GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 708

22 November 2024

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  • IT’S MORE OF THE ABC TV MEDIA WATCH SAME – AS LINTON BESSER REPLACES PAUL BARRY

It’s official.  The ABC will remain a Conservative Free Zone without one conservative presenter, producer or editor for any of its news and current affairs outlets.  Management at the taxpayer funded public broadcaster maintains that there are conservatives within the ABC.  But, so far, not a single conservative name has been cited.

This is good news for Media Watch Dog – since the ABC as a Conservative Free Zone produces great copy.

At Gin & Tonic Time on 21 November, the ABC posted a statement titled “ABC reveals 2025 content slate.” When it comes to news and current affairs it’s very much more of the same. The same is true of comedy (re which see this issue’s Comedy Segment).

As MWD has long maintained, the ABC resembles the words of the Eagles’ song Hotel California.  In that ABC types can check out of the organisation but they never really leave it.  And so it comes as no surprise that Fran (“I’m an activist”) Kelly will be back on air in 2025 with a new daily 6 pm program titled The Radio National Hour.  Sally Sara will take on RN Breakfast and Marc Fennell and Tim Burrowes have new programs on RN – the former on history the latter on the media.  Not a conservative among this lot.

The big news about the ABC 2025 “content slate” [Slate’s a dreadful word – MWD Editor] turns on the appointment of the ABC’s Linton Besser to present ABC TV’s Media Watch (replacing Paul Barry).

Media Watch Dog has had seven presenters since it commenced in 1989. All have been or are part of the ABC Family. And all are left-of-centre or leftist types. Thus providing yet another example of the ABC as a Conservative Free Zone.  Here’s the roll-call:

Stuart Littlemore – 1989-1997

Richard Ackland – 1998-1999

Paul Barry – 2000

David Marr 2002-2004

The late Liz Jackson – 2005

Monica Attard – 2006-2007

Jonathan Holmes – 2008-2013

Paul Barry – 2013-2024

Linton Besser – 2025-

Not a conservative among this lot, either. Even before the ABC rolled out its 2025 slate, the ABC reported Comrade Besser’s appointment.  He gave this (somewhat pretentious) statement to the ABC:

I’m thrilled and sobered to be given the opportunity to host this important television program and hope to continue its great tradition. The media is big business and hugely influential. Its mission may be to hold others to account — but it too deserves the blowtorch.

For years, members of the public have described to me a fundamental distrust of the media. They lump us together, the good and the bad. Rather than despairing at this uncomfortable reality I’m going to try in my own small way to do something about it. Media Watch remains Australia’s best public guardrail against bad behaviour by the press.

Thrilled and sobered. Somewhat pompous, don’t you think?  It seems that the Rev Barry will be replaced by the Rev Besser in the Media Watch pulpit. Whether or not there are changes to the Media Watch set.

Comrade Besser reckons that he’s going to “do something” to overcome what “members of the public have described” to him as “a fundamental distrust of the media”.  Besser seems unaware that he is part of the problem.

For example, on 14 November, Besser appeared on Richard Glover’s Drive program on ABC Radio Sydney. It was the “Journos’ Forum”.  Other members of the panel were the Sydney Morning Herald’s Kishor Napier-Raman and The Australian’s  Sarah Ison.

Comrades Besser and Napier-Raman combined in a rant about President-elect Donald J. Trump which contained a degree of, well, fake news.

Media Watch Dog will document this in the next issue.  It will also report on Milton Cockburn’s criticism of Besser’s past howlers in the book Besser co-wrote with Kate McClymont. Namely, their jointly-authored work He Who Must Be Obeyed (Vintage, 2014). Cockburn’s critique is contained in his recently published book The Assassination of Neville Wran (Connor Court, 2024). The book has been ignored by the SMH and the ABC.  But not by Media Watch Dog.  So tune in again next week.

  • AMY REMEIKIS ENTERS THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE’S SOVIET WITH A WARNING ABOUT TRUMP-THE-WOLF

Lotsa thanks to the Hunter Valley avid Media Watch Dog reader who drew the attention of Ellie’s (male) co-owner to Amy Remeikis’s debut at the  left-wing Australia Institute.

As avid MWD readers are aware, Comrade Remeikis was one of The Guardian Australia’s wage slaves.  It was not so long ago that she declared on the ABC TV Insiders program that she was too scared to ask the socialists who run The Guardian Australia for a  pay rise – even though she was having difficulties paying the rent.  Gerard Henderson went into bat for wage justice for Comrade Remeikis and was praised by one member of the Canberra Press Gallery for having done so.  But it appears his advocacy came to nought.

