THE term ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ could have been coined for the ABC’s extraordinary political series, The Killing Season.
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The title stems from the most dangerous time for a vulnerable leader - last week of Parliament before the winter and summer break. In it presenter/writer Sarah Ferguson takes viewers on a journey that zips along, recounting the tumultuous years of the Rudd/Gillard governments in their own words.
“You couldn’t possibility write it,” enthuses Ferguson.
“It offers the thrill and intrigue of the best political dramas, with the same compelling themes – loyalty, ambition and betrayal. The candour of both Rudd and Gillard is remarkable and sometimes shocking.”
The Killing Season vividly conveys the national mood of the time, as Australia, stepping from the conservative embrace of the Howard years, applauded an apology to indigenous people, eyed the looming Global Financial Crisis, all the while basking in the seemingly golden glow of the Rudd/Gillard union.
“I think we had forgotten the intensity of the optimism around Rudd in 2007 and that incoming government as the later period was so grim and jaundiced,” Ferguson says speaking of the incredible arc of the series.
“The expression on Julia Gillard’s face after the election is one of my most treasured moments of episode one. The moment of triumph, her acknowledgement at Kevin Rudd’s skills and the warmth of her expression; she’s almost in tears.”
“They are very different people so they illicit a very different response, but demonising people is never interesting.”
- Sarah Ferguson
Ferguson admits that winning makes everyone look delirious so we can’t read too much into those images, but it is clear Gillard held a deep belief in what they could do together.
“Watching that fall away is one of the things that give it power of course,” she says.
“One of the most controversial things is Julia Gillard’s account of what happened to Rudd particularly after Copenhagen. She goes out on a limb, takes a controversial position. I think that is worth looking at quite closely.”
It wasn’t easy to convince the pair to speak this candidly as both are still bruised and angry by media coverage of the time.
“I would say they had quite high levels of hostility towards the media you don’t usually come across. Both of them distrust the media; both have very strong views about how the media behaved during that period.”
“The series couldn’t happen without them and couldn’t happen if they didn’t trust us to a degree.”
To their credit both were equally resistant to begin with and then equally straight forward once they’d agreed to do the show she says.
“This is them telling their own story out of their own mouths.”
Equally as compelling are the views of the main protagonists.
“Greg Combet is a bit of a star of this show. Combet has candour and a fantastic turn of phrase,” she laughs.
Ken Henry, the then Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, was seen to have an untainted, thoughtful view of the way things were functioning Ferguson says.
“There are no commentators in this series; it’s first hand only no background sources, no second hand accounts, they just don’t get in. It’s the recollection and analysis of the people who were there.”
“From our point of view what is interesting and why it was so much fun to do, is you have people with very strong ideas about the events and people involved and they think they know what happened,” Ferguson says.
She says as writers and producers they went back to the beginning to work out who Rudd and Gillard are, what are their traits and what really happened here.
“We had to throw off all of those prejudices around at the time and what we thought we knew they were like.
“People close to Rudd say his character flaws were greatly exaggerated, while with Gillard, the series gives a much more subtle, variegated picture than the one that was around at the time.”
While there are many books on the subject Ferguson believes it is still a story that needs to be told.
“TV takes you into the story that happened and gets you to re-live it which is very different from a memoir of one person’s point of view.”
The series she says doesn’t really find in favour of either Rudd or Gillard.
“They are very different people so they illicit a very different response, but demonising people is never interesting.”
Ferguson hopes the show will give the wider Australian public a greater understanding of the main players.
“I will be disappointed and surprised if people get to the end and their views haven’t shifted. That doesn’t mean they have to have changed completely, but that they have a richer understanding of the central characters.”
The Killing Season starts Tuesday June 9 at 8.30pm on ABC1.