SBS to air documentary Struggle Street despite calls from participants not to show it

This definitely feels more like a reality series, not a doco. One that’ll probably only be watched by a handful of urbanites, ironically, should it go ahead.

Love a bit of poverty porn I do.

another rip off from the UK. At least Australia doesn’t discriminate about the quality of the shows they rip off. The UK version received very critical reviews, magnified by a 1,000.

And that is exactly why I’m too scared to leave the East. Town Hall is as far West as I’ll go…

Housos was funny – this is humiliation for the sake of ratings. Shame on you SBS…

Welcome to the hunger games!

White skip trailer trash TV is just so satisfying.

It just shows you the good work Screen Australia and Screen NSW are doing.

How pathetically desperate sbs have become. More political crap. Dont put my people on tv showing them doing it tough living in a humpy you racist inhumane idiots.

These arecreal people good on you sbs losers.

I feel that everyone should watch this show..
Maybe it will give those that have more a bit of gratitude for what great lives most of us really have….

Oh really did you liase with the local elders and community members. God help you look at what youve done to these peoples luves your worse than a political current affair.

Go home and sleep in your nice bed tonight.

Ditch the program now – do not air!

I have lived in mt druitt all my life and if you go to mt druitt railway station any day of the week you will see more people travelling to work than any other area, so get your facts right sbs I hear other people living in so called better areas, yet they have the same drug problems there, if not worst, GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT SBS, SHAME ON ALL OF YOUR PRODUCERS

cant wait to see it seems so funny already. More lazy people blaming someone else for their messy lives. At least they are not starving!!

Re: Struggle Street

The following suburbs are in the housing commission area,

Bidwell
Blackett
Dharruk
Emerton
Hebersham
Lethbridge Park
Shalvey
Tregear
Whalan
Willmott

they SHARE the same postcode as the residents of Old Mount Druitt and of Minchinbury.

If you look at a street map, you will see that The Housing Commission area is a completely different region to that of Mount Druitt and of Minchinbury. They are under Blacktown City Council.

Most properties in the Old Mount Druitt area are on quarter acres blocks. To my knowledge there are no housing commission accommodation in that area at all.

I believe you named the area incorrectly. If your Navman is not working, please ask one of the “stars” of your show, what their correct address is!

Remember that there is good and bad in every suburb, and that no-one wants to be poor or to be humiliated. How cruel you are, to a family that is truly struggling and needing help.

May God Bless them, and may God forgive you

I’m not quite sure what the problem is here? If they were cooking, renovating or dancing in this town we would be fine to have the uneducated scurge of society on tv but because they are low socio economic class just living their lives it’s not ok? There is a reason why actors are trained in acting and not just the social scum we see on these other reality shows.
The sooner the retards that continue to watch these shows realise it is all about the dysfunctional personalities that appear on these shows, the better off we may be.
I say well done SBS for highlighting the conditions that are obviously out there in our society. Why don’t we fly Hugh Sheridan into Mount Druitt to see if his dog survived the storms we have been having lately, Oh…. hang on he is on another assignment lol.

SBS has good programmes, almost all of them imported, but local productions like these are cringeworthy, appealing to the lowest common denominator, and makes you wonder if SBS gets a kick out of trashing Australia using taxpayers money. Time for its budget to be reviewed.

Cunnamulla, from the 90’s, anyone?

Anon writer mentioned another U.K. rip off. Well the fact us that Struggle Street is made by the Australian arm of a U.K. company commissioned at SBS by ex BBC staffers now deciding which Australalian stories we will see. This is cynical template production by people who should be running sausage factories. Why the Govt. is funding foreign owned companies is beyond belief. These manipulative “fly on the wall” bits of rubbish just bring shame on SBS [Edited by Mumbrella]

Basic thing is difference between reality show and doco. Could be a good conversation starter?

