One of the hardest things about test cricket for foreigners - particularly Americans - is explaining the idea of a draw. Even harder is explaining the concept of an exciting draw. You know, that two sides can go into a game and emerge roughly equal after a ding-dong battle gladiatorial in its fury.
For mine, this is the essence of Bastard Boys.
There’s already been discussion around the blogosphere about this show, some of it more nuanced than anything in the MSM, which has taken fairly predictable turns. In earlier comments, I made the point that the show would have to succeed as drama, not politics, which would mean an inevitable ‘human interest’ angle. That said, the history is recent, the principals are still alive, and there are widely - and legitimately - differing views of events. Over at Troppo, Chris Sheil made this rather disingenuous comment:
Are all movies on WWII, for example, bound to give equal time to the Nazi side of the story? If someone made a movie of Howard’s government, heaven forbid, must the producers give equal time to the opposition? Where do such political rules about dramatic productions come from?
What this misses is that for all that there are two (or many) possible stories about the Second World War (I know, I wrote one of the less savoury ones), there is only one story that is morally - for the most part - on the side of the angels. That story concerns the Western Allies.
When a story (like the 1998 Waterside dispute) has two ’sides’ that are both conflicting and correct, then - in combination with the factors I raised above - equal time (or at least equal sympathy) becomes vital. Particularly when that story has not previously been reduced to writing, to borrow a lawyer’s phrase. Bastard Boys is so good as drama, and so careful with respect to accuracy, that it almost pulls it off (UPDATE II: Both John Coombs and Chris Corrigan have been very critical of much of the detail; that they are now friends and were - at the time - on opposite sides is cause for concern, and suggests the ABC’s disclaimer was not strong enough). Not quite, but almost. I’ll come to my criticisms later.
The narrative
I suspect that - without careful consultation beforehand - no-one would have been very happy with their portrait (UPDATE: it’s emerging that many of the protagonists are unhappy, not just Bernstein, who complained first). The wharfies are lazy and prone to bullying, turning on the union leader (’Sean’) who disavows violence and only endorsing his actions when he resolves a tense stand-off with both the police and another union. ‘Josh Bernstein’ is the archetypal middle-class Marxist ninny. Of all the main characters, he is reportedly the most unhappy with his portrait, which makes sense. The actor played him well, but as a stereotype.’Greg Combet’ is complex and interesting, in that he is aware that the union movement, if it is to survive, has to move on: ‘you should have lost those conditions years ago’. Still capable of producing Marxist rhetoric at the flick of a switch, or trying to bully with bad language and a very staged ’short fuse’, by the end he is more devoted to the survival of the ‘Union Movement’ as an organisation, rather than to any particular set of values that organisation may once have enshrined. Yet he too can bully, or at least maintain the pretense, although pretense does not always work. When he goes into a paroxysm of swearing at ‘Peter Reith’, the latter does what should be done when confronted with such juvenile behaviour: turn one’s back and walk away calmly.
To serve dramatic purpose - I do not know whether this holds in reality - ‘John Coombs’ and ‘Chris Corrigan’ emerged as flawed men with more integrity than the other major players. Just as Corrigan could not lie in court and would not accept spinelessness from those supposedly ‘on his side’, Coombs refused to allow the MUA ‘myth’ to destroy the body to which he had devoted his life. Both men became stronger and more morally defined as they negotiated, and each came to respect the other. The little detail - included just before the credits - that they often lunched together ‘until recently’ was very telling. One hopes that it wasn’t Bastard Boys that stopped those lunches and mutual respect.
The narrative here was particularly effective. Corrigan had real reason to be afraid: that trade unionists could be thugs was never in doubt. Coombs had real reason to be afraid: his members may well have been well-paid, but most had few skills and little in the way of political or economic knowledge outside one-time visits to a collapsing Soviet Union and dusty volumes of Karl Marx. The pathetic intervention of Corrigan’s unsuccessful brother - so dense as to be unable to find the MUA in the phonebook, and so desperate for his fifteen minutes - also gave a glimpse of the psychology in play where one member of a poor family succeeds against the odds, and yet spends his life fighting against a culture that rewards but does not value excellence. Likewise for ‘Sean’s’ wry observation that ‘capitalism won because it had better music’.
In making the 1998 dispute successful as drama, there were inevitable losses. The most serious - and one that no writer short of a Tolstoy or an Eliot could remedy - was robbing the narrative of context. Several posters in the earlier Catallaxy thread discussed trade union undermining of the Australian war effort, particularly during the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. This quotation, from Hal Colebatch, captures the scale of the problem:
During the whole war, about 6 million working days were lost directly through strikes in Australia, while the number lost indirectly was a considerable multiple of that. About two thirds were after the Curtin government came to power (figures are skewed by a prolonged coal-srrike on the NSW fields early in the war). Ship-building was a paradigm case of unimpressive industrial production. It took in general almost as long, though in some cases longer, to build 800-ton Bathurst-class corvette/minesweepers with engines of 1750 or 2000 horse-power, with a main armament of a single 4-inch or 12-pounder gun, in Australia as it took in America to build 35,000-ton, 150,000-hp. Essex-class aircraft-carriers. The Essex-class carrier Franklin was completed in 14 months - as fast as or faster than half the Bathursts.
Frigates and destroyers laid down during the war were either not completed until the end of the war or after it was over, or were cancelled incomplete. Despite the desperate need, almost no major merchant ships were built. This was in glaring contrast to the performance not only of the US and Britain, but also of Canada. Factories and industries such as aircraft production without a strong tradition of union militancy tended to perform much better.
During Bastard Boys, there was a nod to wharfies refusing to load Menzies’ pig iron, and helping to fight apartheid. I think there was room for one line mentioning undermining the war effort. Not bias as such, but a serious contextual oversight.
‘Julian Burnside’ was correctly portrayed as a commercial lawyer, not a conservative lawyer. He has always been arty, but in a ‘to the manor born’ sense, rather than ideologically sympathetic to leftwing views. That only came after his involvement in the MUA case, and only after he’d safely been silk for some time. The boutique leftism that dabbles in ’social justice’ and ‘refugee rights’ is common among lawyers, even wealthy ones - something I know from my own experience.
