Conchords not first who had to fly overseas

CURMUDGEON - KARL DU FRESNE

There is surely a thesis to be written on what might be called the Flight of the Conchords Syndrome. This is a cultural phenomenon in which talented New Zealanders are ignored in their native land till someone overseas recognises their genius, at which point we rapturously acclaim them as ours.

In case you've been in a coma for the past year or so, the Flight of the Conchords are a Kiwi comedy duo whose TV show is a cult hit on the American HBO network, and who last week won a Grammy award for best comedy album of 2007.

The Flight of the Conchords were famously turned away by TVNZ before trying their luck overseas.

This is no more nor less than should be expected of the razor-sharp talent- spotters at TVNZ, who consider programmes showing unattractive English people shopping for real estate or learning how to dress a far more rewarding investment than edgy home-made comedy. But it's hardly the first time a New Zealand act has had to win international attention before coming to the notice of decision-makers at home.

In the 1980s, radio stations in the US and Australia were playing Crowded House's breakthrough hit Don't Dream It's Over and Shona Laing's brilliant song Glad I'm Not A Kennedy long before the dolts who controlled New Zealand commercial radio sat up and took notice.

These timid, format-driven programmers relied on computer- generated audience research to make their decisions for them and lacked the gut instinct to spot a hit, even when it originated in their backyard. So TVNZ's misjudgment with Flight of the Conchords seems to fit a pattern.

It seems that New Zealand talent must be validated by overseas applause before we recognise it ourselves. Conversely (or should that be perversely?), we lionise some mediocre domestic stars who wouldn't turn a head anywhere else. I wonder what this says about us.

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Prime Minister Helen Clark's announcement of a $446 million boost to community agencies over the next four years was significant for two reasons.

First, it was another signal that we are in an election year and the Government is loosening the purse strings. But rather than just give us our money back and let us decide what to do with it, it wants to retain control over how its big surplus is spent. Tax cuts may be inevitable but Labour still views them with patent distaste because they transfer economic power from the state to the citizen.

What's more significant, though, is that the funding boost draws the misnamed voluntary sector closer than ever to government. This sector, consisting of organisations such as Barnardos, the IHC and CCS, is now well and truly politicised.

What were once voluntary, community-based organisations are now, in effect, just an extension of the Wellington bureaucracy, dependent on government contracts and closely aligned with Labour policy.

They speak the same language as the bureaucracy, have their own intricate hierarchies and seem to have grown remote from their grassroots origins.

The alignment with Labour is evident in the way these agencies have fallen in behind such controversial policies as the anti-smacking law and the requirement that sheltered workshops (now renamed "business enterprises") must now pay the minimum wage – a triumph of human rights ideology over common sense which, according to one report, has deprived several thousand disabled people of regular work.

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If National wants to target an area where Labour is vulnerable, it could do worse than hammer away at the continuing proliferation of non-jobs in the public sector.

The executive vacancy sections of the Saturday papers are full of them, week after week.

Labour's defence of the expansion of the public service – up 35 per cent since 2002 – is that it is making up for the cuts imposed by National in the 1990s. You could buy this argument if the extra public servants were performing meaningful functions, but a vast number of them – notably in the bloated policy analysis, communications and human resources fields – are not.

The wording of the job ads gives the game away. They reveal nothing about the nature of the supposed work or of its purpose.

They are written in an impenetrable non-language, full of empty jargon that varies little from one ad to the next and can mean anything or nothing.

They would make fiendishly baffling composition tests for secondary school English pupils, in the unlikely event that schools still bother with such things.

If the function of a job can't be clearly described in an advertisement, then it's clearly a non-job.

And on the evidence, Wellington high- rises are bulging with highly paid people doing non-jobs.

Are we better governed as a result? Of course not. But you can bet most of the non-workers will vote for the return of a Labour Government, because their livelihoods depend on it.

Wellington cafe owners will also be anxious for a Labour victory, since it's in their premises that these public servants spend a great deal of their time.