are incidental to the story and Napoleon, with the other pigs, eventually becomes indistinguishable from humans.
That's odd, Eric Blair was a democratic socialist all of his life, his writings were anti totalitarianism, not socialism.
I find it quite amusing, a bit like when I observe that the person we identify as Jesus Christ, who was, if you give it some thought, anti authoritarian and somewhat left wing (in today's terms) is worshipped most stridently by right wing authoritarians.
Yes, bring back the Ministry of Works! Despite all the criticism of it previously it was probably the most useful real world govt department in NZ. And how could a government ever execute a new hydro dam project in today’s world - just as well NZ did once have a ‘get stuff done’ period from the 50s to the 70s otherwise we wouldn’t have any useful infrastructure.
Many people suggest bringing back the ministry of works but in the current environment the culture would not return. It was the culture of promoting good engineering practice that made a difference and acted like an apprenticeship scheme. In some government departments/ministries there is no engineering leadership or culture. That leads to dishonesty and corruption. Bringing back the ministry of works with bad leadership, which is overwhelming, in the public sector would just result in another Kiwibuild style organisation which achieves nothing, or worse builds non compliant or dangerous buildings.
Even if it could be implemented in a positive manner it would take decades to become effective on any scale that would be relevant.
I was lent a very interesting book a few years ago which laid bare the unholy alliance between National and Labour in the 1980s and 1990s to demolish the Ministry of Works. I remember it mentioning that the MOW used to train around 2000 apprentices at any one time. Anyway it detailed all the incredible benefits we received from this hallowed institution. From memory I'm sure it was called "Reconomics" which, in general, charted the damaging effects of Rogernomics; but I can't seem to find any mention of it online. Maybe someone can correct me if I have the title wrong, although I wouldn't be surprised if the book had been deliberately suppressed as it was so scathing of both National and Labour.
Yeah with a new Ministry of Works, it would be accountants and lawyers in charge like most organizations now. Which would doom it to failure.
(It's not PC to have Engineers in charge any more).
The new thing is public private partnerships. Which are even worse.
And contracts for the sharing of gains or losses.
Complete and utter disasters all of them.
As Nan would say: what a fuckin liberty.
Yeah lets bring back the old 80's Government industry.
You know, the one where
- it took many weeks to get a phone installed, my friends in Auckland would have to go to work at 5am and hold telephone landlines to their customers open all day because there weren't enough to call someone when you needed to talk to them.
- you couldn't get stock on a truck because laws restricted trucking firms so products had to travel short distances inefficiently to protect rail (while your stock got pilfered by the workers on the way - sorry Taxed)
- Building might have got done, but slowly and with 5 times as m any people as required to do the job, for most of us living there is was a massive joke
- Unions controlled the country and brought transport to a stop at holiday time, and lead to the ultimate anti union legislation (the ECA) being welcomed by many workers
- Railways, slow, expensive,
- Gliding on - remember that? Yes, some of us do...... I had friends working in Government service in the 80's. They all commented on what an inefficient joke it was. Paid well, glide time, nothing got done but nobody cared...........
Infrastructure nowadays is being prevented by legislation, activists and environmental concerns.Try building a dam now to generate clean and green power - could you get the Clyde Dam rebuilt now?
Brock,
Ok. I have written to the PM more than once expressing my acute disappoint with the government's performance across a wide range of areas.
But where to go? I think back to the clear failures of the Nats with 9 years in office. Housing crisis? What housing crisis? An obsession with squeezing the Debt/GDP ratio ever lower( 15% was the target) saw ever greater underinvestment in our crumbling infrastructure. I can't imagine voting ACT however personable Seymour appears to be and sadly, the Greens seem to be increasingly consumed with social issues rather than just being an environmental party.
Gentlemen. With great sadness, I can only agree with you. I am deeply ashamed of our politicians in the main. Far too many from all parties, have entered parliament without any of the necessary quality & integrity to serve the electorate properly. Ironically, for I am hardly a fan of the Greens, one example to the contrary, is Chloe from Central Auckland but as I am not in that electorate, cannot say how accurate I am on that?
And yet the housing issues you describe are worse with Labour in Power, they appeared not to understand the implications and consequences of the decisions being made.
Do you truly believe that Labour can manage the finances to recover from COVID spending that they are embedding?
I believe that the main failing from the previous Nats government was that before the 2017 election they waited too long to start spending the savings they made - preferring to see the money actually arrive rather than spend on needed areas once they had recovered after the GFC. Robertson had no such qualms, blowing the surplus in Year 1, before needing it in year 3..........
National still implemented the infrastructure recovery spending, an economic benefit now, whereas Labours spending is mostly structural government or social spend, not investment in the future earnings or benefits.