The end was very much like that of a thrilling draw: no-one won, but certain crucial things became clear. Industrial relations still has enormous mythical power in this country. Even when people are not members of a union, they tend to have what I would describe as ‘unionised expectations’. For those with broadly antipathetic views of the union movement, this is something that must be acknowledged. Even the heavily regulated, watered-down version of reform in WorkChoices may well prove electoral poison. Australia’s international competitiveness only ‘won’ in 1998 thanks to an odd confluence of the law of insolvency and industrial relations law, to which I will now turn - for those law nerds among Catallaxy’s readership.
The law
With a few minor errors - notably in Corrigan’s oral evidence in the first part - the law involved in the case was handled well. It’s worth revisiting, in part because understanding the law may help to defuse some of the uglier scrapping this topic produces across the ideological divide.
Maritime Union of Australia and Ors v Patrick Stevedores and Ors
The main question for the court was whether the employer (Patrick) had discriminated against its trade union employees (MUA) by effectively dismissing them and replacing them with a non-union workforce.
Patrick leased part of its wharf to non-union wharfies employed by the National Farmers Federation (NFF) and trading as PCS Stevedores. This move was in an attempt to improve efficiency on the wharves and cut handling costs (to support this, Patrick pointed to the previous attempts of both Labour and Liberal governments to reform wharf work practices and make them more productive).
Unbeknown to the unionists, this employment of non-union labour was accompanied by a corporate restructure of the Patrick Group of companies. Essentially, the group’s employer companies sold their stevedoring businesses to another company within the group. Once they ceased stevedoring, their business was reduced to that of a labour hire company. That is, their activities were confined to the supply of the employees’ labour to the other companies within the group. Thus, their only significant asset was their Labour Supply Agreements (LSAs).
Clause 2.3(h) of the LSAs provided that the contractor must ensure that the performance of services are not interfered with or delayed or hindered for any reason. Clause 13.1(b) provided that in the event of a breach of clause 2.3(h), Patrick could terminate the agreement immediately.
In early 1998, there were interruptions in the supply of labour in protest against NFF’s non-union stevedoring activities (viewed by unions as an attempt to de-unionise). These enlivened Patrick’s power to terminate the LSAs. This left the employer companies with no work for their union work force to perform. Most of the employers had no capital (it had been consumed by buying back their own shares from other members of the group in the restructure), and their source of income was taken away by the termination of the LSAs: they were thus put into voluntary administration pursuant to Part 5.3A of the Corporations Act. The Patrick group of companies meanwhile continued to function as stevedores, operating its stevedoring business through PCS, the non-union company.
The MUA sought an injunction to stop the terminations and revive the employment arrangements pending a full hearing of the matter in relation to a breach of s298K of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (a claim that the actions of Patrick were a conspiracy to destroy the union).
Section 298K provides that an employer must not:
- Alter the position of an employee to the employee’s prejudice
- For a prohibited reason, including because the employee is a member of an industrial association that is seeking industrial conditions and is dissatisfied with present conditions.
Justice North in the Federal Court granted the injunction, finding that there was a serious question to be tried:
The provisions leading to termination could be triggered by even a minor work stoppage by some employees. Because such an event was likely to occur, then power to bring about circumstances in which the workforce of the employers could be dismissed was readily available. His Honour stated that the concepts of injury and prejudicial alteration referred to in s298K are concepts of wide operation, capable of referring to the effect of a commercial transaction entered into by an employer which has, or may have, an unfavourable impact on employees.
There was a serious question to be tried as to whether the employers drafted the LSAs the way they did, then appointed administrators because the employees were members of the MUA. In terms of actual evidence, North J relied on a minute to Peter Reith. The minute was prepared in relation to talks between the Minister and stevedoring corporations, including Patrick, on the issue of waterfront reform. The minute included the following words:
What would be needed for the MUA’s influence (…) to be significantly weakened, would be for a range of affected service users and providers to take decisive action to protect or advance their interests (…) stevedores would need to act out well-prepared strategies to dismiss their workforce and replace them with another, quickly, in a way that limited the prospect of, for example, the Commission ordering reinstatement of the current workforce.
It was also noted that service users could take action under the Workplace Relations Act or Trade Practices Act and possibly inflict some financial pain through the award of damages.
Patrick argued that their restructure was for commercial reasons. However, His Honour noted that there was no express denial that the restructure in that form was to facilitate terminations. No explanation of the clauses in the LSAs was given.
Orders were granted as follows:
Patrick was restrained from acquiring stevedoring services from any person other than the employer companies until the hearing, and employer companies were prevented from entering into agreements or transactions, taking any action or doing anything having the effect of terminating the employment of those engaged in their stevedoring business.
On appeal to the High Court, the majority (Brennan CJ, McHugh, Gummow, Kirby and Hayne JJ) partially upheld the Federal Court’s order. That is, if the companies were to trade on, they were to select workers from their original union workforce. However, they also overruled it in part. In Their Honours’ view, the courts had no power to force a company to trade, especially in circumstances where the company had real financial difficulty. Further, it was held that such an order would fetter the discretion of the Voluntary Administrator in contravention of the Corporations Act. The matter was eventually settled and didn’t go to full trial. The MUA workers returned to work, agreeing to productivity increases and redundancies in return for the continuation of their employment on the wharves.
It is worth noting that the High Court judgment still left the MUA vulnerable. It emphasized the voluntary administrator’s discretion. Had the voluntary administrator decided that the business could not continue, the MUA workers would have lost their jobs regardless and seen the destruction of their organisation, complete with its attendant mythos. If that had happened, the conspiracy and anti-union claims would have gone to full trial. However, even if the MUA had won, it would have most likely only led to financial compensation: by the end of the case, the MUA’s practical domination of and existence on the wharves would have been destroyed. Given that the MUA is one of the oldest and most powerful unions in Australia, the repercussions for the rest of the union movement would have been enormously damaging. Those sorts of restructures would have been copied, and a business culture of challenging unions using the courts may well have been enshrined.