And so Comrade Remeikis packed up her computer (along with, MWD assumes, her desk portraits of Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin)  and took up digs at The Australia Institute.  This is how she was introduced by The Australia Institute (which appears to have got the idea for its name from The Sydney Institute) – the former commenced in 1994, the latter in 1989.

Welcome to The Australia Institute, Amy Remeikis. Amy is one of Australia’s most respected political observers. She proudly swims against the tide of spin which swirls around the Canberra bubble. This is her first column for The Australia Institute.

And this is how Comrade Remeikis commenced her inaugural column:

My oma would read me Aesop’s fables as a child because she believed stories should always teach you something. And that something was always easier to learn through the lessons of someone else. My favourite was The Wolf and the Lamb. I would listen as she would tell me of the wolf looking to justify his actions by finding some blame in the lamb he wished to eat. But the lamb did not feed from the wolf’s pasture, did not drink from his spring.  The lamb had not lived long enough to insult the wolf.  But still the wolf ate the lamb, citing his right to dinner. The lesson; the tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny, and it is useless to appeal for justice from an unjust oppressor.

Well fancy that.  Comrade Remeikis devoted her first Australia Institute column to telling readers (if readers there were) about what her grandmother said about tyranny.

There were only three contemporary names named in her 1055-word article. The United States, Donald Trump and, yes, Rupert Murdoch.  This seems to be the tyranny which threatens our existence.  Not Russia or China or Iran or North Korea – but the United  States.

Remeikis used the word “wolf” on no fewer than 24 occasions in her article.  MWD’s favourite word usage in this regard was this: “Now is the time for bravery.  For calling a spade a spade and a wolf a wolf.” Brilliant, eh?  And there’s another question: Can You Bear it?

  • NORMAN SWAN NOW ONLY ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST TRUSTED DOCTORS

As Media Watch Dog readers are aware, the ABC’s doctor-in-the-studio, Norman Swan, has not practised medicine for around four decades. Moreover, as MWD readers know, Doctor Swan (for a GP he once was) got the Covid-19 pandemic hopelessly wrong. MWD will document the learned medical doctor’s pandemic howlers once again – in the next issue.

In the meantime, it is Ellie’s (male) co-owner’s melancholy duty to report that your man Swan no longer presents himself as Australia’s most trusted doctor.

Here are the covers of his three recent books.

So, according to Swan’s publisher, the ABC’s doctor-in-the-studio was Australia’s most trusted doctor in 2021 and again in 2022. But now, in 2024, he is just “one of Australia’s most trusted doctors”. Can You Bear It?

OUTSIDE INSIDERS

As avid readers are well aware, a certain William (Bill) Thompson – a Melburnian who identifies as the ABC’s Southbank Correspondent – set up the “Outside Insiders” video segment some years ago.  This is a print edition of the Bill Thompson initiative to report on the ABC TV Insiders program from the outside.  Mr Thompson remains in situ in Melbourne. But Insiders has fled Melbourne for the (media) safety of the Canberra Bubble and, consequently, is now loose from the troublesome Mr Thompson. [Maybe that’s why Insiders junked Melbourne – just a thought. – MWD Editor]

  • ANNABEL CRABB’S STREAM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Did anyone watch ABC TV Insiders on Sunday 17 November?  Patricia (“Please call me PK”) Karvelas was in the presenter’s chair and the panel comprised Annabel Crabb (ABC TV), Katina Curtis (The West Australian) and Peter Hartcher (international editor for Nine’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald).

If Comrade Crabb were a man she would almost certainly have been accused of mansplaining.  For the garrulous Crabb took up 45 per cent of the panel discussion time compared with Hartcher (32 per cent) and Curtis (a mere 23 per cent).

And what a performance – or, rather, stream of unconsciousness – Comrade Crabb of Kitchen Cabinet put in. She described Donald J. Trump as “the leader of the TLDR – Too Long Didn’t Read”. Clever, eh?  Then after the oh-so-pompous Mr Hartcher described President-elect Trump as the “God of Destruction for America”, Crabb had this to say about the incoming administration:

Annabel Crabb: And this recruitment drive is like a, I mean, WWF [World Wrestling Federation] thing. And he was introduced by Hulk Hogan at the RNC, right? So, you know, you’ve got the new defense minister, Secretary for Defense, Pete Hegseth, who’s sort of like, you know — and you’ve got, you know, Kennedy, who’s like with the dead bear cub. I mean, there’s so much drama and kind of flash and dazzle, and again, I think to take it literally, is an error. To see what it means theatrically in terms of what he’s projecting to the American people is kind of the main issue.

Katina Curtis: It’s definitely entertaining. People are sick of politics.