This requires a figure or organisation for the masses to support. With the legacy media behaving as the government's attack dog and social media censoring anyone or any organisation that speaks against the official narrative/approved truth - how is momentum achieved?
Argument is permitted on trivial matters (trans bathrooms for example) and we are pitted against each other constantly (vaccinated vs unvaccinated, race vs race). This collectively drains us of vigour and ability to stand up.
I fear that it's too late. "They've" got us in an invisible prison.
Depends, will we continue to forever see sabre-rattling against vague evils like capitalism without any real scrutiny of our own lever-pullers and paper shufflers? How much longer will middle-class keep buying into hype and goalpost shifting that results in nothing but an accelerated decline in their own living standards and disposable incomes?
And how much longer do you keep trusting the idiots presiding over the current mess who spent nine years pissing and moaning about the Blue team doing nothing, only to get in and somehow manage to do even less?
I don't buy the neo-liberal hangover argument still straitjacketing politics. Labour has an unprecedented mandate to do anything it wants. Yet it can't, and is letting itself get sidetracked off into undemocratic avenues such as co-governance. Labour needs to grow a pair and do what it was originally elected to do by compulsorily purchasing swathes of land and nationalising the building supply companies to build houses for a reasonable price.
People want nation building.
Exactly this! Sadly, Government has been captured by business leaders and lobbyists who prioritise profit over people, and focus groups of swing voters who focus on their immediate and personal interests rather than the future of the country.
We will never see thousands of affordable rental properties get built whilst we rely on bribing the private sector to re-direct some of their resources away from highly profitable work.
Describe just how Business has Hijacked Arderns government?
She won't even talk to them, apart from pointless "advisory groups" that she promptly ignores
You won't see anything get done by Arderns governments, because they have absolutely no idea how to. They can write laws and ban stuff, but have never actually had to do things.Their view of achievement is very different to the goal you set out in your comment
Bernard Hickey often writes about how the Public Finance Act explicitly prevents governments from making the scale of investment needed to tackle big issues like housing, infrastructure, climate change mitigation and adaptation that are sorely needed. It requires governments to run budget surpluses and to get back to them after crises as soon as possible. This is a huge handbrake on our society and we all suffer for it (unless you're a landlord I guess).
We have very low levels of govt debt as a proportion of GDP compared to other OECD countries and massive amounts of private debt due to this underinvestment. We need to get comfortable with much higher levels of government spending to make up for decades of underinvestment. As others have mentioned we've done it in the past through the Ministry of Works, and we can do it again.
The government has an absolute majority. At some point, blaming the PFA is naive at best and misdirection at worst. They could do almost anything they want. Previously they got to blame NZ First when something didn't happen (even for Light Rail, which they managed to stuff up well before it got near NZF for approval). Now they don't have that excuse anymore. They're planning on Kiwis just ~~~vibing~~~ through the coming months with high fuel, food and house prices and hoping the media don't talk about it.
Oh I can accept that - they do have a majority and they've been very disappointing in how they've used it. But my point about the PFA I thought was relevant to the main point of the article - our institutional settings are not fit for purpose for delivering those large scale transformational projects like Kiwibuild, and this is often overlooked when people examine why delivery hasn't happened. They were deliberately designed to discourage this after Think Big and high inflation in the 70s and early 80s.
I agree, but the fact that the government hasn't done something about these settings is telling. If solving these problems really mattered, they'd have done something about. You can infer a lot more what someone doesn't do vs. what they actually end up doing - one is a lot harder to spin than the other.
The Public Finance Act requires the Govt to maintain a 'prudent level of Govt debt'. It does not specify what 'prudent' is. Govt typically publish a number in their fiscal strategy. Govt could easily argue that a much higher debt was prudent in the circumstances - e.g. because paying $30 million a week in accommodation supplement to landlords is super-dumb when we could spend a few billion on building some social housing.
This is all fairly academic anyway for three main reasons:
- The definition of Govt gross and net debt is a highly selective view of the Govt's overall balance sheet - a bit like assessing your own financial position by only looking at your credit card bill. Govt net worth is currently $140 billion ($40 billion higher than last year) - would you describe yourself as having worrisome debt if you were worth $140 billion?
- Total interest paid on Govt liabilities is below inflation and well below the rate of return that Govt is currently getting on its investments. Govt has $8 billion of cash circulating in the economy (0% interest), $37 billion of liabilities sat in bank settlement accounts (0.75% interest I think), and $58 billion of bond liabilities owned by RBNZ (0.75% effectively). Average interest rate paid on Govt bonds held by investors is around 3%. If your assets were appreciating much quicker than your liabilities, would you be aiming to cash in some assets to reduce your debt?