Essentially, the union’s fortunes rested on two bases. First, they had to prove the anti-union conspiracy. Second, they had to argue that their pickets were peaceful. Only if the pickets were peaceful would they be legal, and only if the unionists effectively picketed could they stop the new non-union workers from working effectively and making the union workers redundant in practice. The conspiracy case was prima facie established, but only due to what might be regarded as a freakish trail of evidence. If the union hadn’t been able to argue the prima facie conspiracy, they would not have been able to settle the secondary boycott case against them, and would have been financially destroyed.
127 Comments
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Going to bed now. 60,000 words of Our House written. No end in sight.
Wow.
Great post, SL.
“One hopes that it wasn’t Bastard Boys that stopped those lunches and mutual respect.”
It may have something to do with the fact Corrigan doesn’t live in Australia.
“I think there was room for one line mentioning undermining the war effort. Not bias as such, but a serious contextual oversight.”
Fine, but just how much “contextual insight” can one provide in a drama? For example, why not go back further to let’s say the Depression era when workers gathered at the docks to be selected for individual shifts:
“In my first years on the Waterfront we worked according to the “Bull System†or the “Shape Upâ€. All the unemployed wharfies would crowd around outside the gates of the wharf and the foreman would get up so he could see who was there and pick out the ones he wanted to work. It was like the old slave ring.
…….
It was a most degrading system and many of the workers were ready for revolt. But some supported it, the “bulls†and the bosses, with the help of the press were prepared to fight for it. Even some honest workers felt the rotary system, proposed to replace it, would restrict their freedom to choose their jobs and at first opposed the efforts of Jim Healy, Tom Nelson, myself and the other communists and workers who were campaigning to end the “Bull†system.
Two noteworthy wharfies in opposition were Dutchy Young and Ivo Barrett. Later when Dutchy saw the system working, he came out at a stopwork meeting and announced that he had made a mistake and would in future fully support the rotary gang system. Dutchy was for over 30 years a full time official of the union and had support from all sides. He was a great advocate of the united front of the Labor Party and Communist Party members. He won big settlements for members on compensation and was the first union official to win claims for heart failure on the job.
The “Wharfie†quoted the report of Dr. R. McQueen of Macquarie Street, who had examined every wharfie and said in his report;
“The endless search for the infrequent job which would keep them and their families from the precarious borders of malnutrition has taken its devastating toll. The feverish high tension work performed when the job is secured in in order to secure its repetition has been paid for at the shocking price of premature old age and physical calamityâ€. ”
http://www.agitprop.org.au/lefthistory/1979_moran_reminiscences_of_a_rebel.php
The docks became a hot bed of red militancy because historically the workers were treated as expendable objects. How’s that for fuckin’ context?
You’re forgetting one thing, mel. There was suprlus of workers during the depression. And so despite your portestations it was probably a fairer system picking workers by the day than by simple union membership.
Everyone had a sporting chance of getting work for the day instead of it being a closed shop.
You still see workers grouping up together on streets in America looking for day work. They are mostly illegals who are picked up for casual day work. There is no dishonor in this. It’s actually efficient so that workers and hirers can find each other.
Unions created a closed shop in the depression essentially locking out other workers from the chance of getting a day job. it was terrible behaviour and lefties fall for the good unions were supposed to have created. Yea they did, for their membership.
Mel, everyone did it tough in the Depression except for people who kept their jobs at 90% of the pre-Depression award rate. The biggest need, apart from international free trade and more flexibility in wage fixing, was to lift productivity to create more work both upstread and downstream from the worksite. The bull system was desirable in that respect, given that there was not work for eveyone.
The rota system could have worked well to spread the work around except that the union imposed a closed shop, plus violence and intimidation to become an aristocracy of labour with productivity out the window, not to mention theft and sabotage.
All of that has to be seen against the background of the historical mistake of the union movement to go for the strike threat system for win/lose outcomes (the union winning and everyone else losing) instead of other strategies that would have delivered win/win outcomes.
The “bull system” has been used elesewhere, as a teenager thats how I got a lot of work in FNQ. It works well, if you are keen and keep turning up day after day looking tidy your face will be familiar and you are in. Lets face it, I was unskilled labour and had little to offer except grunt so I did OK.
Mel, you should stop bothering others with your twisted version of reality.
Its a
good fairand reasonable appraisal SL; the kicker was the Corporations ActThe Union movement have to understand that companies do not exist for their welfare and for them to plunder.
“fair and reasonable”
Thanks Rog
The legal background is worth knowing about, isn’t it? Amanda over at Club Troppo made the point that she felt the law had been glossed over rather. I didn’t get that impression, but then I know the case very well.
I suspect the legal stuff may have confused people without any background, so with any sort of luck this post will help fill the gap.
To keep perspective on trade union abuses of power it helps to remember that tariff protection perpetuated bad management practices, so managers in protected industries forgot about productivity and the need to put in place systems that reward skill and effort. The unions stepped into the management gap and put in place systems that rewarded membership of strong and reckless unions.
To get anywhere near the whole picture you need to know about the orgins of the trade union mythology, the destructiveness of the radical “us versus them” mentality and the way that the synergy of trade protection and centralised wage fixing did so much damage.
Thanks for that thorough and interesting review. I don’t have a television so I appreciate getting the opportunity to at least read about the show.
As for “us versus them”, well, if you’ve never been in precarious employment or jerked around by your employer, I guess you don’t know what it’s like to be “us”. I’m very proud that my family have always been unionists (grandfather was a shearer in western Queensland).
It wasn’t so much that the law itself had been glossed over — as in I expected a blow by blow account of every clause of the Trade Practices Act and all legal twists and turns — but that the drama inherent in it had been squandered. The basic legal issues were there, but I remember the tension in the lead up to the North decision and then appeals. A party I was at completely stopped as people crowded around the telly for coverage of the verdict. I was disappointed this aspect, purely from a narrative and dramatic point of view , seemed rushed through.
