Gerard Henderson

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

Gerard Henderson
Born1945 (age 75–76)
Balwyn, Victoria, Australia
OccupationAuthor, columnist and political commentator
NationalityAustralian
EducationXavier College
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne
SubjectPolitics
SpouseAnne Henderson

Education and earlier career

Henderson attended Xavier College, a Jesuit school 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 Malcolm Fraser's Coalition 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

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.

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 (Harper Collins, 1994; second edition 1998: ISBN 9780732259235)
  • A Howard Government? Inside the Coalition (Harper Collins, 1995; ISBN 9780732256395)
  • Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man (MUP, 2015; ISBN 9780522868586)

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 appears occasionally on Insiders, another ABC TV program.[2] Since 2020, he decided he would no longer appear due on the program due was unsure of the future of his appearances and had "understood the message".[5][6]

Views

Henderson's columns defended the former Howard government policy on Iraq and national security since the September 11 attacks.

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

References
  1. "National Library of Australia Trove". National Library of Australia. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 16 December 2019. 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. Gerard Henderson Archived 30 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine biography at Sydney Institute website
  3. Ewin Hannan and 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. Meade, Amanda (24 February 2020). "Conservative commentator Gerard Henderson dropped from ABC's Insiders program". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  6. "Insiders drops conservative Gerard Henderson". TV Tonight. 24 February 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  7. Henderson, Gerard (2006). "The Howard Government and the Culture Wars" (PDF). Sydney Institute Quarterly. 27: 11–22.
  8. 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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