- Govt liabilities are non-Govt assets thus reducing Govt debt levels means Govt taking more money away from businesses and households than it spends - a proven recipe for recession. Govt should be aiming to balance the economy not the budget - i.e. aiming for full employment, high productivity, investment in the infrastructure and capabilities that our kids and grandkids will need to live well
Tony Blair promised so much hope after almost 20 years of Tory leadership. The people celebrated a youthful smiling leader who seemed to understand them. "Things can only get better" played joyfully whenever they were coming on stage. Hope was strong.
Then reality started kicking in and the truth began to emerge that he was nothing but a neoliberal puppet. When his unpopularity began to bite he abandoned ship and passed the power to the fake smiley Brown. Brown tried to learn the smile that had conned the people so well but he didn't have Blairs natural skill. Anyhow, since this New Labour experiment the Tories have remained in power and probably will for alot longer even if they cock everything up like Boris has been. The lesson NZ Labour has not learnt is that fake neoliberal Labour leaders only provide a temporary buzz hit of smilyness. Nothing good gets done and things get so bad that the people refuse to ever vote for them again.
I suspect the best tactic of the elite is to hold their noses, get a fluffy, happy, hopey Labour leader into power temporarily, watch them destroy all hope and then move in and offer an escape route. Even Luxon appears to be now a safer option at this point, surely he couldn't make things worse?
I'm sure the likes of a Blair would win the next UK election, but instead their Labour party have gone too far left. The majority of people do prefer neoliberalism over socialism.
I don't think you can blame most of our current issues on neoliberalism, in fact a lot of the housing issue has been caused by the opposite, letting council planners dictate what people want instead of the market.
The people who have made by far the most money out of the governments response to COVID are multi propertied Landlords, more the better. They do not do any work for that extra FREE money, they do not deserve that money. The poor got the least from this government and always do.
What a bizarre response, especially coming from someone who seems 'left of centre'. Or have I got that totally wrong.
How about building the social infastructure, en masse, that we need? Housing (critically affordable as well as social), healthcare, education.
These aren't 'hand outs', they are the bones of a healthy, functional society and economy.
I'm more than happy if they build infrastructure, as I am sure most of the country is. But almost all parties to the left of neoliberalism seem to be more about hand outs, and I am not a fan of having the government pay people's weekly power bill / rent / drug addiction / etc more than necessary.
I am weird that I am progressive but economically conservative. So that makes me "left" when it comes to things like transport, infrastructure, environment, rights, religion, etc, but I am "right" when it comes to free markets and personal responsibility. I really don't know why they shoe horn so many things into "left" and "right", I would love to be able to vote for an economically conservative party that wasn't anti progress. I guess Labour are kind of in that space, but they only seem to deliver on the stuff I don't want like power subsidies for rich pensioners.
Isn't it great that we have hard core socialism in New Zealand now. I saw someone complaining on the Herald that they couldn’t snitch anonymously on their neighbours over perceived covid infractions. We've got endless doubling down on rules that don’t make any sense, yet are bankrupting the country. It's Soviet Union stuff.
It doesn't really matter what party is in power, they're both as incompetent as one another. The common denominator however, are the 60,000 state employees themselves. A huge, highly overpaid, incompetent body of peons, unable to achieve anything beyond attendance, and even then they stumble. Add to this a library of poor law from decades of self-serving politicians & you have the makings of a society led by fools into constant debate & counter debate, achieving next to nothing, except perhaps wage subsidies for frustrated workers. Having read a little history in my day, we are in the final stages of complete economic & cultural collapse which most dominant civilistations eventually decline to. Today, the ones who have the least to offer finally get into positions of power, where-upon in their ignorance & their arrogance, they destroy any hope of creating a better world from which they came. Our only hope will be from the 100,000 immigrants Labour will allow in once they realise how many Kiwis are leaving when they properly open the borders. Shoot me now.
Sorry but sadly the govt doesn’t give a monkeys about those with overseas connections (pacific islands excluded) and the money to visit them. Half in half out (kiwis with uk family) citizens are treated as second class. It’s more about supporting the poor than enabling the jetsetters. The pandemic has made us all be in the same team when our nature is not to pick the poor performers.
Sadly this government excels at failure and spending without getting any value for money. We have approx 12,000 more bureaucrats now than in 2017. They have wasted 100's and 100's of millions (well over a billion by now) on working groups and consultants to tell them the answer they want to hear and gone on to solve nothing.
The list of failures is too long to list and don't blame covid as they were failing on them all well before that.........and they are aided by a complicit MSM who are too busy accessing the slush fund to worry about putting out independent articles that let the reader make up their mind.
I dont rate the Nats as being much better but at least they are likely to run the economy far better than those that would waste 51million for a cycle lane that was never going to be built.