A business leader’s position can be equally precarious, as Corrigan’s response to the banking group underwriting Patrick showed. Both labour and capital positions involve taking risk, the latter usually more than the former. As Rafe points out, protectionism undermines management’s ability to bear risk. Trade unionism can have the same effect on labour.
I think Rafe has importantly pointed out the nefarious link between management and protectionism that allowed the old IR system to exist. If a manufacturer can knock back a unions 10 % wage claim, pay 7% (which is what everyone understood to be the real claim) and pass the costs on to consumers (and get the tariff jacked up if neccessary), then there is no incentive to manage well.
It is interesting in this regard that so few of the household name Australian companies around in the period before, say 1990, are still listed on the ASX- this would suggest that competition played its part and the market weeded them out.
I watched the latter part of the second episode.
It seems some people who regularly ‘write’ on this blog got it completely wrong.
The characters I thought came out the best were Corrigan and Coombs. no surprise their respect for each other turned into friendship and both Combet and Coombs wondered how they could sell reform to the workers who didn’t want it.
Well written and well acted.
Damned fine series. Did any of the critics even watch the series?
Well, I think you’ll have to conclude I did, Homer. I think that’s reasonably plain
No, you wrote a work of fiction, which is not the same thing at all (and not in the same way defensible) as writing a factual narrative.
I wasn’t mentioning you SL as I pretty well agree with you.
Pre-watching I was being led to believe Corrigan was the devil incarnate and all the wharfies were stirring people of substance.
From what I watched nothing was further from the truth
Apparently Kelty watched the program, he wants to sue the ABC! (dont tell Homer, he still believes in 1994)
“…He said Bastard Boys was historically inaccurate and “there is nothing in it about me that’s true. I’m not precious about it, so long as people don’t think that it’s real and that it really happened”.
Mr Corrigan, the bete noire of the story, called it “a boring tale of class warfare” filled with “predictable stereotypes and silly caricatures”.
“The producers originally told me they weren’t making a boring tale of class warfare but the production serves it up in spades,” he said in comments emailed to the Crikey website.
“The program portrays a series of predictable stereotypes and silly caricatures and gives them real names then cleverly claims to be a drama and hence does not explore any inconvenient truths such as the impact of the waterfront rorts on ordinary Australians. I will be surprised if anyone other than welded-on members of the industrial Left can survive four hours of this tedium.”
Mr Kelty’s criticism was backed yesterday by former Maritime Union of Australia leader John Coombs, who said the former ACTU secretary had been made to look “like the village idiot”, while his own role as MUA national secretary had also been “significantly downgraded” and he had been made to look like an industrial dinosaur.
Mr Coombs said Mr Kelty, whom he considered “one of the smartest blokes in this country”, would never have said anything to then ACTU assistant secretary, now secretary, Greg Combet as puerile as “Don’t f..k it up”.
The criticisms follow that of union lawyer Josh Bornstein, who has said several scenes in the drama did not happen and that he was concerned they could damage him professionally…”
I think that protectionism was significant during the depression. However it’s worth noting also that during WWI Britian took the pound sterling off the gold standard. This created significant price inflation as the value of the pound relative to real world good declined. With a fix to the British pound the Australian pound also declined in value. In 1925 Churchill (not yet PM but then a minister) implemented a new gold standard at the pre WWI rate of conversion with gold. This reality could only be achieved in the market place with significant monetary contraction and price deflation which would have hit debtors extremely hashly (the real value of their debt suddenly rising sharply). Such deflations almost universally lead to cost cutting and bankruptcy as firms restructure to cope with the imposition of new artificial debt loads or close down to escape the associated contracts. This one was extra painful because it was followed by the onset of global protectionism that meant it was near impossible for people to trade their way out of the crisis. I am a huge advocate of the gold standard but Churchills restoration was exceedingly naive and coupled with US inspired protectionism the human cost was dire. That unionists not versed in the details of economics should lose faith in the established economic order at such times is hardly surprising. It is hard for any man to be reasonable when his kids go to sleep hungry.
I’m surprised at this postmodern kumbaya business about both sides being equally correct. What nonsense. The wharfies were in the wrong and deserved to be crushed. Simple as that.
Well written and well acted. Damned fine series.
So it was prejudiced, thanks Homer.
CL Homer isnt prejudiced at all, he is divinely inspired, he only had to watch the latter part of the second episode to form an opinion.
jimmythespiv,
I think you have a large amount of it right - the worst part of protectionism (of any sort) is the laziness it induces. Why work hard when it does not pay? It is easier to sit on your bum. The companies and the unions, many of whom had real pricing power, found that strategy rewarding and the rest of the country were the real losers.
rog, it wasn’t hard to see your prognostications about the series were completely astray from merely watching 5 minutes!!.
CL shows like young Jase he too doesn’t understand what kumbayaa ( err and it is impossible for it to be post-modern) is all about. I don’t know how anyone could call it that but still I am sure Bill Clinton was to blame.
Actually I though Kelty was looking awful in the series.
Kumbaya:
Ironic usage: “Though the song was originally associated with unity and closeness, it is now often referenced sarcastically to connote a blandly pious and naively optimistic view of the world and human nature”.
Homer’s a literal-minded soul as most evangelicals are. Don’t expect him to concede, CL.
There are three ways to view the protagonists’ complaints. Bernstein was first cab off the rank, but it now seems everyone has come out as cheesed off. (Apart from Combet, who was far more unsympathetic as a character than Coombs. Interesting).
1. When they were consulted during the production process, the principals believed that the story they told would be the story the drama told (and it was a drama - significant parts were fictionalised, as was admitted at the beginning of each episode). If so, this is very naive. To make an industrial dispute into engaging television that works as a drama, then inevitably there will be compression, a focus on human interest elements (it got a bit soapie in spots, that I grant).
2. The representation really was so wide of the mark as to be laughable. This is possible, particularly as the whinges are bipartisan, and - significantly - come from both Coombs and Corrigan, who we now know to be friends IRL.
