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Waterfront – Episode 1 (1984)

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Scabs

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

The wharfies are locked out because they won’t accept lower wages and a lessening of working conditions. Into this maelstrom come shiploads of Italian immigrants, refugees from Mussolini’s fascist state who are desperate to work and know nothing of the Australian workers’ fight for justice on the wharves or what it means to be a 'scab’.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

The series cleverly intercuts events in Turin in Mussolini’s Italy, where fascist Blackshirts use violence to intimidate any opposition, with events in Australia where the economic depression is just beginning to bite. The wharfies union is fighting the shipowners who are backed by the conservative Federal government of Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

Chris Thompson, the director of the miniseries, is a Melbourne-based writer, director, teacher and artistic director. He’s written for theatre, film and television. He won AWGIEs in 1997 and again in 2003 with Young Audiences Awards. In Waterfront he cast many of Melbourne’s comedians in straight roles: thus the character Allan, Max’s young wharfie mate is played with élan by the comedian Mark Little.

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