Nemesis: Ambition, Betrayal, Revenge is a documentary film - divided into three long episodes - which premiered on Australian television (ABC) in 2024.
The topic of this film is the modern history of Australian governments and prime ministers. More specifically, the years 2013-2022, when the Liberal Party was in government and when the prime ministers were Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Producer and director: Kyle Taylor
** Producer and script writer: Caitlin Shea
** Interviews are conducted by Mark Willacy
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 93 + 97 + 95 minutes
** Total run time: 285 minutes
Here are the headlines of the three episodes:
# 1. The Abbott Years = 2013-2015
# 2. The Turnbull Years = 2015-2018
# 3. The Morrison Years = 2018-2022
In addition to the three long episodes, there is a short item Nemesis: Behind the Scenes which runs for 28 minutes.
In this short film, Leigh Sales interviews Mark Wallacy who conducted the interviews on Nemesis. He explains how the film was planned and created.
More than 50 politicians and officials who were
involved in top political affairs during those years are interviewed in this
film, including former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and John Howard.
The complete list of names is long.
Too long to be mentioned here.
But some people who should be here are missing. Some people who were invited to do an interview did not want to be interviewed on camera.
One example is Tony Abbott. Another example is Peta Credlin, who served as Tony Abbott’s chief of staff while he was prime minister (2013-2015).
When the Nemesis team contacted Tony Abbott, he met with them and talked to them, but he explained that he did not want to do an interview on camera.
He told them to use archive footage:
“This will tell you what I did and what I said.”
He is right. There is plenty of archive footage featuring Tony Abbott as prime minister. This can tell us what he did and what he said as the leader of the government. But there are two questions which archive footage cannot answer:
** Why did you do this and not something else?
** Why did you say this and not something else?
Most documentary films have a narrator.
Why?
One purpose of having a narrator is to introduce the next topic.
Another purpose of having a narrator is to draw a conclusion at the end of a chapter and at the end of the film.
In Nemesis, there is no narrator. Why not? Because the team decided that the film must be based on the words of the politicians and the officials. And only that. No narrator will interfere with their statements.
This explanation is not quite true. On-screen messages are employed from time to time. On-screen messages are employed to perform the role of a narrator.
How is the absence of Tony Abbott explained?
An on-screen message appears to explain why he does not appear; why he is not interviewed in the film.
During these interviews, politicians and officials are often quite candid. They are often quite frank.
In several cases, more than one version of a specific event is presented.
When politicians and officials are talking about the past, they do not always agree on what was said and what happened at a particular moment:
** Who said what?
** Who did what?
** Who leaked some revealing detail to the media?
In these cases, there is more than one answer.
In these cases, the viewers must make their own choice:
** What is the truth?
** Who is lying?
** Who can we trust?
The Liberal Party came to power after six years with Labor in government. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were prime ministers 2007-2013.
In the following, I will offer some observations about each of the three liberal prime ministers and their governments.
In 2013, when Tony Abbott started out as prime minister, many observers believed he would be a powerful and popular leader. They had two reasons:
The first reason
The Australian Labor party had been weakened by internal problems, by the rivalry between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
The second reason
Tony Abbott had been very efficient as the leader of the opposition while Labor was in government.
But when he presented his first cabinet, there was only one woman. All other members of his cabinet were male politicians.
Some observers noticed this surprising fact and concluded that maybe Tony was not going to last long as prime minister.
There were others signs which pointed towards the same
conclusion. Here are some examples:
Backbenchers were ignored. They were never consulted, but they were still expected to vote yes to any proposal which Tony put forward.
Tony’s style of government was a top-down system. The message from the top is:
"I will give the orders and you will do what I tell you to do."
Members of his cabinet were consulted before major political decisions were made. But it seemed as if Tony listened more to his chief of staff Peta Credlin than he listened to the members of his cabinet.
Many members of his cabinet were not happy to see their suggestions be brushed aside, just because the chief of staff had a different opinion.
