Be quick and pass the buck along. Everyone else is doing it, right?
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There once was a time when great power came with great responsibility.
Look around the world stage and there's a troubling number of Teflon-coated men-children who are somehow untouchable with criticism for their missteps.
Chief executives deny responsibility for corporate disasters or wrongdoing. Prime ministers and presidents find ways to deflect.
If you're powerful and visible enough, apparently in this day and age it's just never your fault.
Taking responsibility is an act verging on the revolutionary in parts of government. Utopia prosecutes the malaise relentlessly in its latest episode, The Blame Game.
The alternative, as government fixer Marcus Patrick tells the Nation Building Authority in this episode, is easier. It'll sound familiar to many: "Deny, dispute, delay."
All seems quiet at the NBA until it learns there's a budget blow-out about to hit the headlines.
"Let's call it $5 billion", says government liaison Jim Gibson (Anthony Lehmann) casually. "You reckon that's a lot?"
A misconceived Sunshine Coast light rail project is financially out of control and a looming audit report has the federal government with the jitters. The first instinct is to both duck for cover and to cover-up.
Jim and media liaison Rhonda (Kitty Flanagan) hit peak form and join forces with the disconcertingly slick and smarmy Marcus in finding new ways to warp reality and escape blame.
It wasn't always so. President Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk saying the buck stopped with him in a message that he alone took responsibility for the way his nation was governed.
In Utopia, it becomes creepingly obvious the government's going to pin the blame on NBA chief executive Tony Woodford (Rob Sitch). That same Tony Woodford recommended against the light rail project as "extreme risk", "high cost" and of "low to negligible benefit".
In other words, he said don't do it, before the government ignored him and made light rail a by-election promise.
To reiterate, this episode features some classic Rhonda. No stone is unturned as the government searches for potential scapegoats in one crisis meeting. Even inflexible workplace agreements come up.
"You're going to blame the unions?" Tony scoffs.
"Well someone has to take responsibility!" Rhonda replies in all seriousness.
Audit reports are all about holding the government and its bureaucracy responsible. They've drawn some interesting responses in recent times.
Some departments and agencies have failed to show they've acted on the auditor-general's findings.
When it comes to the parliamentary committees scrutinising their work, some agencies have been dismissive to the point of, well, rudeness. They haven't bothered to reply and ignored them altogether for many moons.
If they can't dispute or deny, they can only delay. Some are taking Marcus Patrick's mantra to the extreme, and here we are.
At the NBA, the coming audit storm forces Tony to pull out of a trade mission to Japan, and Nat Russell (Celia Pacquola) is subbed in.
In come two rather patronising folks from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to prepare her for the niceties and subtleties of diplomacy, including how to give someone an Akubra hat.
By the by, receptionist Courtney Kano (played by Nina Oyama) comes out with a delightful malapropism, jumbling things up and believing one of the officials to be "Dee Fat".
Never mind the Foreign Affairs Department giving Nat a copy of the memorandum of understanding the delegation is meant to sign. If she thinks that's the whole reason for the trip, she's not paying attention. More important than the MoU is the bowing, how she looks in her diplomatic passport photo, and other pressing matters of statecraft.
Tony, originally meant to be in Osaka, confuses the NBA's obtuse new electronic check-in system by staying in Melbourne to deal with the light rail crisis. There, the government is circling him in its hunt for a fall guy.
"As if we can let you skip the country while we're left dealing with your mess!" a vicious Rhonda snaps. The minister is already speaking like it's all Tony's problem. Jim is busy shredding documents.
And in a maxim for the modern world of public relations, Marcus Patrick tells the NBA: "It doesn't matter what we say, as long as we keep saying it".
READ MORE:
- Utopia season 4, episode 1 recap: The light rail Canberra shouldn't have built?
- Utopia season 4, episode 2 recap: Inside the bored room at One National Circuit, Barton
- Utopia season 4, episode 3 recap: How the public service loses its connection
- Utopia season 4, episode 4 recap: A public service identity crisis
The age of the Teflon-coated leader goes hand-in-hand with the age of alternative facts, after all. Or as US comedian Stephen Colbert once described, we're dealing with "truthiness", when something seems to be true but is not actually, according to known facts.
Tony is like a rabbit in the crosshairs. He errs by protesting too much, cataloging the NBA's early resistance to the light rail misadventure. It all builds a picture for Marcus. It's the wrong one, but it's "truthy".
"You know all I'm hearing here? NBA," he says. Mention the agency enough to him and it must be to blame.
In his scheme, that Japan trip becomes a useful piece of PR staging to protect the minister from blame. The MP ends up flying over, so he can "cut short" his visit to fix the crisis.
Nat flies the many hours to Japan only to stay for another seven in wait of a return flight, having been told she's no longer needed.
The blame game plays out in the only way it can in the world of Utopia. Marcus, Rhonda and Jim well and truly earn their pay and the NBA cops the fall.
It's a smooth ride for some. Ignore that slight bump, though. It's just the government throwing bureaucrats under the tram.