Patricia Karvelas: It is a form of entertainment. There’s no doubt.

Katina Curtis made the most sensible contribution to the discussion.  Donald Trump is entertaining.  As to Comrade Crabb, this is MWD’s  translation:   “Well, WWF. You know – Peter Hegseth is like, you know, and as for Robert Kennedy Jr, well, he’s like, like with a dead bear cub.  Sort of, you know.  As is Peter Hegseth – he’s sort of, like you know. Right?”

But there was more. In her primarily incoherent rant, Comrade Crabb proffered this wisdom about the United States and Australian economies:

Annabel Crabb: If you wave away the gun smoke of the US election and all of the eye-catching detail, the correlating problem for Labor here that it shares with the Dems in America is one, the economy is doing better than people feel it’s doing, so there’s that disjunction.

An avid MWD reader emailed this comment about Comrade Crabb’s economic analysis (for want of a more accurate term): “The economy may be doing well for an inner-city Sydney ABC employee with higher than inflation wage increases and with a spot of extra income on the side. The US economy is doing well – productivity is rising, inflation is within the central bank’s target band and interest rates are falling.  In Australia, however, there is a per-capita recession underway. Productivity levels are back to what they were 20 years ago and there has been a decline in inflation adjusted disposable incomes. It would seem that, from her inner-city abode, Comrade Crabb is unaware of how tough it is to bring up a family on a fixed/low income in a high tax/high inflation/high rent and relatively high interest rates environment.”

No one corrected Annabel Crabb’s economic ignorance.  Could it be that PK wasn’t listening and Peter Hartcher was reflecting on his own innate wisdom?  As to Katina Curtis – she could barely get a word in.

[Interesting. But I would have liked to read more about the Hartcher Wisdom – especially since he has predicted the end of US democracy. Perhaps next week. – MWD Editor.]

Media Watch Dog’s Five Paws Award was inaugurated in Issue Number 26 (4 September 2009) during the time of Nancy (2004-2017). The first winner was ABC TV presenter Emma Alberici.  Ms Alberici scored for remembering the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 whereby Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union.  And for stating that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had effectively started the Second World War, since it was immediately followed by Germany’s invasion of Poland (at a time when the Soviet Union had become an ally of Germany).

Over the years, the late Nancy’s Five Paws Award has become one of the world’s most prestigious gongs – rating just below the Nobel Prize and the Academy Awards.

  • SAUL ESLAKE OF HOBART TOWN SCORES FOR A CANINE-RELATED APOLOGY

In MWD’s previous issue, the Hobart-based Independent economist Saul Eslake was praised for his criticism of the Snowy 2.0 project. But your man Eslake was admonished for describing Snowy 2.0 not only as a “dog” but “an absolute dog”.

MWD made the point that, unlike Snowy 2.0, most canines in Australia are neither over budget nor late. The segment concluded as follows:

No wonder Ellie took offence at the economist Saul Eslake’s put-down.  Just imagine how your man Eslake would feel if he was described as, say, a “snowy” or an “absolute snowy”.

That would be offensive. And so is the use of the word dog to describe something that is hopeless or bad.  Ellie wants to let readers know that she has taken offence on behalf of the world-wide canine community.

At around Gin + Tonic time on 15 November, Ellie’s (male) co-owner received the following text:

The apology is appreciated. Saul Eslake – Five Paws.

COMEDY CORNER

  • MORE OF THE SAME ABC COMEDY IN 2025 – AS ABC MANAGEMENT REJECTS SHAUN MICALLEF’S OFFER TO HELP NEW COMEDIANS FREE OF CHARGE

The ABC this week announced its 2025 programming slate. While there were changes to ABC Radio – although Fran Kelly hosting another radio program after her faux-retirement can barely be considered a change – the comedy slate looks like much of the same.

The Spicks & Specks revival will continue – it first aired in 2005 and returned with the same hosts in 2021 – as well as Gruen, hosted by Wil Anderson. Anderson has been with the ABC since 2000.

On 21 November, Thomas Mitchell reported on the returning programs in the Sydney Morning Herald, with comments by Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s chief content officer. Oliver-Taylor confirmed that Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction will continue, commenting “Shaun is part of the ABC establishment, and long may that continue.”.

When asked by Mitchell if the criticism that the ABC has given up on finding new talent, Oliver-Taylor said:

“I don’t think so; we constantly ask internally, ‘How do you find the next Wil Anderson, Kitty Flanagan and Micallef?’”…“To that end, we have reserved two slots for next year, including a Wednesday night slot for two new entertainment shows, but we couldn’t fit them into this year’s line-up.”