One of the people who worked closely with Tony makes an interesting observation. He says:
Tony always knew what he was against. But he never said what he was for. I asked him: what are you for? What do you want? But Tony did not answer me. Tony seemed to think this was an odd question.
This is, in my opinion, an astute observation. Perhaps this is why Tony was so efficient when he was in opposition? Perhaps this is why he did not do so well when he was the leader of a government?
Shortly before an election, Tony said it would be necessary to make some cuts in the budget, but he promised that there would be no cuts to education, health and pensions.
Many voters believed him and voted for him. The Liberal Party had a good election. What happened when the budget was released after the election? There were cuts to education, to health, and to pensions!
Tony broke the promise he had made just before the election. This did not make voters happy. But Tony only had himself to blame for this.
Same-sex marriage was a controversial issue. As a good Catholic, Tony was against same-sex marriage, but he could see that the public trend was moving towards accepting same-sex marriage.
What did he do? He tried to avoid the issue, but this did not increase his popularity.
He suggested that there should be a plebiscite on the matter, but this was simply an excuse to postpone the whole thing.
No decision was made on this issue while he was the prime minister.
With his popularity curve going downhill, Tony made one more decision which proved to be fatal for him: he nominated Prince Philip for a knighthood.
On 26 January 2015 – Australia’s national day – Tony announced that he had nominated the husband of Queen Elizabeth II to receive a knighthood.
He said the Duke of Edinburgh’s life of “service and dedication” should be honoured. The Queen awarded the knighthood in April 2015.
The response to his nomination was not what Tony had hoped for. Many voters expressed their disappointment with this choice.
Some media outlets described the case as a “Knightmare.” Even some members of his own party made negative remarks about his choice.
While the knighthood of Prince Philip was a minor detail for Tony’s government, it was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.
A few months later, in September 2015, Tony was voted out. Not by the voters but by his own party. The Liberal Party decided that he was no longer suitable as the leader of the party or the government. He was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull.
In December 2017, same-sex marriage was legalized by the government of Malcolm Turnbull. This decision made some people happy, while others were not pleased at all.
The Turnbull government introduced an economic policy which is known as Robodebt. This policy is about welfare benefits and social services.
Some members of the Liberal Party were convinced that some or perhaps even many citizens were exploiting the social system, because they were getting more welfare benefits than they actually deserved.
Perhaps a person was getting unemployment benefits, while he or she was actually working. This abuse of the welfare system had to be stopped!
The government wanted to take action:
(1) Identify all persons who were getting more welfare benefits than they deserved.
(2) Claw back the money from these persons.
In order to do this, a special computer program known as Robodebt was developed.
This computer program would investigate the economic activities of each individual who might be guilty. Whenever a suspect was identified, the system would send out a message to him or her:
You have received more welfare benefits than you deserve.
You owe the government xxx amount of money.
You must pay back this amount at once or face the consequences.
More than 400,000 persons received such a message from the social services. The persons who received such a message were shocked and many of them insisted that the figures in the message were not true.
When some of them tried to complain, the government insisted that the computer program was reliable and that the demand for payment was just.
Robodebt was introduced by the Turnbull government. It was also used by the next government under Scott Morrison.
Eventually, the number of complaints became so high that the government had to respond:
In August 2022, a royal commission was established in order to investigate the whole topic.
The report of the royal commission was released in July 2023. The report concluded that Robodebt was illegal and that it should never have been used, because it was seriously flawed.
Who is to blame here?
The politicians blame the administrators.
The politicians say the administrators told us the computer program was legal and reliable
The administrators blame the politicians.
The administrators say the politicians insisted that we must use this computer program
The blame game never ends.
These issues are covered in the second episode of Nemesis, which focuses on the government of Malcolm Turnbull, but some important issues are ignored.
On 06 February 2024, Charlie Lewis and Moemina Shukur posted an article in Crikey about “All the stuff the ABC’s Nemesis episode on Turnbull did not cover.”
The article mentions three cases:
** Section 44
** Witness K
** AWU raids
In this review, I will ignore the first and the last item on the list. I will focus on the second item which is connected with Australian foreign policy.
