SBS documentary Struggle Street struggling to find suburbs to film second series in

THE controversial doco, looking at the lives of struggling Australians, can’t find a suburb that will allow its cameras in. We have a few suggestions.

IT’S one of the most controversial documentaries of recent years, a warts and all look at working class Australia.

SBS’ Struggle Street, which first aired a year ago, enraged locals so much protesters from Mount Druitt in the city’s west — where the series was filmed — marched on the television station’s studios on Sydney’s leafy north shore.

Now it seems the show is struggling to find a new street to film on with Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk having banned the TV production company from the city for fear it could “cause damage” to the reputation of the suburb it set up shop in.

Last month SBS announced the top-rating program, dubbed “poverty porn” by some, was due to return in 2017.

“Struggle Street will seek to raise awareness and deepen our understanding of those of us in the community facing social and economic hardship through an honest reflection of what it is like to be doing it tough in Australia today,” SBS Television and Online Content Director, Marshall Heald, said at the launch.

But where exactly the show will call home is a mystery, with production company Keo Films being shunned by suburbs all over the country. Now its dreams to film in Inala, in Brisbane’s southwest, look dashed too.

“I wanted to say from the outset that I have absolutely no problem with the highlighting of the issues of social and economic disadvantage in Australia,” Cr Quirk said at a council meeting on Tuesday.

“However, having observed the way in which Mount Druitt’s reputation was damaged in the so-called name of ‘shining a light on social and economical disadvantage’, I have come to the view that I will not co-operate with the process and production of a film that could similarly cause damage to the reputation both to the suburb and to the people of Inala,” the Courier-Mail reported.

So, if Inala’s out, where is Australia’s next Struggle Street?

SUNSHINE, MELBOURNE

The production company was said to have sniffed around this corner of Melbourne’s west earlier in the year.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Sunshine has a higher than average number of residents in their early 20s, the parents of two-thirds of the population were born overseas and unemployment is almost double the rate of Victoria as a whole.

Nevertheless, a number of successful Australians have come from Sunshine including the former CEO of department store, David Jones, Paul Zahra.

The suggestion Struggle Street might come to town left Sunshine Business Association President Bruce White disgruntled.

“We don’t want it … You find people who are struggling and people doing it tough everywhere so we don’t want that associating with just our suburb.” Mr White told news.com.au in November.

He said he had been fighting to change the perception people had of Sunshine and believed the broadcast would do more harm than good.

“The only struggle they’ll find here is the struggle to find a good story,” he said.

Mr White said Sunshine had the second highest equity growth outside of Toorak, in the city’s ritzy south east, and people were starting to flock to the suburb, which is just 11km from Melbourne’s CBD.

CLAYMORE, SYDNEY

In the Macarthur region of Sydney’s south, Claymore on some metrics — such as secondary school attendance — is top of the class beating the NSW average.

But it’s downhill from there with unemployment at 31 per cent compared to the 5.9 per cent across the state.

According to 2015’s Dropping Off the Edge report — which looked at social indicators including long-term unemployment, education standards and domestic violence — disadvantage had become entrenched in many communities including Claymore.

The suburb was in the second least severe of six bands of disadvantage in 2007. It’s now in the most severe bracket, according to the report from Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia

“There are a small but significant number of communities that we have failed. They need a new structure and a new approach,” Jesuit Social Services chief executive Julie Edwards said.

But the report did note things were on the up in Claymore with “a combination of measures specifically directed to promoting the educational and social development of children of the area”.

AURUKUN, FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND

If cities are proving too troublesome for SBS, how about heading bush to find some indigenous communities where people are struggling?

Aurukun, in remote Cape York, entered the headlines last week after teachers were evacuated from the local school after unrest.

Local MP Billy Gordon said that Aurukun was a “culturally rich community” but he was “particularly troubled” to hear of events at the school included the alleged assault of a teacher.

The member urged the government to support the Aurukun bauxite mine that could bring a windfall of employment to the area.

“It will only be on the back of jobs and real economic development opportunities that we will start to address the entrenched social disadvantage that has plagued this community, he told the Courier Mail.

MOUNT DRUITT, SYDNEY

Or why not return to their old stomping ground of Mount Druitt, the original Struggle Street.

Unfortunately, however, the suburb is not exactly laying out the welcome mat.

After the first series, Labor’s Ed Husic, whose electorate of Chifley includes Mount Druitt, accused the filmmakers of questionable ethics while filming and putting together promotions that ridiculed his constituents.

“They were treated as simple comedic fodder by SBS, there to be denigrated and demeaned and all for one purpose and one purpose only: to boost ratings,” Mr Husic said in parliament.

Blacktown Mayor Stephen Bali went one better leading a convoy of garbage trucks from Mount Druitt to SBS’ headquarters in the midst of the outrage over the first series.

“The show is garbage, hence we are using garbage trucks,” Mr Bali proclaimed.

But perhaps the biggest barrier to finding a street struggling in Mount Druitt is that many simply aren’t anymore.

In May 2015, a house in the suburb sold for a million dollars, proving the western Sydney suburb is more than its TV image of housos and hard knocks, reported the Daily Telegraph.

The four-bedroom split level home received dozens of inquiries and multiple offers on its open day with a local family eventually securing it for $1,000,000.

“The story of this is to not tar everyone with the same Struggle Street brush,” local estate agent Terry Hansen said.

News.com.au has contacted SBS for comment.