In the interests of balance, SBS should make a show about entitled ad snobs from Surry Hills dropped in Mt Druitt and forced to make their way home without resorting to iPhones or coconut water.
Sort of like Being Lara Bingle but with more vocal fry.

looking forward to watching it woo hoo

Yes

when is REality TV too much reality??? this is real life people …good, bad and ugly and not isolated to Mt Druitt

Rich or Poor, there is no justification for filth. Keeping clean & tidy is a matter of pride and costs nothing. Short on finance? Give up the fags & the booze first!

If you don’t want your life shown to the world, with the possibility of it being portrayed in a bad light, don’t put yourself in front of a camera. No one forced these people to partipate as far as I’m aware. They have no one else to blame. I am very proud of my home, my job and my achievements. Would I put my life on tv? NO!!

I believe that struggle street should not air SBS you are in the wrong ! You go to the station every morning and you see people travelling into work we are not all bogans or pigs I think you guys have nothing to do with your life’s you need to make shit up not one area is perfect you need a reality check there are so many good people in the mount Druitt and you are making out we are all pigs mount Druitt is not the ONLY area who housing commission housing a lot of areas do so before you bad mouth us go look in your own backyard.

@ Al at 10:50am Hilarious! I would pay to see that!! Chuck in a few lower north shore housewives trying to make their way back for brunch at a ‘trendy’ eatery and you have a survivor type series in the making. East and North trying to survive the West…. My money is on the West spitting both groups out.

All you whining snobs should just get over it and get over your selves. If you don’t like it don’t watch it! It is interesting television to me, and your only making it more interesting by all your whining. I want to watch it so much more now that it is controversial. So you loose! Seriously don’t ruin it for the rest of us that want to watch the truth, have you ever heard a a remote. Well get your remote and feed your tiny brain with some home and away or one of the ten million different CSI type shows on offer. Good on the producers for having the balls to do something different. Small minded people get me so wound up. Its not all about you, and what you want to watch and its not about right or wrong. People are smart enough to know the show doesn’t represent every person that lives in Mount Druit. There are people like this scattered all over Australia. Duuuuhh!!

What seems to be the problem with SBS airing this show? I say good on them. It will be fun to watch and hey, let’s face it, us working folk are paying for these people to sponge off society, all-the-while reproducing when they ought not be (thus continuing the pitiful cycle of poverty and burdening society) so we should all get to see what we’re paying for. Please, SBS, do air this show.

This is gonna be AWESOME! I say get another series on the way! If people dont want to be portayed as junkies, derros and bums then dont be junkies derros or bums and let people film you! What did they think? A star is born and they were going to be whisked away to Hollywood!? Did they not see the big fat camera pointed at them!? Of course they did and they loved it…And we will love it too. There are obviously hard workers and decent people in Mt Druitt but then again they wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining. Sit back relax and enjoy!

There is nothing informative about humiliating and vilifying community. It just shows how much contempt the staff and board of SBS have for the average Australian.
This, in addition to the recent ANZAC debacle, shows the SBS is operating with an entrenched and blatent culture of racist and hatful contempt for anglo-Australian culture.

The board needs sacking.

Mt Druitt is a diverse community. There are a number of cultures living and respecting each other’s values, religions, and way of life. Please don’t air a show that will harm the majority of people living there. Most folk work hard and are trying to bring up their families and go about their lives just like the middle class only with limited $$$.
Airing this show will lower people’s self esteem and make it difficult for people living in this postcode to get a job or go about their lives feeling good about themselves.
Being poor doesn’t make you a bad person.
SBS’s charter states that it invests in culturall diverse and quality programming. I doubt that Struggle Street addresses the SBS charter.

anyone els find it Ironic that Blacktown Council has sent Garbage Trucks to protest at SBS

I was raised in the, ‘Eastern suburbs’. I moved out west with my children. The people from Mt Druitt are the only people that helped me EVER! They helped me feel at home; in their homes. It made me feel that, we’re all human, and being human, we all need to be accepted and loved, by our fellow man.

It looks like the SBS management ‘team’ have become wobbly, searching for a new identity which becomes more illusive by the day. As is usual in matters such as this, the Board will duck for cover. Who will be the ultimate sacrifice?

