Gerard Henderson

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Gerard Henderson
Born1945 (age 79–80)
Balwyn, Victoria, Australia
OccupationAuthor, columnist and political commentator
NationalityAustralian
Education Xavier College
Alma mater University of Melbourne
SubjectPolitics, Culture & Media
Spouse Anne Henderson

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

Contents

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. [4] 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. [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. [5] In December 2013, his column moved to The Weekend Australian, which also carries Media Watch Dog. [6]

He has written several books.

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. [7] [8]

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'." [9]

Henderson has supported the movement for Australia to become a republic. [10]

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. ↑ Henderson, Gerard (3 July 2019). "CATHOLIC TRIBALISM AND THE FOUNDATION OF MELBOURNE'S NEWMAN COLLEGE 1914-1918". thesydneyinstitute.com.au. The Sydney Institute . Retrieved 3 February 2025. I was at the University of Melbourne in the second half of the 1960s
  5. ↑ "Media Watch Dog – Full Archive". The Sydney Institute. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  6. ↑ "Gerard Henderson", The Australian
  7. ↑ Meade, Amanda (24 February 2020). "Conservative commentator Gerard Henderson dropped from ABC's Insiders program". The Guardian . Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  8. ↑ David Knox (24 February 2020). "Insiders drops conservative Gerard Henderson". TV Tonight . Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  9. ↑ Henderson, Gerard (August 2006). "The Howard Government and the Culture Wars". The Sydney Institute Quarterly (29): 11–22. (PDF)
  10. ↑ 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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