The Killing Season

Keeping its ace up its sleeve, the ABC has only released 1 of 3 episodes of The Killing Season for media preview.

But it’s clear from the first chapter, The Prime Minister and His Loyal Deputy, we are in for a helluva ride.

The gloves are off. Former Labor Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, in separate interviews, speak their mind. Add to that interviews with eyewitness colleagues, compelling footage and Sarah Ferguson’s incisive questioning and The Killing Season is a dazzling, complex narrative.

If there is a trilogy series from producer Sue Spencer, then The Killing Season (so named after the final week of Parliament), complements Labor in Power and The Howard Years. Yet its dramatic content could probably sit alongside The Dismissal were it ever dramatised by actors. Or possibly Julius Caesar.

It begins with the challenge to then-leader Kim Beazley from the “dynamic duo” of Rudd and Gillard, his deputy, in 2006.

Violin music and piano evoke classic, Shakespearean themes, as archival footage of Beazley’s toppling and Rudd / Gillard’s triumph unfolds.

Gillard describes challenging a leader as a “gut-wrenching” experience.

At this early juncture, Rudd is asked if he ever saw Gillard as potentially challenging him.

“Julia was my loyal deputy. And I didn’t believe she would do that,” he replies. “Until that point.”

Jenny Macklin, then Deputy to Beazley, did not re-nominate for the position when the challenge was on.

“I knew Julia wasn’t going to stop,” she says.

Macklin is one of many Labor heavyweights who have given interviews for this series. The roll-call also includes Wayne Swan, Greg Combet, Chris Bowen, Simon Crean, Anthony Albanese, Stephen Conroy, Tony Burke, Tanya Plibersek plus advisors, strategists, secretaries, and Treasury secretaries.

In the first ten minutes Gillard describes “a bullying encounter… menacing, angry” moment with Rudd.

“That is utterly, false. Utterly, utterly false,” he says blankly.

In this series the viewer is constantly given alternate narratives from its two key subjects, and left to make up their own mind.

The first episode focusses on the Rudd rise to the Prime Ministership and beyond: the Kevin ’07 campaign, distancing himself from Trade Unions and factions, bantering on Sunrise, and emerging somehow more electable despite potentially-scandalous New York strip club headlines.

On Election night Gillard, sitting on the ABC tally room panel, is praised by the newly-voted PM: “She will be fantastic as the Deputy Leader of Australia.” For a while they will work as strong duo.

The Apology to the Stolen Generations, remains a powerful moment. Goosebumps, even…

“He mended terrible broken hearts by delivering that apology. Nobody else can ever take that away from him. He did it,” Jenny Macklin recalls.

When the Global Financial Crisis began to rumble, Rudd was quick off the pace with meetings in New York, eventually leading to the formation of the G-20.

“Kevin was absolutely central to these discussions,” Former British PM Gordon Brown declares.

The government greenlit 2 stimulus packages, at $10B / $42B to much success, arguably avoiding the worst of the economic tsunami.

But Gillard recalls that Rudd wanted to remain in the spotlight, even with the election over, and had continued his campaign-style of decision-making. The ‘Gang of 4’ comprising Rudd, Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner were making decisions with minimal party consultation.

Other key events included Black Saturday bushfires when 173 people lost their lives, the botched home insulation program, and the Godwin Grech Utegate scandal.

But The Killing Season is much more than an historical timeline. Reactions and memories of such turning points paint a picture of the key players opposed in methodology and resolution. Gillard’s view that the government had lost its way would result in a sitting PM deposed by his Deputy ….shades of Keating / Hawke, but in a first term.

The series works masterfully to give viewers a “behind the scenes” insight into Labor’s kingdom, with detailed footage from the cutting room floor, such as private moments in offices with doors ajar and fly-on-the-wall accounts in meeting rooms. Much credit goes to the editors who weave this tale together with scintillating precision.

Sarah Ferguson gives the impression of being arms’ length here, rarely seen against such a Machiavellian backdrop. The choices she and producer Deb Masters and Executive Producer Sue Spencer have crafted make this compelling television.

Theirs is the best Australian-made documentary this year. Bring on the Walkley Awards.

The Killing Season airs 8:30pm Tuesday ABC.