3. The show was good enough to please no-one and to offer succour to no particular side. This is also a possibility; everyone knows how they would prefer to be viewed in retrospect, and constructs their recollections accordingly. When someone else looks through the retrospectoscope, that (alternative) view can be very disconcerting.
I don’t know which of the three is most likely.
And yes, Bill Kelty’s wig was pretty disturbing, particularly as it kept moving further forward during the course of the show. He had quite the emo look there by the end.
CL #22
“The wharfies were in the wrong and deserved to be crushed. Simple as that.”
Completely correct. But part of their culture of refusing to change was a relic of the cosy arrangements of th 50s, 60s and 70s, where IR arrangments were in fact cosy between protected industries and unionised labour and the consumer siffered. I’m not defending their right to be belligerant, though. It’s just that the sequencing of economic reform under Labor meant that they left the hard job (waterfront reform, AWAs etc) to the Libs, with predictable results. Even Combet could see this.
young Jase those two views are in conflict and it doesn’t matter which one you take you still cannot apply it to the mini-series.
SL agree on Kelty’s wig. He never wore a watch as he claimed he was always working!!
“Thanks for that thorough and interesting review. I don’t have a television so I appreciate getting the opportunity to at least read about the show.
As for “us versus themâ€, well, if you’ve never been in precarious employment or jerked around by your employer, I guess you don’t know what it’s like to be “usâ€. I’m very proud that my family have always been unionists ”
(grandfather was a shearer in western Queensland).
Hey Darlene stop kidding us that employers are the only jerkoffs.
My family has had a business for 40 years. I don’t participate but i hear a lot about about it.
They place adds in papers, people accept the job and then don’t turn up on the day they said. So they have to run jobs adds again.
Stop trying to create th eimpression that it is just employers who are jerkoffs. pound for pound I reckon employees in the low skilled area are the biggest jerkoffs from what i hear. Their unreliability is horrendous.
Get this straight., people are people. There is good employers and there are bad ones. There are good wrokers and there are terrible ones. You generally don’t need unions to protect good workers becasue they are worth their weight in gold bars from what I understand.
Chris Sheil made this rather disingenuous comment … What this misses is that for all that there are two (or many) possible stories about the Second World War (I know, I wrote one of the less savoury ones), there is only one story that is morally - for the most part - on the side of the angels. That story concerns the Western Allies. When a story (like the 1998 Waterside dispute) has two ’sides’ that are both conflicting and correct, then - in combination with the factors I raised above - equal time (or at least equal sympathy) becomes vital.
My comment was not “disingenuous”. On the contrary, I would argue that your comment is historiographically naive. You are, of course, entirely free to judge a representation according to your own political preferences, or according to what you believe is “the side of the angels”, but there is no such political or moral obligation on historians, let alone on drama writers. The only serious professional requirement for historians, as distinct from writers of drama, is that they are fathful to their sources. The choice of a historian’s focus knows no test of political correctness in the world outside the ex-Soviet Union.
Which prognostications Homer?
Come on, list them!
How does the ABC stand legally - if it was “drama” then why use names of real people?
As they are all very much not dead they could get a little testy - they could say that they have been defamed.
I do apologise rog you are correct you did not make any.
It was the others who were inaccurately precipitate in their view.
P.S.
This is no Bill Heffernan apology either
This is really warming up. From today’s Crikey:
And Chris, lighten up. People are gunna disagree about this stuff.
My comment was not “disingenuousâ€.
It may not be, but it certainly is biased, Chris. I do accept that you aren’t even aware of it.
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Well yes that’s true. However when the writers are using real people’s names and real events that happened within “earshot†it’s always a good idea to keep a steady unbiased hand unless it is spelled out before hand. There is also that niggling problem you seem to want to ignore: the ABC has a direct and specific requirement to be even handed seeing it is taxpayer funded. Now you may not like that but that’s how it is. There is nothing to stop you and several pals funding a revisionist history of the period and trying to sell it on the prviate market.
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Fair enough, but as I said there is also the added requirement that the ABC remain faithful to its charter. It didn’t seem like it was keeping to that objective.
By the way would you use the same argument to support Keith Windschuttle’s historical points?
——————————–
SL didn’t say she wanted to see political correctness displayed on the screen. She argued for accuracy and no slant. I think you are acting confused here, CS.
CS, Seriouly, don’t you think there would be better causes to support in such a biased way than the MUA?
I was not commenting on the ABC’s charter - knock yourself out JC.
And I am light. I was merely making a professional correction to the reference to my comment in the post. IAm I am not allowed to make a correction? The issue is straightforward. There is no obligation for a historian to focus on this or that or whatever ’side’. Historian’s can focus on whatever they wish, free from political appeal. What is on the “side of the angels” in one person’s view may not be in another’s; what will be on the side of the angels in one century may not be in the next century. Of course people are going to disagree about that stuff. Where there should not be disagreement is that the only obligation the historian must be faithful to is the sources.
actually I think Corrigan’s background both helped him and then made the problem.
He was superb as the driving force behind BT.
however he could not fathom the differences in the workforce.
The Wharfies were never the unified force they were made out to be.
For example the boys in Townsvile I think thought they bludged down in Sydney.
Corrigan should never have sacked all of them.
He just never understood there were some, perhaps a lot, who were jack of the old practices and the rest.
They were prime targets for different means of remuneration.
Historians are obliged to be faithful to the truth, not their sources. Of course they’re free to focus their researches on one aspect of an event. They are not free, however, to present that narrower focus as a reliable version of the narrative whole. They should also be prevented from receiving public monies - especially if they insist on presenting a biased and factually distorted account of controversial episodes or personalities. We have now seen such hagiographic and ridiculous ABC productions about the Petrov Affair (the hilarious True Believers), Pig-Iron Jack Curtin (aka Macarthur’s Poodle) and now the waterfront. All, in their own ways, were part of the left’s endless war on the truth.
Northerners - especially, in my experience, Townsvilleans - think all workers in Sydney are bludgers. Poor evidence of a vast and underappreciated wing of reasonable moderates within the wharfies’ fraternity, Homer. Good enough for Christopher’s footnotes, though.