There should be very clear and strict caveats for media accepting money from the Government.
The NZHerald received $3million through 'Public Interest Journalism.' Part of this was to report on Te Reo/Maori events. This is now evident in the uptick on coverage of activities that wouldn't normally be deemed 'newsworthy.' IMHO there is a growing divisiveness in part stemming from the continual one way coverage of racial discrimination. I don't recall a single article since Aug where Indian or Chinese are the victims of racism.
There is a very clear caveat for media accepting the money from the Govt under the so called "Public Interest Journalism Fund". They have to "actively promote" the Govt's interpretation of the ToW so called & novel "Principles". Not simply "report on". Let alone critique, criticise or in any way challenge the current Govt's perceptions of reality. All part of the "Ministry of Truth".
Goal 3: "Actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti oWaitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner".
Certainly there is nothing in the ToW about "Principles" or "Partnership". Probably because the Crown cannot enter into a partnership with its subjects.
In fact the entire ToW Principles idea came from a side opinion (not a judgement), in the 1980s from Justice Cooke, subsequently slipped into the 1990s SOE Act by Palmer for the Public sector & held as gospel for the rest of private sector NZ ever since by the chattering & political classes in academia, MSM & the blatantly self interested.
It doesnt matter which government is in, the strcuture of government means it allows for big promises (vote buying) but actaully very slow delivery..
Transmission Gully, the CHCh Rebuild are all more examples of the same things you mention.
It doesnt matter who is in power if the system is broken.
Love this! We had a very utopian rebuild here in Christchurch, lots of media, people in high vis, plenty of working groups, lots of gltizy launches and unveilings, heaps of speeches. But actually very little to show for it. The fact that some of the promises made (Originally said to be completed by 2017) have even yet to get underway says a lot.
Let alone the nightmareish Fletchers led rebuild programme which has cost billions more because of shoddy workmanship and insurance issues.
Never again should we handle a large disaster like this one was done. Outsourcing all of the jobs that should be handled by government and local people has been a boon for the consultants, PR people, shareholders and the Lawyers. But in reality we've still got a half built CBD, shattered communities, empty promises made by politicians who have disappeared into the night and a rebuild that was never driven by the people most affected by it.
It will be a case study for decades to come in what not to do. Lets just hope we learn the lessons before the next one.
We are short infrastructure but that's only due to population growth and the only thing driving population growth is our immigration policy. Our birth rate is so low that a better strategy might be to fit our population to our infrastructure through a zero immigration policy.
What’s being described here is just low state capacity. Bringing in bulls***ers from organisations like PWC etc, and hiring more “comms” staff than engineers had nothing to do with neoliberalism. We’d have the same problems in a command-control public sector.
We have a self-interested, self-perpetuating professional managerial class enriching themselves by creating regulations, then going out the revolving door to offer “consulting services” on them.
Deliciously ironic that such a defender of the Left - Mr Trotter - is describing the inability to achieve anything as a Neoliberal failing, all the while describing that Leftie doyen Jacinda Ardern and her constant failures to achieve, matched by a huge growth in the PR machine which Utopia satirises
I note that terrible "Neoliberal" projects such as the Transmission Gully, Puhoi motorway, Housing NZ house building at Glen Innes - soundly criticised by Labour originally - are progressing (even with time and cost issues) but ultimately getting done. Little is achieved by the rapacious PR machine in Arderns government.
Now lets turn our minds to the new agencies, HUD anyone? What about the multitude of new Ministerial departments and appointments.
We are already living Utopia in NZ right now.
Last year Max Harris and Jacqueline Paul wrote a report setting out why we should set up a Ministry of Green Works.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2110/S00273/rising-to-the-challenge-a…
I find CT's lauding of the old MOW a joke. The engineering was world class but the execution in such basic matters as machine maintenance was MIA. My old Cat D7, a MOW asset, which I used to rough out the hilly part of the Newfields subdivision in Invercargill had the following extremely basic defects when I took it over:
- Wet clutch housing had missing drain plug. I used a 44 gallon drum and a half of oil over a month to top it up each morning before persuading the mechanics that Sumfing Wasn't Right.
- Neither final drive had oil at all, due to - drum roll - absent drain plugs. Cat built these old girls tough, so it kept running. Found pipe fittings to suit, cleared the drain holes of clay, bunged them up, topped up the drives, myself.
- No proper tow pin, so inevitably I broke it, and wrecked a scraper, before a Real Cat Towpin miraculously appeared. The chronicle here...
- No hearing protection, open unsilenced exhaust stack two meters from and at ear level. Have industrial deafness as a result.
Competent management of core machine assets would have picked up all of this on Day 1.
Not saying the engineers were to blame. Lack of accountability and penny pinching at the coal face, yes.
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