Issue date: Wednesday, March 8, 2006
A STORYLINE AUSTRALIA SPECIAL:
ABORTION, CORRUPTION AND COPS
The Bertram Wainer Story
Thursday April 6
8.30pm
This Storyline Australia Special, screening Thursday, April 6 at 8.30pm, documents the extraordinary life and work of Bertram Wainer, a doctor who fought to make abortion accessible, affordable and safe in Melbourne in the late 1960s. Dr Wainer risked his life to uncover a web of corruption involving abortionists, politicians and police. Written and directed by John Moore (who produced it with Sue Seeary), this documentary is constructed from archival material, interviews and dramatic recreations. Among the interviewees is Dr Jo Wainer (Director, Centre for Gender and Medicine at Monash University), talking about the issues of the time and her late husband, who died in 1987.
Abortion, Corruption and Cops was nominated for two 2005 Australian Film Industry awards – including best direction in a documentary.
In 1967, a young woman came to Dr Bertram Wainer's Melbourne surgery seeking emergency medical attention after a backyard abortion. She was desperately ill yet too afraid to go to hospital.
For Scottish-born Wainer this was the start of a long, hard campaign to overturn laws that made abortion an offence punishable by up to 15 years in jail and forced women to turn to unskilled operators.
In the process, Wainer uncovered a web of corruption involving highly paid doctors, backyard abortionists, high-ranking police officers and power-broking politicians. It started out as a story of secret love affairs, crooked deals and double-crosses and rapidly became a desperate game of cat-and-mouse played out in clandestine meetings and phone-tapping sessions.
Faced by a government that refused to address the problem, Wainer decided to put abortion law to the test himself, forcing the issue into the headlines. This would lead to attempts against his life and those of his family and supporters, until eventually public pressure forced the government to announce a major public inquiry into the state police force.
But the threat to women’s health remained, so in 1972 Dr Wainer established Australia’s first public abortion clinic. After years of struggle, abortion in Victoria was finally accessible, affordable and safe. Thirty years later, the law in Victoria remains unchanged.
A Film Australia National Interest Program in association with John Moore Productions. Developed and produced with the assistance of Film Victoria in association with SBS Independent.
Melbourne University Press is publishing Jo Wainer's book Lost: Illegal abortion stories, a collection of edited transcripts of conversations with women who had illegal abortions in Australia, from as early as the 1930s. The book will be available from all good bookshops on 3 April 2006.
About the filmmaker
John Moore – writer/director/producer
John Moore is the principal of John Moore Productions – a Melbourne based production company which has made programs for ABC-TV, SBS, Channel 4, ARTE, The Canadian History Channel and TV Ontario. John has been producing award winning programs and series for more than 15 years. His many awards include an Australian Film Institute Award for Best TV Documentary for Guns & Roses (1991), best documentary at the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals for Black Man’s Houses (1993) and a United Nations Peace Award for Barefoot Student Army (1994). In 2001, John produced and directed Thomson of Arnhem Land for Film Australia, which won the NSW Premier’s History Award, an AFI Award for editing and was nominated for awards at both BANFF and Shanghai TV Festivals.
Dr Jo Wainer and writer/director/producer John Moore are available for interview.
For further information, or interviews, please contact:
Communications Manager SBSi, Rubinee Hoyne on (02) 9430 3161 or 0412 558 582
Promotions Manager Film Australia, Kym Druitt on (02) 9413 8635 or 0418 272 018
Storyline Australia Special – Abortion, Corrpution and Cops
Q&A with filmmaker John Moore
How did you meet or approach Jo Wainer and what was her reaction to the film?
John Moore: I first approached Jo Wainer way back in 1996. She told me that some filmmakers were working on a feature film script about Bert and I should wait. Five years later I asked again and this time Jo said the feature didn’t seem to be happening and we should get on with it. Once that decision was made, she really threw her weight behind the documentary.
It took me a while to realise that Jo wasn’t just Bert’s wife…she was his partner in the whole thing. They pushed each other and stood up for each other. The whole issue of abortion wasn't an easy sell in 1969 when the press wouldn't even print the word. Jo was working for the ABC at the time and she supplied the language to talk about it while Bert supplied the courage and persistence. They were an amazing team.
What do you think people who have never heard of Wainer will make of him and the film?
I think a lot of older people will identify with Bert and what he achieved, partly because they understand the context and can remember what things were like in the sixties. I’m not sure about young people. I hope they might find him inspiring. I guess that’s why I made the film - to try and let young people know it is possible to change the world if you really try. It’s dangerous and you may have to put up with a lot of grief. But it can be exciting and fun and very rewarding.
What was Melbourne like in 1969?
John Moore: Melbourne in the sixties was a very conservative town. We had a horrible war going on in Vietnam, an overbearing government that cast a long shadow over just about everything and the middle classes were obsessed with getting ahead. But underneath all that there was this incredible social revolution brewing. Music, politics and society itself were all undergoing major changes.
What surprises did you have during the filmmaking? Were there any pieces of footage you weren't expecting?
John Moore: One of the best parts of making any film is the research phase; getting to meet amazing people like Jo Wainer and Evan Whitton and Kevin Childs. Everyone I spoke to about Bert had an amazing story to tell - not always flattering - but quite often spectacular.
It can be challenging putting together people’s memories because often there are contradictions, but in the end it usually all starts to fit into place. One of the amazing things about this film is how much of Bert’s activities were covered by the media. The ABC especially is a wonderful resource. The deeper we dug the more material the ABC found. The end of the film changed a number of times as new footage became available – footage which topped what had gone before.
Are the people who are portrayed in the dramatised sections of the film still alive? Did you talk with them?
John Moore: Unfortunately most of the main characters in the film have passed away, which is one of the reasons we decided to dramatise quite a lot of the story. If they were still alive we could have asked them directly.
Did anyone decline an appearance in the film?
John Moore: A couple of people declined to be in the film and quite a few we did interview we couldn’t find any space for. I don’t think Jack Thompson hits the cutting room floor too often, but we did a great interview with him about Bert’s time in the army where they were friends. But we just couldn’t find room for it. I hope Jack will forgive me when he sees the film. The fact that so many people whose opinions I respected felt passionate about Bert’s integrity confirmed the direction I took with the film.
Please talk about some of your locations for the dramatic reconstructions.
John Moore: Like a lot of documentaries the film was shot fairly cheaply - although I think it manages to look pretty good. The production office doubled as Bert’s home and we used Trades Hall for all sorts of period locations.
Can you talk about the actors you cast?
John Moore: We had a great group of actors: Kurt Geyer – bearing such an uncanny resemblance to Bert Wainer it was amazing - became Bert for a couple of months with his iPod in his ear playing back Bert’s real voice; while Genevieve Picot, a wonderfully inventive actress, played Peggy Berman. She’s fabulous. And we had David Bradshaw, who nearly stole the show as Charlie Wyatt the backyard abortionist. One scene was so good we had to cut it out because he was putting Bert in the shade.
What did you think of Peggy Berman?
Peggy Berman - who worked for an abortion doctor - was one of the most interesting characters in the whole story. Trying to understand where she was coming from wasn’t always easy. She had a great way with words. When the police raided the abortion clinic where she worked she was quoted as saying: "The receptionist was chewing and swallowing appointment pages as fast as she could." In the end, I decided Peggy was really our Vera Drake (the character from Mike Leigh’s feature film of the same name). She really believed in what she was doing.