Why I cringed as I watched us fawn over Barack Obama

New Zealand’s a wonderful place, sure... but aren’t we over needing to hear it from visitors all the time?

THERE was a time when New Zealand didn’t have three million visitors a year – when we’d be grateful that anyone who came here with a foreign accent would be greeted with a warm smile, rather than a suspicious thought about whether they’re a freedom camper.

Within minutes of leaving the airport, visitors would be greeted with that time-honoured customary Kiwi question: what did they think of New Zealand?

When I was a junior reporter for Auckland’s evening newspaper, one of my jobs would be to wait at the airport with a photographer when we knew that famous people would be flying in.

You only got to stalk them for at the most 90 seconds as they hurried through the airport but it was always enough time to slip in that question.

We wanted to know because deep down we’d wonder why anyone would come here. But also because if they loved the place, then we wouldn’t feel so insecure about living at the bottom of the world, so far from anywhere except Antarctica and Australia.

But that was ye olden days. Now we’re waking up to the fact that actually New Zealand is one of the most desirable countries in the world to visit.

It may not feel like that to the homeless among us, or the increasing number of folk who struggle with the cost of living on these blessed isles. But it is no accident that the world’s wealthy are eyeing us up as the one potential safe spot on Earth when the Apocalypse unfolds.

Like the posters on Murray’s office in Flight of the Conchords read, ‘‘New Zealand Rocks’’. We no longer need to ask visitors what they think of our country, because we know it’s awesome.

So why is it that when particularly high-profile visitors roll into town, we occasionally seem to revert back to that time of Kiwi country cringe?

Barack Obama flew in this week, and he seems to have been the only story in town with second-hand reports of who he talked to, things he said and the odd blurry photo of him playing golf.

Of course he’s not just any old high-profile visitor but the 44th President of the United States and that country’s first black president.

But now he’s just Barack Obama. And, no doubt, he’s an impressive man, whose leadership, integrity, and compassion is magnified even more now, especially when compared with the man who is the 45th US President.

Only two sitting US Presidents have been to New Zealand. Lyndon Johnson came in 1966 to shore up support for the Vietnam War, and Bill Clinton arrived in 1999 for the APEC leaders meeting.

Obama seemed such a nice man, I actually thought he would visit us when he was in charge. But seemingly, despite our impression of our importance to the world, we really don’t register in terms of global usefulness.

Obama was here on a private visit to do a gig. He was – in hiphop parlance – here to make paper. He didn’t owe us any public appearances or any semblance of a charm offensive. It’s not his fault that our media were fawning over his every move.

He’s just living his own awesome life. I just wish media hadn’t made such a big fuss about him being here and made us out to be like a small town again desperate for approval from famous people from overseas.

Obama was – in hip-hop parlance – here to make paper. He didn’t owe us any public appearances.’