"One of the most lopsided pieces of political propaganda I've seen on the national broadcaster in years" Howard told a business lunch in Cairns.
More interesting is the broad support for the series:
Mike Carlton (Sydney Morning Herald):
Bastard Boys, the ABC's drama about the 1998 waterfront war, has aroused the entirely predictable fury of the ABC-haters. Their attack has been two-pronged. One, to sneer that the show was a turgid melodrama and a waste of money. Two, to screech that the whole thing was a nefarious left-wing conspiracy to damage the Howard Government in this election year.
Me, I thought it was terrific. On a technical level, it was elegantly directed and shot: for one thing, it takes high cinematographic art to light an entire dockyard at night. The script hummed along, with appropriate moments of tension and light relief. Writers and actors did a masterful job of capturing the authentic cadences of Australian dialogue.
Having spent some time covering that brawl between Patrick and the Maritime Union, I'm also prepared to say that, allowing for reasonable dramatic licence, Bastard Boys got the story about right. If anything, the Howard Government escaped rather lightly.
Playwright Stephen Sewell:"Bastard Boys is drama. It might be drama about real events, but it is still drama. It is not a news report, it is not a documentary, and the standards of fairness and balance that might apply to those media have never applied to drama. Where is the balance in Macbeth? Who would ask Tom Keneally to give a more rounded and sympathetic portrayal of the Nazis in Schindler's List? Drama springs from passion and determination to tell a good story exploring the themes of what it is to be a human being in a world of conflict. And as soon as authorities - whether Government or Church - start telling writers and artists how to practice their art, that's when it ceases to be art and turns instead into propaganda."
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