THE HATRED CAMPAIGN

“Vanguard’s last foray of the decade into trade union territory was Rod Prosser’s video for the Wellington Trades Council, THE HATRED CAMPAIGN (1985). Made as a tribute to caretaker Ernie Abbott, killed in the 1984 Trades Hall bombing, it blames the outrage on the hostility against unions which had been fomented during the Muldoon years, dating from the dancing Cossacks cartoon of the 1975 election campaign... [the film] emerges as an attack on the National Government, with anti-union rhetoric explained as a form of scapegoating to divert attention from poor economic performance.” (Russell Campbell, Observations: Studies in New Zealand Documentary, Victoria University Press, 2011, pp.62-63)

Opening title: “On March 27 1984 a bomb exploded in the Wellington Trades Hall. Caretaker Ernie Abbott was killed instantly.

“This tape is a memorial to Ernie Abbott.

“For the union movement, the bombing was not an isolated event. It was the logical outcome of a climate of hostility that had been deliberately fostered for many years.”

Features footage from outside Trades Hall shortly after the bombing, Abbott’s funeral and procession and excerpts from the National Party’s 1975 election campaign television commercials “Industrial Relations” and “Superannuation”.

Speakers: Terry Hampson, Gwenda Jenkins, Alf Kirk, Pat Kelly, Russell Marshall, Ron Burgess, Jim Green, Jim Milne, Jim Knox, Jim Anderton, Peter Sledmere, Gerard Hill, Toby Truel, Peter Gordon, Wayne Hale, Robert Muldoon, Edward Taylor, Liz Leniston, Ngaire Lambourn, Robert Reid, Les Cleveland, Con Devitt, Viv Walker, Graeme Clark, Joy Molnar.