CS
I don’t know how you can separate historical fact and the bias displayed in the program funded by the taxpayer. I just don’t see how you can do this.
I thought history was about facts. In other words if the MUA are a bunch of thugs, they are a bunch of thugs. If you want to disprove that we are all ears. However I don’t think the ABC is the place to show bias. You obviously do.
I am also at a sort of loss in understanding what you are driving at. Everything to do with the post and your comment related back to the ABC/Combet love connection.
Of course historians can give their own politcal slant on issues that matter to them. No one for instance says the ALP’s revisionist history should be disallowed. Go ahead, paint Whitlam as St. Gough if you want, but please don’t do that on our dime.
Historians are obliged to be faithful to the truth, not their sources. Of course they’re free to focus their researches on one aspect of an event. They are not free, however, to present that narrower focus as a reliable version of the narrative whole.
Not bad, but ultimately flawed. You could not fit the history of a single day into a book, let alone into a 4 hour tele-drama. All written history is necessarily selective. No history book can ever be large enough to contain the “whole” history of anything.
Historians must be faithful to the sources. I take it you agree with this CL, but are positing a higher value, with which I would also agree - yet, it is of course a far more difficult presumption to test compared to the former, which holds regardless.
JC, I am doing no more than technically correcting Helen’s comment that I was being disengenuous in the comment she quoted. I wasn’t, and I think her own criteria is based on her own politics and historiographically naive. Fair enough, but that does not make me disingenuous. My advice to my students is that they can write the history of whatever the hell they want to write the history of from whatever the hell perspective they want to write it from. My only interest is in helping them to do whatever the hell they do well. My advice to you JC would be to lay off the drugs.
HUH?!!!!
I was just talking about primitive Neanderthal economists who don’t understand economics on another thread.
Like saying Beetlejuice three times.
Any reason for the abuse, CS?
You say:
“My advice to my students is that they can write the history of whatever the hell they want to write the history of from whatever the hell perspective they want to write it from.”
You also say:
Where there should not be disagreement is that the only obligation the historian must be faithful to is the sources.
————-
So I guess it’s anything goes in the modern form of teaching history. Maybe I am old fashioned having been at uni a long time ago, but my understanding of writing history is that it’s gathering the facts and interpreting the information in a sensible and reasonable manner.
Remaining true to the sources means that the historian should not question the information offered up by the source.
This is where we end up with the lies and distortions.
Why do we need historians then when a good journalist researcher would be better at gathering up the facts from the sources?
Sorry but you’re not making sense.
So I guess it’s anything goes in the modern form of teaching history
Frightning isn’t it! But yes, it’s really true JC.There’s no political correctness in my classes pal. No sirreee chum. There’s no one true line for the kids to follow. The Soviet Union is gone, in case you have forgotten. If you can support your argument, any old argument you like (that’s what we historians call freedom - cope) with diligent, rigorous reference to the primary sources, you do well.
If you’re still having trouble comprehending this brave new world of free thinking, just email me where you live and I’ll send some of my wharfie mates round to explain it to you.
First the accusation of drug use, now the physical threat, CS. My, my, university teaching has come a long way. What next? Knuckle dusters in the pockets of faculty.
I think you understand the point I’m making here as you’re a very bright guy with the formal qualifications to match.
I mentioned right at the beginning that using real names and events in a programme that attempts to narrate an important part of modern history on a publicly funded broadcaster carries some need to be historically accurate.
You seem to think it doesn’t, which to my way of thinking is problematic.
You seem to think that anything goes as long as the narrator is being true to their beliefs. You see the cul de sac here don’t you? Public broadscasting is not the place for biased drivel.
Apart from the fact that this post is now producing some really interesting ads in the sidebar (seriously, go check em out), I think this is rather getting away from the point… now what was the point again? Aha. I’ve got it. The difference between interpreting a piece of history that’s been done to death (WWII) as opposed to a piece of history that is being presented - as history - to a wider audience for the first time.
I think it’s reasonably clear that demanding equal time for the Nazis is pointless. Let’s face it, if you have to be told Nazism is evil, then the national moral compass is seriously screwy.
The Patricks case is different, as would be Chris’ second scenario, that of a docudrama concerning John Hunt the Coward’s time in power. Any documentary that did not focus almost equally strongly on the opposition would be an utter failure, if only because it would rob the program of any explanatory power. Howard does not stand alone; there’s a confluence of factors behind his longevity and the Labor Party’s long run in opposition.
FWIW, I actually liked Bastard Boys - as I think my post makes clear. However, I do not think it is either possible or reasonable to pretend that recent history - like the Waterfront Dispute - can be treated in the same way as an event like one of the World Wars. In a sense, for all that the show is a fine piece of art, I am now concerned by its status as ‘docudrama’. Threading through the possibilities I outlined in comment 28 is a nightmare.
Maybe it would be better to call it fiction and be done with it, although the people it portrays could then be legitimately pissed off at what amounts to a peculiar variety of roman a clef. Here, we know who all the people are supposed to be, and so do they, but they’re not those people. They’re fictions. What a conundrum!
Some good history for Christopher to study.
JC, the ABC can no longer be salvaged on the bias phenomenon. It should probably be sold. When the national broadcaster’s flagship current affairs programme produces candidates for the Labor Party, the shark has been well and truly jumped. What next? A telemovie on Rudd?
Let’s call it “Dork in The Road”.
Precis for Part One, ‘Car Boot Blues’: Bert Rudd (played by Jack Thompson) crashes his car because of the exhaustion brought on by having helped a poor woman motorist - better, a poor black lesbian single mother - push-start her old V-Dub on the way to the women’s shelter. Later in hospital, Bert is assassinated on the orders of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Aubrey Lowe’s evil money-grubbing wife - played by Rowena Wallace - boots the Rudds out on the street soon after. Little Kev farewells his siblings in a speech on the footpath, holding a teddie-bear: “Wherever you can look - wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad…”
CL, that’s cruel, but funny. You should bring out that comic talent more often
Sl
I know someone portayed in that show who is nothing like s/he was shown.
