Former Patrick CEO, Chris Corrigan says he found the ABC television drama Bastard Boys to be tedious and disappointing.

In comments emailed via a spokesman to me he said today:

The producers originally told me they weren’t making a boring tale of class warfare but the production serves it up in spades.

The program portrays a series of predictable stereotypes and silly caricatures and gives them real names then cleverly claims to be a drama and hence does not explore any inconvenient truths such as the impact of the waterfront rorts on ordinary Australians.

I will be surprised if anyone other than welded on members of the industrial left can survive four hours of this tedium.

Corrigan and his family are now living overseas. They attended a special screening of the program for those involved in the story. That was in Sydney last month. There was also a screening in Melbourne.

He had earlier emailed comments to Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Anne Davies which in part said:

When I came into the industry, global shipping lines described, in soul destroying detail, their total dismay at the productivity and lack of predictability of the Australian waterfront industry.

Contrast that with the situation when I left the industry less than one year ago. Since 1998 we have not lost a single hour in industrial disputation in the last nine years.

Crane productivity had doubled. Productivity per man was approximately five times higher than in the mid-nineties. We have successfully negotiated three new agreements in those nine years without disputation and on each occasion efficiency has been improved.

Of course some of this was due to far better designed container terminals and far better operational methodology, which involved substantial investment. However, those changes could not have been introduced with the arcane work practices imposed and rigorously enforced by the draconian industrial environment. Similarly, the investment would never have been made in an environment where there was not the prospect of an adequate return.

Above all the “drama” of the events of 1998, my fundamental aim of improving the productivity and reliability of the Australian waterfront has been a resounding success. I would rate it personally as one of my proudest achievements.

Furthermore, employee satisfaction has never been higher and relationships between management and the workforce have been normalized from the poisonous environment when I joined the industry.