TV review: TV makes me proud to be a Kiwi

Though it's hardly the job of a current affairs programme to make us proud to be New Zealanders, TV3's 60 Minutes night had exactly that effect - quite a balm after the upheavals of politics and finance.

The programme scooped an interview with Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Willie Apiata, and it examined a small but telling reverse-immigration trend across the Tasman.

TV3's 60 Minutes is an under-rated, under-promoted show where you often find quirky gems of stories. Perhaps there's a slight prejudice against the 60 Minutes franchise, with its highly packaged, super-commercial formula.

The arbitrary nature of allotting every story - be it an examination of Aids in the Pacific, or a daggy story about a cute animal - the same amount of time goes against the grain. But, routinely, the New Zealand edition hits on stories that make you think, why hasn't someone done that story before?

A couple of weeks back, it had a revealing and strangely touching portrait of Owen Glenn, the self- professed lonely gazillionaire who self-professed about a number of things, to the point of pathos.

It gave us new insights into his character, which shed further light on why and how he got himself into the pre-election bunfight with Winston Peters and the Labour Party.

This week's two local stories fortuitously made this country seem a fine place - though it has to be said, the Apiata story was a gift.

Is there a more admirably, quintessentially New Zealand hero than this? Quietly spoken, ineffably modest, good-looking, a doting father - and absolutely lethal.

However, in the hands of reporter Mike McRoberts - whom TV3 shrewdly snaffled from TVNZ some time ago - the story blossomed.

McRoberts managed to persuade Apiata to give him some military training - shooting, tasering, hulking about in SAS battledress. This sort of thing can become hokey.

But in this case it underlined, albeit with a light hand, the hard-to-remember fact that Apiata is an elite soldier - a trained killing unit.

His is a highly romantic story, but it boils down to warfare, and he will soon be back in active service, and very happy about it, too.

McRoberts used humour to cut through some of the romanticism, saving the story from becoming adulatory and mawkish.

"I feel like a baggage handler," he said ruefully, as he staggered under the SAS protective gear, alongside the super-soldier who never broke a sweat.

The interviews with Apiata were as revealing as you could expect from a guy not given to talking about himself. So ingrained is the secrecy and anonymity of the SAS man that Apiata even shrank from letting his mum take his photo.

He said he regarded the VC as having been given to his team, as though any soldier in the position he was in would have done the same.

He admitted to taking fright not so much at the bullets and bombs of the field, but at the television cameras and photographic flashes of the media.

In his line of work, he said, flashes usually meant something rather different.

This apparently genuinely reluctant celebrity has been - reading between the lines - badgered into cooperating with the biography that's been published this week, but is relieved that he'll soon be back at work, in disguise.

Equally compelling TV was the item about Australians coming to live in New Zealand.

There aren't nearly enough of them to offset the 30,000 New Zealanders who throng the other way each year, but the item made you wonder whether we'd quite thought this "grass is greener" thing through.

Because, as the three Australian immigrant families pointed out, the grass is literally greener over here.

Reporter Rod Vaughan produced a real "aha!" moment when he established that water was a primary motivating factor for these three successful, professional people - a newspaper editor, a security-firm owner and a radio engineer - to come here.

They felt harassed and depressed by Australia's growing water crisis - four-minute showers, dying gardens, bucket-only car washing, and brown scenery.

One went as far as saying that Australia, as we know it, was a dying country. The sheer lush greenness of New Zealand was a balm to their souls.

Our happy-looking sheep in green pastures, the editor enthused, had been a major selling point for her.

The immigrants also spoke of personal security, saying Australia had become a lot more violent and drug-riddled. They felt - and statistics bore them out - much safer here.

They also argued the cost of living differentials were minimal. Houses were much cheaper, food and goods about on a par, and though wages were lower, so was tax.

It's often forgotten - though never by Michael Cullen - that Australia has a plethora of taxes besides income tax.

They also spoke of the sheer pleasure of being able to afford to live much closer to work, not having to commute for hours, and generally enjoying a greater quality of life.

Lest we got too pleased with ourselves, 60 Minutes also featured an Australian item about unconquerable superbugs eating people's body parts overnight, and how powerless we are against them.

This was lingeringly depressing and frightening.

But, on the other hand, these were Australian superbugs, so there's another reason not to move there.

* What do you think of 60 Minutes? Post your comments below.

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