I know some of the stories that went on that forced those actions that were barely touched on.
It was a publicly funded docudrama made to revise history in a way that disgusied an essentially thuggish group as holders of the freedom cup for the worker.
As Chris Corrigan said… to paraphrase
‘No one told the story of how a bunch of socialists were costing the average Australian more in what they had to pay every time something went through the wharves. No one told the story of how a bunch of socialists were holding this country to ransom.’
That was never told.
All our living standards were raised as a result of those actions and Chris C deserves a friggen medal for having the guts to try to make a change for the better. He is the true revolutionary, not the twit who went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon.
That side was never offered to the viewer.
You seem to think that anything goes as long as the narrator is being true to their beliefs.
Being true to the the sources, clot (excuse me, but sometimes you do have to worry about who you are arguing with, when you restate several times).
Helen, that standard is curious. Nor do I think the Howard case works. Would you give equal time to all the opposition leaders that he faced, or count all the opposition leaders as one? If you had flashbacks to him growing up with his family, would you give equal time to the opposition leader(s) growing up? The whole notion of political balance in this context looks preposterous. Any decent historian or dramatist would follow the story, and hang whatever political correctness someone else wanted to insert, surely.
Why can’t I produce a recent history story anyway that I like, provided it is properly described as what it is for consumer purposes, and if I get a market and an audience, good luck to me? Who or how do you enforce such a ‘balance’ standard in the creative arts? An arts regulator? Or is it just a personal preference, which is of course fair enough … I’ll just make a mental note not to pitch adventurous recent history scripts in your direction.
Chris
Stop behaving so poorly please as you’re far more intelligent than that. All I’m trying to do is understand how you teach kids. That’s all.
What does ‘being true to your sources’ mean? How do you qualify such an astonishing statement?
Does that mean that if you’re being told a whopper you absorb the bullshit and incorporate it into the research, treating it as though it’s authentic? I see no room for critical thinking here CS
Serious question here, as I’m trying to understand how history is being taught.
Seems that we have facts known and unknown and we have the story, the history.
Another point worth making is that Bastard Boys is a big tick in favour of the ABC.
Our commercial stations are incapable of producing drama that could generate this level of interest.
Moreover, on a ratings per dollar spent basis, ABC TV and most of its radio stations are actually far more efficient than the commercial alternatives. Fancy that.
Thank God for the ABC.
“Our commercial stations are incapable of producing drama that could generate this level of interest.”
So why maintain it in public hands. You seem to think it doesn’t need the hand of government to continue its viability.
I would suggest that it isn’t always true around the world. The best original progaming in the world is made by HBO America as far as I am concerned. HBO is a channel that gets all its revenue from cale subscription.
Moreover, on a ratings per dollar spent basis, ABC TV and most of its radio stations are actually far more efficient than the commercial alternatives. Fancy that.
All the more reason to privatise it. But please explain how you arrive at this conclusion. What’s the evidence amd how do you determine efficiency?
Being faithful to sources is all very well, but some sources are very defective, like the standard histories of the industsrial revolution produced by labour historians like the Hammonds, Cole and the Webbs. Sources need to be probed for accuracy and consistency, but of course that may be what cs meant.
Rafe says:
“Sources need to be probed for accuracy and consistency, but of course that may be what cs meant.”
And of course you have done this yourself, haven’t you? I mean you’ve scrupulously checked all the pertinent historical documents regarding the industrial revolution and arrived at a conclusion that isn’t distorted by your own personal biases.
In a word yes….. he has acutally, Mel.
Ask any question you like on that subject and Rafe will have the answer. Seriously
“Sources need to be probed for accuracy and consistency..”
Mel doesnt bother
Mel, when I started to take an interest in these things I carried all the left-wing baggage that is perpetuated in most of the books about history and economics that I encountered for many years.
Some of the books that took a different line made more sense, and the more I probed for accuracy and consistency, the less the left wing line stood up. I have not found a significant rejoinder to Hutt’s findings on industrial relations and trade unionism. Hardly anyone that I know beyond very limited think tank circles had ever even heard of Hutt before I started to put his stuff about.
My personal bias is towards helping the poor and the weak, and that is much the same as Bill Hutt so far as I can make out.
“Moreover, on a ratings per dollar spent basis, ABC TV and most of its radio stations are actually far more efficient than the commercial alternatives. Fancy that.”
With the caveat being that most of the ABC’s ratings come from their children’s programming, which is also probably the cheapest to produce and the most profitable in terms of merchandising.
In other words, Play School and Bananas in Pyjamas prop up all the other bullshit the ABC shows, all of which rates terribly - with the exception of the News and the 7:30 report.
I used to enjoy Play School but now I prefer the Muppets and Futurama. Maybe that is just because the children have grown up.
By the way, the Count now has a raunchy Countess, is that the intrusion of Reality TV into the world of kid stuff?
I have to say the stuff Rafe has written on the trade union movement stands up to scrutiny when you analyse it, Steve. Most members of my family were unionists of one sort or another; two family members were heavily involved, one up to president of a major regional Trades and Labour Council.
Like him I originally bought the mythology in my youth; like him I discovered that unionists merely wanted to get away with the sort of stuff that business isn’t allowed to try on (like secondary boycotts and monopsony with respect to the provision of labour).
I dont think Bastard Boys rated too well, way behind Robbing Hood on Sunday and dropped below the horizon on Monday.
Sunday
1. 60 Minutes Nine 1.549
2. Seven News Seven 1.460
3. Where Are They Now Seven 1.383
4. National Nine News Nine 1.349
5. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.315
6. Grey’s Anatomy Seven 1.258
7. Ugly Betty Seven 1.154
8. ABC News ABC 1.127
9. CSI: Miami Nine 1.114
10. Big Brother – Eviction Ten 1.085
11. Robin Hood ABC 1.035
12. Rove Ten 1.004
13. Bastard Boys ABC 0.972
14. The Lost Tribes Nine 0.971
15. Big Brother – 6:30pm Ten 0.930
Monday
1. Seven News Seven 1.685
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.571
3. A Current Affair Nine 1.432
4. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.381
5. National Nine News Nine 1.337
6. Home and Away Seven 1.319
7. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.293
8. The Rich List Seven 1.237
9. Temptation Nine 1.154
10. Big Brother – Live Nomination Ten 1.129
11. What’s Good For You Nine 1.079
12. ABC News ABC 1.060
13. Big Brother – 7:00pm Ten 1.049
14. CSI: NY Nine 1.005
15. Brothers & Sisters Seven 1.003
You paint an overly simplistic picture, SL.
The starting point for a more reasoned position is an examination of the history prior to unionization.
Moreover, I do accept that unions have the potential to be highly destructive.
What destroys the Libertarian argument on unions is the empirical evidence. The Nordic countries have unionization rates of 80%-90% yet they offer a superior standard of living for working folk than largely non-unionized countries like the US.
All 5 Nordic countries are in the UN HDI’s top 15 positions.
http://hdr.undp.org/
Mel
They are going broke and spending their capital on consumption. Even for rich countries, you can do it for while but it will end some time.
They’re not rich Mel, they’re well off but not rich. The US is rich by per capita standards. 43K vs 29 k. US/Sweden.
Cross country comparisons are just about meaningless due to the number of confounding factors. You need to do historical studies plus situational analysis.
According to Hutt, some of the trade unions picked up from the old guilds which had privileges granted by the crown and their main aim in life was to keep those benefits regardless of the cost to the community and to other workers. Extracts from the Webbs suggests that they realised this was the case but in their capacity as apologists for the trade union movement they did not follow through to admit the consequences. Although during the Great Depression Sydney Webb in private referred to the unionists as “greedy pigs” sabotaging the nation.
“Cross country comparisons are just about meaningless due to the number of confounding factors. You need to do historical studies plus situational analysis”
That’s a cop out Rafe, That’s why economics can never be a science under the hard-core Austrians. Other factors can adjusted for using good econometric techniques.
“They’re not rich Mel, they’re well off but not rich.”
Here we go again. Mel specifically says “they offer a superior standard of living for working folk” and you have predictably confused that for a measure of wealth.
“they’re well off but not rich”
I don’t know if anyone else would ever suggest the Nordic countries aren’t rich countries. That you do so is a trifle bizarre.
JC is obviously drunk on Ouzo again.
Here’s what the latest IRS figures tell us about the US, as related by Delong:
“The IRS has released yesterday the preliminary stats for year 2005 …. 2005 shows a very large increase in income concentration: the top 1% gains 14% in real terms from 2004 while the bottom 99% gains less than 1% (when including capital gains).”
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/03/emmanuel_saez_w.html
I’m sure the tens of millions of US workers who rely on food stamps are over the fucking moon about how well the billionaires are doing.
Christ you people are dishonest arseholes.
“Christ you people are dishonest arseholes.”
Mel
Have you ever been to the US?
Do you think the fact that there are 11 million illegals could possibly have an effect on wages growth for the less skilled.
Food stamps by the way are given out to ensure people don’t spend their money on hard liquor.
“2005 shows a very large increase in income concentration: the top 1% gains 14% in real terms from 2004 while the bottom 99% gains less than 1% (when including capital gains)”
Mel
This in America is called total factor “Income” For the higher income earners this is now more frequently paid through stock options.
As you have noticed stocks has done magificently over the past few years Mel. You know this.
So Brad De Short’s commentary leaves this part out. No surprise here seeing he is friendly with the faux economist.
Don’t get caught up in this crap Mel. Ask Jase, Birdie, Rafe or me to help you understand economics a little more.
We’re here to help fellas like you and ratfingers.
Income gains includes capital growth, doesnt mean that the poor are getting less income just that the rich are getting richer through capital growth eg shares, land value etc.
And you can ask Rog too.
After a busy day photo shooting and preening in front of the mirror the resident male model- Rat fingers – decides he wants to talk economics.
I says:
They’re not rich Mel, they’re well off but not rich.â€
Derik Zoolander Says:
Here we go again. Mel specifically says “they offer a superior standard of living for working folk†and you have predictably confused that for a measure of wealth.
I says
“they’re well off but not richâ€
Derik Zoolander says
I don’t know if anyone else would ever suggest the Nordic countries aren’t rich countries. That you do so is a trifle bizarre.
Zoolander:
I’m talking about rich in an income sense. AS in income wealthy.
Look Derik, let’s get this straight once and for all. The US is a very large regionalized nation. It’s wrong to compare say a smallish European nation with all of the US. It is far more accurate to look and compare the US to all of the EU in order to get a better comparison. If you want to compare say sweden it would be best to compare it to say CT or Mass to allow for some comparable measure. If we do that Sweden comes off very badly. CT has a median income of around $62,000 with about 3% unemployment. Sweden is hanging in there at about $29,000. Sweden compares very unfavourably with the poorest areas of the US like say Alabama or Louisiana. The poorest areas of the EU like Greece or Portugal compare terribly with the poorer areas of the US.
Chris Corrigan has a thoughtful piece in the Australian. That he and Coombs are both unhappy speaks volumes; I suspect the show is probably best viewed as fiction, which means it was something of a missed opportunity.
I found Helen’s review very disappointing. She is usually far more astute than she portrays herself to be here.
In this morning’s Oz Chris Corrigan gives a devastating, well written self-defence and provides revealing truths that many people have chosen to ignore in the revival of this nine-year old story. (Link in comment #79)
It’s very clear that Helen’s claim that the drama was “so careful with respect to accuracy†is plainly wrong, a fact Corrigan amply demonstrates. Certainly her claim that the episode “has two ’sides’ that are both conflicting and correct†is nonsense.
As Duffy explained in the SMH on Saturday (link in the review’s second paragraph) bias abounds. Helen at least points to one of them - “there was room for one line mentioning undermining the war effort. Not bias as such, but a serious contextual oversightâ€, although her claim that this wasn’t a result of serious bias is disingenuous (to use her own word). Her anxiety to be “fair†resulted in her being totally unfair