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Issue No. 139 | 07 June 2002 |
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With Prejudice
Interview: Class Action Safety: A Mother's Tale Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town International: Defensive Enterprise Economics: A Super Deal? History: A Radical Life Media: Cross Purposes Review: When the Force Is Unconscious Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
 Romeo and Juliet?Robbo's RaveLatham Ad NauseumOur Home Is Girt By WireHands Off Hooligans!
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Unions The Hottest Seat in Town
If you're over 50, you will probably remember fiery stump speeches about class warfare. Well, the atmosphere might be a little plusher, but the subject matter is a throwback to those simple, even simplistic, days. The bloke playing Old King Cole, steals the show. He's grey, got a few miles on the clock and hooks into the public purse as though he was a fair-dinkum member of the royal family, but a merry old soul he is not. This Old King Cole is a one-dimensional character. The contributions of assorted commoners parading before his austere gaze are merely incidental . The opening statements seem to suggest that deregistration or, at the very least, a task force capable of limiting the ability of building workers to win better deals for their families, is where this show is headed. Before the Sydney session even opened, issues that might have provided balance, and interest - safety, tax rorts, immigration scams and the like - were written out of the script. Thus, The Commission becomes a one-dimensional attack on organised labour. When, for example, it deals with wagebook investigations there is nary a mention of the $4 million recovered annually in underpayments. Instead, the insinuation is that forces of evil use such investigations to chase and, presumably, intimidate employers and potential members. Nor do the authors of The Commission waste sympathy on the families of killed or maimed building workers. Well-publicised CFMEU concerns are painted, not so much by witnesses as commission members themselves, as opportunities to inflict damage on battling businesses. There is one discordant scene in which a mother pleads for greater workplace safety. But while she is convincing, her pain palpable, the effect is lost. It is almost as though she is an after-thought, hastily added to the script to soothe audience sentiment, rather than a considered part of the polemic. The subject matter is fasinating but Abbott's ideological certainty, transmitted through Cole, prevents it being developed into anything that might move the viewer. Colour and movement are absent. There are no shades, and characterisation disappears down the same shallow hole. The central figure is more caricature than character. He's strong and resolute but, looking down on efforts to boost wage packets by $30 a week from the comfort of $660,000 a year, plus perks, hardly helps him resonate in human terms. Ditto the Nick Green character. He is slim, pale, angular and not much prone to understanding another's point of view. Green looks like the sort of bloke who would regard a hard hat and a pair of work boots as very bad form, indeed. Still, it would be wrong to write off The Commission as a complete waste of time and bus fare. Buried in the early exchanges are some gems, even if you get the impression they are more accident than design. Some of the exchanges between Green and Andrew Ferguson are exquisite examples of two worlds failing to connect to the point where we descend into farce. But who came up with the bright idea of Ferguson playing the villain? It doesn't work and with so many better qualified candidates in the troupe ranks as very poor casting indeed. Green, a man with a touch of the Basil Fawlty's, is Pythonesque in some of his questioning. Appearing not to understand simple, brief responses he searches for alternative constructions that might elicit the answer he wants. Lengthy discourses on the failings of trade unionists are led from an assortment of bit-players without any consideration of their own possible failings. One interesting sub-theme that bubbles away without resolution is male sexual dysfunction. Apparently, someone called the Employment Advocate is "impotent" but the term got an even more significant workout when cast member Brian Seidler, who played a Master Builder in opening scenes, was reviewing his performance on ABC Radio. Seidler explained if he, and the commission, got their ways "the union would find itself impotent". This production is not subtle but it is interesting in that it argues passionately for the type of activist, us-against-them, approach to industrial relations which most commentators felt had gone out of fashion decades ago. The big question, which only history will answer, is whether or not Abbott's work overplays its hand.
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