The case of witness K is connected with the history of East Timor and Australia.
In 2002, East Timor became an independent state. Two years later, East Timor and Australia began negotiations about how natural resources (oil and gas) in the sea between East Timor and Australia could or should be exploited.
In this case, Australia did not act as an honest broker. In this case, Australia did not negotiate in good faith.
Before negotiations began, Australia’s secret intelligence service ASIO sent a secret agent to Dili, the capital of East Timor.
The mission of this agent was to install listening devices in the office of East Timor’s president.
Why?
The Australian negotiators wanted to know what the East Timorese negotiators said to each other in private and behind closed doors.
In particular, the Australians wanted to know how hard they could pressure the East Timorese and still get a deal. They wanted to squeeze as much as possible out of this deal.
They wanted Australia to profit. They did not care about East Timor. A small state. A poor state. A young state which had suffered under Indonesian occupation for more than 20 years (1975-1999).
The negotiations ended in 2006. A deal was signed. The East Timorese did not know that the office of their president had been bugged.
The ASIO agent who had installed the bugging equipment in 2004, felt that this was wrong. It was wrong to act in this way towards a small and poor country.
Australia pretended to be a friend who wanted to help East Timor. But this was not true. In reality, Australia was not a friend. Australia was just looking out for itself.
In 2012, the agent decided to blow the whistle. He leaked the story to the media. There were repercussions in East Timor and in Australia:
In East Timor, the leaders were disappointed to learn the truth about the negotiations.
In Australia, the public was outraged. The Australian government was facing a scandal because of what it had done to East Timor.
The identity of the secret agent was not revealed to the public. He was simply known as witness K.
How did the government respond when the secret operation was revealed?
The government did not admit any wrongdoing.
The government did not apologize.
Instead, witness K was charged with treason, because he had revealed secret information. And this is not all. It gets worse. The government also charged his lawyer Bernard Collaery with several crimes.
The case dragged on for several years while the Liberal Party was in power. In 2022, when Labor formed the next government, the case was finally ended.
Witness K, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to a three-month suspended term of imprisonment and a 12-month good behaviour order. The charges against Bernard Collaery were dropped.
What is the problem here?
Australia had committed a crime against a country which was officially a friend.
When the crime was exposed, the government decided to prosecute the person who had revealed the crime and on top of that to prosecute his lawyer.
The Australian government seemed to have a serious problem regarding human rights.
The rights of the state and the demands of the state were more important than the principle of freedom. And the political party which pursued this policy was the Liberal Party which is supposed to be the defender of liberty!
The story of witness K and his lawyer is important. It deserves to be told. But in this film about Australian governments and prime ministers during the years 2013-2022, it is not covered. It is not mentioned in any way. This is a flaw.
The government of Scott Morrison – also known as “ScoMo” - came to power in 2018.
His government lasted until 2022 when it was replaced by a government headed by Anthony Albanese who is the current leader of the Australian Labor Party.
The government of ScoMo faced several problems. In some cases, ScoMo only had himself to blame for bad publicity and negative comments.
In December 2019, during the Australian summer, some areas were plagued by bush fires. This is a common problem in Australia.
Where was the PM when the crisis began? He was taking a holiday with his family in Hawaii!
This did not look good. This did not increase his popularity among the voters.
ScoMo cut his holiday short and returned to Australia. He decided to visit the area where people had been affected by bush fires.
But this did not help his image. Some people were so angry with him that they refused to shake his hand. He was booed by many.
ScoMo was shocked by this experience, but he only had himself to blame for this. As an experienced politician, he should know that you do not take a holiday with your family when there is a crisis in your country.
A private person can take a holiday. But the prime minister of Australia is not a private person.
You ask for this job. You work hard to get it. When you get it, there may be power and prestige for you. But there is also a duty.
Your duty is to serve the people. Not yourself. Not your family. The nation must come first. If you do not like this, perhaps you should not try so hard to get the job.
The government of ScoMo faced other problems as well.
