Screening at the Online Sydney Film Festival - The extraordinary story of WOMEN OF STEEL and its director Robynne Murphy

Robynne Murphy at work

When career steelworker Robynne Murphy picked up her home video camera to record the stories of the remarkable Jobs for Women campaign she’d been involved in forty years previously, little did she know what she was getting into. But, in fact, Robynne had faced a similarly uncertain situation in 1980 when as a young activist she tried to get a job at BHP’s Port Kembla steelworks. Little had she known then that this step would embroil her in a relentless 14 year anti-discrimination campaign that would ultimately change Australian law. 


As the campaign grew, hundreds of other women joined, going from unemployment to direct action at the factory gates, unemployment again, and finally to the High Court of Australia. In the end, they won a landmark victory for women’s equality -- but it was often tough going, as the film shows so movingly.

In making WOMEN OF STEEL, so long after her last short film, Bellbrook(SFF 1974), Robynne had to face different but similarly difficult circumstances. By now living further down the South Coast, she had to regularly commute, a trip of over two hours, to Wollongong to find material and gather local participation in the project. She also needed to raise the budget for the history documentary’s costly archival footage without having the track record necessary to attract investment. 

Gaining support

Using the same approach to the film as she had to the Jobs for Women campaign, Robynne gradually recruited a local production team. She reached out for donations and assistance from individuals and organisations who understood the historical importance of the film.  And over time the support did come -- from nearly 500 individuals and organisations. They ranged from Sally McManus secretary of the ACTU to “Unemployed Seafarer” ($20), women young and old, filmmakers who understood, David Donaldson inaugural director of the 1954 Sydney Film Festival, former local MP/ACTU president Jennie George, historians and archivists, local people who remembered, trade unions and their members and, significantly, the South Coast Labor Council, local TV channel WIN 4 and the Illawarra Mercury newspaper. Women of Steel is, after all, that rarity in Australia — a genuine regional documentary.

Still, it was tough going. Robynne started filming by herself in 2008 and over the years as she gathered additional local helpers, they necessarily worked as volunteers or for “solidarity wages” whilst also attending to projects of their own. 

Researcher Graham Shirley, Robynne’s former colleague at the Australian Film & Television school – yes, she had once been one of the country’s first film students – helped find old television coverage of the campaign. But unearthing more personal material and memories required Robynne to track down the now scattered women from the campaign and follow the trail of old photographs and home movies. What a way to make a film! The completion date for Women of Steel kept receding into the future. 

Tragedy strikes

Then on November 26^th, 2019 tragedy struck the NSW South Coast. Robynne had been an environmental activist for many years, a founder of Wollongong’s Green Connect; she had even helped run a program at BHP to plant 100,000 trees in the then desolate surrounds of the steelworks. So, of course, when she moved to the banks of the Clyde River near Bateman’s Bay, she naturally joined her local Rural Fire Service. And in the Nelligen RFS she was tasked with driving the big truck – one of the few members with the necessary licence. 

All through the hot dry summer, as Robynne and the rest of the film team were trying to finish the film, they had also been watching the land dry out, saying nothing, trying not to alarm each other. But when inevitably the big fires did hit, Robynne was thrown onto the fire ground, constantly on coll out and facing traumatic conditions. She moved her film material and documents out of her house as it came under repeated threat but so dangerous were the catastrophic fires around her that work on the film went right out the window. 

It took nearly three months for sufficient rain to ease conditions and for Robynne to eventually manage to return to the film – albeit (as with most members of the RFS) greatly affected by what she had gone through. Not long after her return, with the final post-production work scheduled for completion in Tasmania, Covid-19 and its travel bans arrived…. 

As the film’s consulting producer, Martha Ansara, has observed, “The main quality required for making a film is stamina and as Robynne had proven her stamina with the Jobs for Women campaign and was producing a historically significant personal documentary, I thought I’d lend a hand. But to end up with a film in the Sydney Film Festival – this has been beyond expectations! When you’re in the midst of making a film, just as with making history itself, you’re always too close to truly grasp its significance.”

Director Robynne Murphy's Statement

When I left the steelworks after thirty years as a steelworker, I picked up my home video camera and began recording the stories of the migrant/working-class women with whom I had campaigned and worked. At that time, I had little understanding of the potential impact of these informal conversations. I soon realized that the natural strength and humour of these women were made for a documentary and that such a film would be one of th best ways of bringing our little-known campaign alive and ensuring that it takes its place within Australian history. 
Progressively, the more I worked on the film with our editor, the better I understood that bringing the collective voices and experiences of those involved in the campaign to viewers in a direct way — without preaching — could also reveal the strategies which led to our victory. In this way, WOMEN OF STEEL might inspire others who face some of the big problems which confront us today. 
The Women of Steel 'stars' are not politicians nor celebrities nor figureheads of any kind - but working-class women who, through tireless grassroots struggle and by gathering support and building alliances, stood up to a seemingly unbeatable foe, BHP (Broken Hill Pty Ltd.).

Editor's Note: I am one of more than 500 investors who provided funds to make the film. The film will be online day and night June 10-21 and anyone in Australia can buy a ticket:if you just click here