True Believers

Storyline

True Believers is a 1988 Australian mini series written by Bob Ellis and Stephen Ramsay which dramatises the history of the Australian Labor Party from John Curtin's death near the end of World War Two up to the ALP/DLP split of 1955. The series has been criticised for being a little too fictional, but it makes great viewing. Besides, dramatised historical pieces often play up the drama at the expense of reality. It has a tour-de-force of Australian actors at the time it was shot in mid 1987. According to Ellis the series focuses on "Chifley, the unlettered man of great dignity; Menzies, who used to stand for something but eventually stood only for Menzies; and Evatt, the grand idealist. It's almost like Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I. It's a chunk of national history during Australia's great era of change after the War". It covers Chifley's attempt to nationalise the banks, Menzies's attempts to abolish the Communist Party, The 1949 Coal Miners' Strike which saw Chifley send the army in to work the mines in lieu of the striking workers, and the formation of the Democratic Labor Party, which then directed preferences away from the ALP, costing them many a seat. Chifley's sad death is covered in the sixth episode (giving actor Ed Devereaux two episodes off), and this sees Doc Evatt's return to Australia to lead the ALP in opposition after he'd earlier been elected the third president of the United Nations who helped draft the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" while Foreign Minister in Chifley's government. The supposed scourge of the Communist Party features heavily throughout the entire series, and its infiltration into the mining unions put the unions head-to-head with the Labor Party - supposedly a supporter of unions. As Menzies's term continues, we see Menzies saying anything to regain government, making a big deal of Queen Elizabeth II's Royal Visit, and using the Petrov affair mercilessly to beat Evatt about the head with. Menzies almost applauded the formation of the Democratic Labor Party and was eager to accept its preferences in future elections. Anything that damaged the ALP - regardless of whose fault it was - was more grist to Menzies's mill.