Could it be that:
(a) right-wingers are a verbose lot, or
(b) it takes rather more words to present a well-thought out case than a glib cliche or two?

I’m dismayed that we have strayed from the essential topic of Combet’s hotness though. I hope the posse of southern baptists currently styling his hair get the chop soon.

Mr Howard today told a business lunch in Cairns the series was: “One of the most lopsided pieces of political propaganda I’ve seen on the national broadcaster in years.”

“It completely ignored the fact that the Australian waterfront was notoriously inefficient and all of the collaborative attempts that had been made over the years to change that had failed,” he said.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21749740-5005361,00.html

There was a number of dimensions that could have been gone into in greater detail, and one of them is the practices and labour relations that prevailed on the wharves pre-Corrigan. But the chosen method of telling the story in the form of the “war” from four personal perspectives does get inside the story pretty well IMHO and allows us to appreciate the many dimensions of the affair. And it’s all-consuming nature plus it’s implications for institutional arrangements and how we do business as a civilised country, making the ‘war’ notion very apt.

Corrigan’s comments add to our understanding, but we have to see it as his perspective and just hold it there as such. In itself it has created a new imbalance in perceptions and interpretation which ideally should be complemented by similar accounts from the other main protagonists.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21743662-7583,00.html

What upset Bill didn’t come across to me in the discussion with Phillip Adams other than that he seemed to think that John Coombs should be given sole credit for the union success, meaning he doesn’t think much of Combet.

I can see why Kelty feels a bit shirty, though.

Yeah. That wig the Kelty character was wearing was surely libellous…
Cheers…

Thank goodness clean living Duffy-folk like Alistair “B****** Boys” C appreciate where I was coming from. Wowsers really turn me on.

I’ve been too were too slackly organised & run to result in a beating for anyone

The noose that used to hang above the chair’s table in the AWU’s meeting room in the old Dunstan House on Queen St probably concentrated some minds, Tony.

I saw it with my own eyes, and it’s very clearly shown in photos of the meeting of the QCE where Vince Gair argued against his expulsion from the Labor Party in 1957.

Doc, my little brush with “direct action” was after a CFMEU meeting on a (large, closed-shop) building site - I’ve never been to an MUA meeting, so you may we be right. The AWU meetings I’ve been too were too slackly organised & run to result in a beating for anyone, and with the AMWU, the members generally didn’t want to spend a lot of time sitting around talking anyway. But the FED’s never liked being crossed, and they scared the shit out of me - I thought they were going to kill me.

Alastair C: Look, I may be in a minority here (on this website) but I am quite worried that ABC-TV should be broadcasting (in the guise of a docudrama) several hours of “priceless PR� for a chap who’s a parliamentary candidate, a few months before the election.

I guess the facts that

(a) the ABC has a mandate to show a certain amount of Australian-produced drama per annum, of which there is a shamefully short supply;

(b) this drama was commissioned long before anyone knew Greg Combet was going to be a candidate in the upcoming election;

mean nothing to the arching narrative of your conspiracy theory.

I was astounded to think that Duffy saw Combet collecting his daughters from daycare as some sort of special pleading to attract women’s votes. Obviously in Howard-world, men never should take any responsibility for co-parenting.

Duffy obviously missed that the pickups etc were all part of a shared custody arrangement following a divorce/separation, too. I know all too many couples with shared custody arrangements who organise handoffs around childcare because it minimises the number of times they have to interact face to face, and both the mother and the father in such custody situations would rather pick up their children themselves than ask the new partner to do it, unless absolutely necessary, because nobody ever feels they see enough of their kids in such situations, no matter how “fair” the custody arrangements have been.

Nothing especially SNAGgy about it, just one of those things that happens when relationships fall apart.

Look, I may be in a minority here (on this website) but I am quite worried that ABC-TV should be broadcasting (in the guise of a docudrama) several hours of “priceless PR” for a chap who’s a parliamentary candidate, a few months before the election.

I agree:
* Dads should share the child-rearing load
* jobs shouldn’t be so all-consuming that family & recreation get squeezed out

and

* sacking an entire workforce is a low act,
let alone
* training replacement staff overseas, secretly

but nonetheless, I thought the docudrama failed the test of realism.

It was too slanted: Corrigan was a cartoon character, and for a few seconds was played as a comedic gem - [bring back “Grassroots” it was wonderful!]

Have I missed something? I thought the general tone of B****** Boys was:
# capitalists/company directors BAD
# Howard & Ministers BAD
# MUA, workers, unionists, picketers, Marxists, day-care workers, Macarena-dancing cops, etc GOOD

Now, if you like to spend your evenings BOOING then HISSING at your TV, that’s fine. I too enjoyed the Saturday arvo cinema serials as a kid in 1950s suburban Melbourne. But now, 50 years later, I have put aside (some of) those childish things, and prefer stronger stuff.

I tend to agree with Michael Duffy’s criticisms of the show. Some readers here take the attitude that because Duffy is a rightwinger, THEREFORE he is always wrong about everything.

That’s the way, lads: BOO, HISS !!!

I feel that one of the main deficiencies that many social critics in Australia display these days, is a tendency to feel that a bit of BOOING & HISSING is worth doing; and even to believe that their BOOING is akin to CRITICAL THINKING…. well, I don’t think it is.

A footy fan may BOO, a coach has to think.

Voters may boo; a political party has to plan, decide, reason, explain, judge, compromise, plan, reason, …. It’s more challenging than booing.

A public broadcaster should be stimulating its viewers & listeners, not using our taxes to flog “priceless PR” for one candidate, I think.

Cheerio,
Alistair