Gerard Henderson
Born1945 (age 78–79)
Balwyn, Victoria, Australia
OccupationAuthor, columnist and political commentator
NationalityAustralian
EducationXavier College
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne
SubjectPolitics
SpouseAnne Henderson

Gerard Henderson (born 1945) is an Australian author, columnist and political commentator.[1][2] He founded and is the executive director of The Sydney Institute, a privately funded Australian current affairs forum.[3]

Education and earlier career

Henderson attended Xavier College in Melbourne, before studying arts and law at the University of Melbourne and completing 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.[2]

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.[2]

Works

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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.[4] In December 2013, his column moved to The Weekend Australian, which also carries Media Watch Dog.[5]

He has written several books.

  • Mr Santamaria and the Bishops (Hale & Iremonger, 1982; ISBN 9780868060590)
  • Australian Answers (Random House Australia, 1990; ISBN 9780091699314)
  • Gerard Henderson Scribbles On (Wilkinson Books, 1993; ISBN 9781863501323)
  • Menzies' Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (HarperCollins, 1994; second edition 1998: ISBN 9780732259235)
  • A Howard Government? Inside the Coalition (HarperCollins, 1995; ISBN 9780732256395)
  • B. A. Santamaria (HarperCollins, 2005; ISBN 9780732264253)
  • Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man (MUP, 2015; ISBN 9780522868586)
  • Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt (Connor Court Publishing, 2021; ISBN 9781922449818)

Media appearances

In 1994, Henderson profiled former prime minister Bob Hawke for the ABC TV program Four Corners.[2] He was a regular political commentator on radio, and appeared occasionally on Insiders, another ABC TV program.[2] 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.[6][7]

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'."[8] He has supported the movement for Australia to become a republic.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Porter, Eric (October 2007). "Taking Conservatives Seriously: Gerard Henderson and Social Policy". Just Policy (45): 30–37. ISSN 1323-2266 – via Trove. This article assesses Gerard Henderson's work and ideas. Henderson mainly contributed to Australian conservatism with a concern for social justice and feels that government plays a vital role in securing the conditions for freedom. This article identifies Henderson's vision for Australian society and evaluates how well he achieves his aims. The article also takes Henderson's conservatism seriously, treating his ideas as a coherent philosophical statement worthy of analysis.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Gerard Henderson". The Sydney Institute. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017.
  3. ↑ Ewin Hannan; Shaun Carney (10 December 2005). "Thinkers of influence". The Age. While not a think tank, it operates as a forum for debate. It does not commission research or have policies." "The institute is privately funded, with all papers delivered to it published in The Sydney Papers.
  4. ↑ "Media Watch Dog – Full Archive". The Sydney Institute. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  5. ↑ "Gerard Henderson", The Australian
  6. ↑ Meade, Amanda (24 February 2020). "Conservative commentator Gerard Henderson dropped from ABC's Insiders program". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  7. ↑ David Knox (24 February 2020). "Insiders drops conservative Gerard Henderson". TV Tonight. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  8. ↑ Henderson, Gerard (August 2006). "The Howard Government and the Culture Wars". The Sydney Institute Quarterly (29): 11–22. (PDF)
  9. ↑ Republicans may feel entitled to sneer, but it won't help their cause, Gerard Henderson's Weekly Column, 29 March 2014
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