Utopia: why making fun of government is our favourite joke – The Sydney Morning Herald

Attacking the government is rather like attacking Donald Trump: there's never any shortage of material and there's always a ready constituency of folks who will applaud you for doing it.

One wonders, however, at the artistic merits of going after such an obvious target. Is this preaching to the converted? Is it possible to come up with something that has not already been said?

Those questions are not answered by Utopia, a satirical look at the operation of government bureaucracy from Australia's Working Dog team. Commissioned by the ABC, Utopia takes a fly-on-the-wall look at life within the fictional Nation Building Authority as it oversees some of the nation's largest infrastructure projects.

Utopiasettles into a familiar pattern. Episodes usually begin with senior NBA bureaucrats Tony Woodford (Rob Sitch) and Nat Russell (Celia Pacquola) absorbed in the detail of a major infrastructure project. They are supported by a team of young staffers, who are invariably too preoccupied with the latest office fad a team dinner, a charity fun run, a new office couch to competently discharge their duties.

More trouble arrives in the form of government liaison officer Jim Gibson (Anthony Lehmann), aided by media manager Rhonda Stewart (Kitty Flanagan). Gibson is there on behalf of the Minister, who is anxious to proceed with the next shiny new "announceable". Woodford and Russell give frank and fearless advice. They point out major flaws with the policy. They suggest cheaper, more meritorious alternatives. Gibson and Stewart counter, in terms which make it clear that they and their political masters have no capacity to absorb policy detail and are entirely focused on buzzwords and political outcomes.

"The Minister doesn't care about your picky clauses he cares about nation building!" scolds Stewart.

The episode usually concludes with the revelation that the NBA's advice has been ignored and the Minister has implemented the policy anyway. Occasionally, the Minister himself makes a cameo appearance. He adds little to the narrative, other than to confirm that the government's priorities are those conveyed by buzzwords.

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Utopia's premise, that government policy is driven by spin and short-term political considerations, resonates in the current cynical climate.

However, the writers of Utopia make their point by reducing pivotal players in the policy formation process to idiots. The Minister, Gibson and Stewart are straw men, delivering obviously untenable arguments, which guide the viewer to thinkno one in government knows what they are talking about.

It's a lazy critique, but the writers get away with it because the viewers are entirely sympathetic.Lampooning "those clowns in Canberra" is hardly a controversial undertaking. Utopia strikes a chord with anyone who has had an experience with government inertia or organisational incompetence. It resonates with those who are concerned about the use of slogans and buzzwords as a substitute for real policy discussion.

Unfortunately, however, there is no depth in the analysis. The minister's a dope. His liaison officer is a used car salesman. The media manager is all spin. These characters are presented with as much human complexity as the Cookie Monster, which explains why Utopia falls flat. There is no dramatic tension because nothing is really at stake.

Utopia's writers have not made a serious attempt to explore the machinations of government and infrastructure delivery. Instead, they resort to the well-worn narrative of bungling bureaucracy and government incompetence, albeit updated for the 21st century with satirical attacks on Millennials and institutional political correctness.

This represents Utopia's best material. The staff themselves are a case study in misapprehension and wilful stupidity, which would not be out of place in the dining room of Fawlty Towers.

Once again, a swathe of the cast has been reduced to caricature, this time so that the writers can demonstrate the follies of faddishness and modern political correctness. Unfortunately youcan't orchestrate tension with a cast of one-dimensional characters. The greatest missed opportunity, however, is on the topic of infrastructure. Australian infrastructure delivery has had a notoriously tortured history. Every project is open to criticism: process, execution and strategic benefit. A project can be meritorious but poorly delivered and vice versa; the nuances are often lost in the heat of public debate. Even with the best of intentions and the best minds, infrastructure is rarely a clear-cut topic.

Utopia is redeemed however because it has delivered exactly what the audience was expecting to see. "The government" is everyone's favourite standing joke. It is therefore not surprising that Utopia has proved to be popular with its constituency.

RenuPrasad is a comedian and blogger. Twitter: @Renu_OZ

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Utopia: why making fun of government is our favourite joke - The Sydney Morning Herald