Are workplaces a chance for mutual gain, or is it only the higher ups that benefit? Dean Parker's award-winning script for this Sunday TV drama certainly doesn't duck the awkward questions. Joel Tobeck and Luisa Burgess play Bosco and Selena, who get factory jobs as assembly workers, get it on, then take opposing sides on motivational talks by management. Conscious the story would be punctuated with advertisements, Parker decided to counterattack by slipping in occasional clips from an interview with legendary unionist Jock Barnes. Later Parker turned the film into a play. 

This consolidating episode of the archive-based New Zealand history series finds World War II at an end, the return of Kiwi servicemen and the country in an optimistic mood. That's sealed by the 1950 British Empire Games where New Zealand is third on the medal table. But rising prices and low incomes lead to more militant unionism, culminating in the fractious waterfront workers dispute of 1951. At the same time there's a new flowering of the arts. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is established and a new generation of writers and artists take centre stage.

In 1951, New Zealand temporarily became a police state. Civil liberties were curtailed, freedom of speech denied, and people could be imprisoned for providing food to those involved. This award-winning documentary tells the story of the 1951 lockout of waterside workers, and what followed: an extended nationwide strike, confrontation and censorship. There are interviews with many involved, from workers to journalists and police. At the 2002 NZ Television Awards, 1951 won awards for Best Documentary and Documentary Director (John Bates). Costa Botes backgrounds 1951 here.