Here are some examples:
Problems connected with the Covid-19 pandemic, with submarines, with carbon emissions, and with secret ceremonies during which the prime minister was given five additional portfolios.
The world of politics can be brutal and hard. Politicians always say they want to serve the people.
Perhaps they do. Perhaps this is not the whole story. Perhaps they also want to take care of themselves.
Moving up the ladder in a political system can be a difficult and dirty business. Maybe you have some friends who will support you. Maybe you will support your friends. Perhaps the friendship will last. Perhaps the friendship will come to an end.
You have ambition. You climb the ladder. Perhaps you are betrayed. You are pushed out. If this happens, you may want to take revenge on the person or persons who betrayed you.
Three keywords appear at the beginning of each episode of Nemesis:
** Ambition,
** Betrayal, and
** Revenge.
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 91 percent, which corresponds to a rating of 4.6 stars on Amazon
Several reviews are posted online.
Here are a few examples:
Anthony Morris
“Nemesis ABC review: a greatest hits of LNP bungles,”
Screen Hub, 30 January 2024
This review offers a rating of 4.5 stars which corresponds to a rating of 90 percent on Amazon
Aaron Patrick
"The ABC’s Nemesis is compelling political television,"
Australian Financial Review, 09 February 2024
This review does not offer a specific rating, but when you look at the title, you can see that the general message is positive
Joshua Black
"Nemesis,"
Australian Book Review, 15 February 2024
This review offers a rating of 3.5 stars which corresponds to a rating of 70 percent
While many reviews are positive, they often mention some flaws as well. I understand such reviews and I agree with them.
There are no big revelations here, but there are many emotions.
There is not much talk about politics here. The main focus is on personal conflicts between the members of the political parties.
This film is good but not great. I my opinion, it deserves a rating of four stars (80 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government
By Niki Savva
(2017)
Plots and Prayers: Malcolm Turnbull’s Demise and Scott Morrison’s Ascension
By Niki Savva
(2019)
Venom:
Vendettas, Betrayals and the Price of Power
By David Crowe
(2019)
A Bigger Picture
By Malcolm Turnbull
(2020 = first edition)
(2021 = second edition)
The Insider: The scoops, the scandals and the serious business within the Canberra bubble
By Christopher Pyne
(2021)
# 2. Film and video
The following three items about Australian governments and prime ministers premiered on ABC:
Labor in Power
Five episodes – 1993
Prime Minister Bob Hawke 1983-1991
Prime Minister Paul Keating 1991-1996
The Howard Years
Four episodes – 2008
Prime Minister John Howard 1996-2007
The Killing Season
Three episodes – 2015
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd 2007-2010
Prime Minister Julia Gillard 2010-2013
A form of Madness:
How the Liberal Party Tore Itself Apart
Four Corners, 27 August 2018
Bringing Down the Turnbull Government
ABC News, August 2018
Available on YouTube
Abbott's End
Four Corners, 20 May 2019
Secrets, Spies, and Trials
This documentary film premiered on ABC on 26 August 2019. This episode of Four Corners focuses on the case of witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery
The War Within
This documentary film premiered on ABC on 04 July 2022. This episode of Four Corners focuses on internal conflicts in the Liberal Party
The following item is a four-part documentary film which premiered on ABC in 2021:
Ms Represented with Annabel Crabb
The topic of this film is the history of female politicians in Australia, more precisely the history of female members of the Australian parliament
The following item is a four-part documentary film which premiered on ABC in 2023:
Makers of Modern Australia
This film focuses of four different aspects of Australian history since 1901:
# 1. Leaders
# 2. Innovators
# 3. Rebels
# 4. Artists
Four episodes. Four aspects. Sadly, one important aspect is missing here: an episode about the makers of Australian foreign policy since 1901
*****
The Australian politician
Tony Abbott
(born 1957)
Prime Minister
2013-2015
*****
The Australian politician
Malcolm Turnbull
(born 1954)
Prime Minister
2015-2018
*****
The Australian politician
Scott Morrison
(also known as ScoMo)
(born 1968)
Prime Minister
2018-2022
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment