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''Bastard Boys'' is an Australian television
miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. " Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries forma ...
broadcast on the ABC in 2007. It tells the story of the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute. The script, published by Currency Press, won the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best Television Script.


Plot

The series tells the story of the waterfront dispute from four points of view: ''Greg's War'' from the point of view of union leader
Greg Combet Gregory Ivan Combet (; born 28 April 1958) is a former Australian politician and trade unionist. He was Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions between 1999 and 2007. He was elected member for the New South Wales Federal seat of C ...
, ''Josh's War'' from the point of view of lawyer Josh Bornstein, ''Sean's War'' from the point of view of dock worker Sean McSwain and ''Chris' War'' from the point of view of Patrick Stevedores Managing Director Chris Corrigan.


Cast

* Daniel Frederiksen as
Greg Combet Gregory Ivan Combet (; born 28 April 1958) is a former Australian politician and trade unionist. He was Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions between 1999 and 2007. He was elected member for the New South Wales Federal seat of C ...
* Justin Smith as Josh Bornstein * Anthony Hayes as Sean McSwain * Geoff Morrell as Chris Corrigan * Rhys Muldoon as Julian Burnside, QC * Francis Greenslade as Bill Kelty *Mike Bishop as
Peter Reith Peter Keaston Reith (15 July 1950 – 8 November 2022) was an Australian politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1982 to 1983 and from 1984 to 2001, representing the Liberal Party. He was the party's deputy leader from 1990 ...
* Jack Thompson as Tony Tully * Dan Wyllie as Brendan Tully * Lucy Bell as Petra Hilsen *
Colin Friels Colin Friels (born 25 September 1952) is a Scottish-born Australian actor of theatre, TV and film and presenter Early life Friels was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland.Interview with Colin Friels, ''George Negus Tonight'' (ABC Television ...
as John Coombs * Deborah Kennedy as Gwen Coombs * Christopher Widdows as Garry Coombs * Caroline Craig as Tali Bernard * Justine Clarke as Janine McSwain *
Jeremy Kewley Jeremy Leo Kewley (born 16 August 1960) is an Australian actor, writer, producer and convicted child sex offender. He made his professional acting debut as an adolescent in the feature film '' The Devil's Playground'' (1976). Early life Kew ...
as Frank Parry * Kevin Harrington as Derek Corrigan * Helen Thomson as Valerie Corrigan * Anna Lise Phillips as Cherie Snape *Louis Corbett as Joe Corrigan *Richard Heath as Podge


Episodes


Degree of fictionalisation

Most of the characters portrayed are real individuals, many of whom were interviewed in the process of writing the drama. However, a number of characters were invented and events were considerably compressed for dramatic purposes. Notably, the waterside workers portrayed in the drama were composites, based on interviews with many waterside workers. Another example of invention was the placing of lawyer Josh Bornstein at a key protest, which would have been illegal because of a court injunction


Response

Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said in 2006, while the series was still in production, that it "smacks of another example of wasteful spending by the ABC, being used to drive an anti-government, pro-left agenda, conveniently timed to appear during an election year". Journalist Michael Duffy described the series as "the most blatant union propaganda" and was critical that "80 per cent of the story is told from the union point of view". ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory ...
s Debi Enker, however, described it as a "thoughtful, illuminating and superbly cast account of a seminal event in our recent history hichrepresents exactly the kind of drama that one would want the national broadcaster to nurture." Chris Corrigan was heavily critical of the series, stating after its screening that " e 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." Then-Prime Minister
John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the ...
declared the series " e of the most lopsided pieces of political propaganda I've seen on the national broadcaster in years" and argued that it completely ignored the notorious inefficiency of the Australian waterfront and years of collaborative failures to change this. Criticism has also emerged from some members of the union movement. According to Phillip Adams, Bill Kelty was concerned that "no researcher, writer or producer - spoke to him about the dispute or his role in it. Yet they haven't hesitated to put words into their Kelty's mouth that the original Kelty never said". Chris Corrigan's brother Derek Corrigan has disputed claims that the broadcasting of ''Bastard Boys'' was timed to support
Greg Combet Gregory Ivan Combet (; born 28 April 1958) is a former Australian politician and trade unionist. He was Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions between 1999 and 2007. He was elected member for the New South Wales Federal seat of C ...
's run for politics".


Home media

The series has been issued by ABC and
Roadshow Entertainment Roadshow Entertainment (formerly known as Roadshow Home Video from 1982–1993) is an Australian home video, production and distribution company that is a division of Village Roadshow (formerly Roadshow Home Video and Roadshow Entertainment) ...
in their "Masters collection" as a two-DVD set (220 mins), packaged with another Labor-oriented tele-film Curtin (93 mins) as a third disc.


See also

* List of Australian television series


References


External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0772135, title=Bastard Boys Period television series Articles containing video clips 2000s Australian television miniseries 2007 Australian television series debuts 2007 Australian television series endings