Sorry SBS what is your charter again?
Not to mention it is a copy of an English show commissioned clearly by an english woman with english advisors brought out to shoot it, oh yeah from England, bastion of the class system. Really and co-funded by our Film Bodies, embarrassing, degrading and shameful.
I’m sure everyone from all three funding bodies will be eager for a ratings success while sipping wine in Paddington, Newtown and Balmain…you guys are just an embarrassment and un-australian.
Happy back slapping…pretty obvious who the losers really are.

I think “concerned” is getting close to the facts when saying Struggle Steet is a copy, commissioned by English people etc. What we have is a foreign owned company, (English) setting up an Australian arm and therefore qualifying for Australian taxpayers film investment money. They spit out a few of their template productions which might suit Australian conditions. This is the company which makes River Cottage in the U.K. and the same here. They then offer these template productions slightly reworked for provincial conditions and in this case front SBS staff who are all ex-U.K. They receive generous Australian finance from Screen Australia with an hour of TV often costing $400,000. They then find their targets shoot everything that moves and with this ocean of footage then proceed to massage the content into what ever fits their template narrative arc. Being narration driven this is not too hard. It goes something like this; horror episode one where we see the truly horrendous nature of the target subjects and their awful lifestyles and attitudes,
followed by some gradual warming up and human interest of some people in their community trying to perform socially redeeming works finishing with an uplifting end where there is optimism. It’s the same rollercoaster used by all these reality shows and by personal development trainers. The relationships between these companies seems very cosy and the mug tax payer picks up the massive tab.

Superb !

Interesting that Malcolm [Edited by Mumbrella] can make one phone call and get an SBS journo instantly sacked – on the grounds 3 tweets were “offensive”.
It would seem this program will be equally offensive to many – but Turnbull unable to act in this instance.
Yep.

Well Well Well ! Just watched the show and it wasn’t offensive at all in any way, and did not make Mt Druit look bad AT ALL. I used to live in western Sydney and I think they actually made the area look good, compared to the reality of it. How ironic! You people just cant handle the “Facts”. The doco makes the area look like a bogan area, they could have been much worse and shown some more of the TRUTH, the crime riddled streets, the ice epidemic and dangerous sides to the area. I don’t know if it has changed but I know 5 years ago, you wouldn’t be caught near Mt Druit train station at night, without expecting to be beaten and robbed by some gang of drugged up teens or hobos. I agree that this family doesn’t represent Mt Druit truthfully, most people Ive met from the area were far worse than this friendly family of bogans. So you lot should be thanking SBS for airing this quality truthful documentary, and thank them from omitting a lot of the other things they could have chosen to focus on! How many of you people have actually spent time in the area, before putting in your opinions? How can so many people be so wrong? It is unfortunate that some of the people living in Mt Druit are a result of their environment, but that can be changed. Maybe bringing issues like this to the surface will inspire people to take pride in their area and try to fix it, and fix their problems. It is possible, people just need to be shown how to help themselves. Thanks SBS 🙂

Ignited by political motivation! Just seen the first episode. What amazing, resilient people. Need more doco’s like this but most importantly, we want true stories. Well done SBS!

I don’t have a problem with the media highlighting the struggles of disadvantaged people, however, disadvantaged people are all over Sydney why does the media always focus on Mt Druitt?. Perhaps SBS needs to look at all the success stories coming out of Mt Druitt, yes, there are many.

Does SBS think of Mt Druitt youth having to change their post code on their CV’S so they can score a job interview? Does SBS think about worrying home owners about their home values after all this garbage is put out there?

Shame on you SBS. My husband and I came over from Canada 35 years ago, raised our kids in Mt Druitt. Our daughter has two university degrees our son works for the government. Most everyone on the street we live on work. Housing commission areas are as follows NOT in Mt Druitt.

Bidwell
Blackett
Dharruk
Emerton
Hebersham
Lethbridge Park
Shalvey
Tregear
Whalan
Willmott

How about SBS has a look at the mansions on quarter acre blocks on George St Mt Druitt. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!