Gerard Henderson

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Infobox writer Template:Conservatism in Australia Gerard Henderson (born 1945) is an Australian author, columnist and political commentator noted for his right-wing Catholic and conservative views.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=SI-bio>Template:Cite web</ref> He founded and is the executive director of The Sydney Institute, a privately funded Australian current affairs forum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Education and earlier career

Henderson was educated at Melbourne's Catholic, Jesuit-run Xavier College, one of the city's elite private schools. He went on to study arts and law at the prestigious University of Melbourne during the second half of the 1960s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He later completed a PhD.

Henderson taught at the Tasmania and La Trobe universities before working for four years on the staff of Kevin Newman in the Fraser government. He moved to the Department of Industrial Relations in 1980; from 1984 to 1986 he was chief-of-staff to John Howard, during which time Howard was deputy leader, then leader, of the Liberal Party of Australia.<ref name=SI-bio/>

The Keating government appointed Henderson to the board of the Australia Foundation for Culture and the Humanities. Later, the Howard government appointed him to the Foreign Affairs Council. He was one of the people invited to Kevin Rudd's Australia 2020 Summit held in April 2008.<ref name=SI-bio/>

Works

For several years, Henderson had a weekly column in The Sydney Morning Herald. He also writes "Media Watch Dog", a weekly compendium of media criticism, written from the perspective of a blue heeler named Nancy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In December 2013, his column moved to The Weekend Australian, which also carries Media Watch Dog.<ref>"Gerard Henderson", The Australian</ref>

He has written several books.

• Mr Santamaria and the Bishops (Hale & Iremonger, 1982; Template:ISBN)
• Australian Answers (Random House Australia, 1990; Template:ISBN)
• Gerard Henderson Scribbles On (Wilkinson Books, 1993; Template:ISBN)
• Menzies' Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (HarperCollins, 1994; second edition 1998: Template:ISBN)
• A Howard Government? Inside the Coalition (HarperCollins, 1995; Template:ISBN)
• B. A. Santamaria (HarperCollins, 2005; Template:ISBN)
• Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man (MUP, 2015; Template:ISBN)
• Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt (Connor Court Publishing, 2021; Template:ISBN)

Media appearances

In 1994, Henderson profiled former prime minister Bob Hawke for the ABC TV program Four Corners.<ref name=SI-bio/> He was a regular political commentator on radio, and appeared occasionally on Insiders, another ABC TV program.<ref name=SI-bio/> In early 2020, Henderson was dropped from the show after new host David Speers reportedly wanted to try new conservative voices amid claims from sources in the ABC that Henderson failed to sufficiently engage with issues during panel discussions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Views

In 2006, Henderson said John Howard had lost the ongoing culture wars, writing, "In my view, there is only one area where the Coalition has failed to have a significant impact – namely, in what some have termed 'the culture wars'."<ref>Template:Cite journal (PDF)</ref>

Henderson has supported the movement for Australia to become a republic.<ref>Republicans may feel entitled to sneer, but it won't help their cause, Gerard Henderson's Weekly Column, 29 March 2014</ref>

External links

• Gerard Henderson columns in The Sydney Morning Herald Template:Webarchive
• Media Watch Dog archive