Labor in Power is a 1993 Australian documentary series about the first ten years of Labor's Hawke-Keating government produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was divided into five one-hour episodes and originally broadcast from 8 June to 6 July 1993.
| Labor in Power | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Political docuseries |
| Written by | Phil Chubb |
| Directed by | Sue Spencer |
| Narrated by | Kathy Bowlen |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 5 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Paul Williams |
| Producer | Sue Spencer |
| Running time | 58 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC TV |
| Release | 8 June – 6 July 1993 |
In a decade of profound change, from 1983 to 1993, the ABC Television News and Current Affairs Political Documentary Unit compiled a unique series, capturing the key elements of the Australian Labour Party's ten-year rule. The battle between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating for the Labor Party leadership was one of the most divisive in Australian political history the seeds of which can be traced back as far as 1980. The series is an intensely personal examination of the Hawke-Keating relationship, and through more than 120 interviews with Cabinet Ministers, senior bureaucrats and staff advisers, the series offers an insider's view of who wields power in Australia, and how. The five episodes are; "Taking power", "Taxing times", "Conserving power", "The recession we had to have" and "The sweetest victory".[1]
The documentary was filmed with the interviewees anticipating electoral defeat in the 1993 Australian federal election.[2][3] The final ten minutes of the last episode document the surprise result that returned the Keating government for a final term. The longest period the century-old Australian Labor Party spent in office was the 13-year Hawke-Keating government.
A long-running thread within the series is the secret Kirribilli Agreement of 1988 and the expectations it created. Episode 1 covers both the 1982 Australian Labor Party leadership spill and 1983 Australian Labor Party leadership spill which preceded the 1983 Australian federal election in which Labor came to power, and the following 1984 Australian federal election in which Labor's majority reduced. Episode 4 covers Early 1990s recession in Australia, and Episode 5 includes events of the Gulf War, reflections on the June 1991 Australian Labor Party leadership spill and December 1991 Australian Labor Party leadership spill, then the subsequent 1993 Australian federal election.
Although produced before the end of the period in which Labor was in power, producing long-format retrospectives on Australian Federal governments became an ironclad ABC tradition. Labor in Power was followed in subsequent decades by The Howard Years, The Killing Season and Nemesis, the ABC having learnt from Labor in Power in not producing such documentaries until after a government's defeat.[4]
Awards
edit- 1993 Gold Walkley to Philip Chubb and Sue Spencer[5]
- 1993 Walkley Award Best Application of the Television Medium to Journalism by to Philip Chubb and Sue Spencer[5]
- Logie Awards of 1994, Most Outstanding Documentary[6]
See also
edit- The Howard Years, covering the subsequent Coalition government from 1996 to 2007
- The Killing Season, covering the Labor government from 2007 to 2013
- Nemesis, covering the Coalition government from 2013 to 2022
References
edit- ^ Australian Centre for the Moving Image. "Labor in power". Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ Howard, John (8 June 1997). Address by the Prime Minister (PDF) (Speech). Queensland Liberal Party State Convention. Cairns. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
I don't know whether any of you saw that very illuminating ABC series call Labor in Power. Well it was the best of political documentaries because they all were interviewed on the assumption that they thought they were going to lose. It was before the 1993 election and they were very frank and very candid.
- ^ O'Reilly, Cameron (19 December 2011). "Hawke and Keating: a masterclass in political killing". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
Most of the key figures of the Hawke-Keating years participated in the show on the basis it would be released after that year's election, which they expected to lose.
- ^ Strangio, Paul (14 February 2024). "'A blood sport feigning as government': what the ABC's Nemesis taught us about a decade of Coalition rule". The Conversation. The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
ABC-produced post-mortem documentaries on national governments have a distinguished pedigree.
- ^ a b "Walkley Winners Archive – The Walkley Foundation". The Walkley Foundation. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ "1994 Logie Awards". Australiantelevision.net. Archived from the original on 16 October 2014.