In light of comments made by Shaun Micallef in an interview with David Marr on Late Night Live on 4 November, MWD has some doubts about how hard the ABC is trying to find “the next Micallef”. Let’s go to the transcript:

David Marr: Hey. Are you any good helping comics who can’t quite land a joke? You know, are you good at coaching?

Shaun Micallef: I wouldn’t presume – like I said, I’ve never done stand-up comedy. Having said that, I did want – at the end of Mad as Hell, because we finished after 11 years – I did want to usher in a, perhaps a new bunch of comedians who might deal with weekly events. And I was, I offered that, my service, free of charge to the ABC.

David Marr: Really?

Shaun Micallef: And it was turned down…

The ABC claims to be looking for new talent, but has no interest in one of it’s most prominent comedians helping develop it at no cost to the ABC. Oliver-Taylor says that Shaun Micallef is part of the “establishment” and “long may that continue”. Micallef is 62. It seems likely that the current crop of ABC presenters will remain on the ABC until they’re in the grave. As for Oliver-Taylor’s claim that the ABC has two hypothetical new shows that they couldn’t possibly find time to air anytime soon, MWD recommends that avid hypothetical viewers don’t hold their breath.

NEW SEGMENT – A MEDIA LEGAL REFLECTION

  • THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD IGNORANT OF THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE

It would appear that the presumption of innocence is fast disappearing. Once upon a time, a person charged with a criminal offence was presumed innocent until proven guilty by a jury or, in some cases, the finding by a judge or magistrate.

This is how the concept is defined in the LexisNexis Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (5th Edition).

Presumption of innocence:  A rule of the criminal law that every person is presumed innocent of a criminal charge until proven guilty.  The presumption can only be rebutted if the prosecution discharges the general burden of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt….

Media Watch Dog has no opinion on the charges laid by NSW Police with respect to media personality Alan Jones for alleged historical sexual abuse.  He is currently on bail with a hearing scheduled for mid-December.

However, sections of the media seem to have assumed Mr Jones’ guilt.  The Sydney Morning Herald, which should know better, for example.  On 19 November, the SMH’s front page read “Alan Jones charged. 8 victims, 24 offences. Detectives praised.”  This was over an article titled “Downfall” written by Kate McClymont, the SMH’s chief investigative reporter.

The fact is that there are no Jones’ “victims” at this stage of the legal process. They are “complainants”.  If Jones is found guilty, the complainants will become victims. To describe the complainants as victims reduces the prospect of Jones obtaining a fair trial.  Moreover, it is simply wrong. As the former English judge Sir Richard Henriques pointed out in a report he wrote in October 2016 titled An Independent Review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of non-recent sexual offence investigations alleged against persons of public prominence:

All “complainants” are not “victims”. Some complaints are false and thus those “complainants” are not “victims”. Throughout the judicial process the word “complainant” is deployed up to the moment of conviction where after a “complainant” is properly referred to as a “victim”. Since the entire judicial process up to that point is engaged in determining whether or not a “complainant” is indeed a victim, such an approach cannot be questioned. No Crown Court judge will permit a “complainant” to be referred to as a “victim” prior to conviction. Since the investigative process is similarly engaged in ascertaining facts which will, if proven, establish guilt, the use of the word “victim”:  at the commencement of an investigation is simply inaccurate and should cease.

The Daily Telegraph also erred in its report – but not to the same extent.  Its heading read “High profile Olympic athlete among fallen radio king’s eight alleged victims”.  At this stage the persons concerned are not victims. But at least The Daily Telegraph used the term “alleged” which mitigates the legal error.

The SMH’s unprofessional journalism continued on the Letters Page – which was headed:  “McClymont deserves all plaudits over Jones probe.”  The newspaper ran 10 letters in its print edition – all of which, except one, were hostile to Jones.

One letter, from a reader in Inverell, NSW ran for 12 words. Here they are: “I don’t think AJ will be receiving a reference from Cardinal Pell.”

This pathetic letter should not have been published.  The SMH Letters Editor should know that George Pell is dead. Moreover, the SMH Letters Editor seems ignorant of the fact that, in the criminal law jurisdiction, references are only submitted to a court after a person is found guilty of a crime and is awaiting sentence.

HISTORY CORNER

  • THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA’S PAUL DALEY FUDGED “HISTORY” OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

As avid Media Watch Dog readers know, The Guardian is a newspaper of the left, by the left, for the left.  The same is true of its offspring The Guardian Australia – which, unlike its counterpart in London, is an online newspaper only. The  Guardian Australia commenced publication in Australia in May 2013. Lenore Taylor is its current editor.

As is widely known, the comrades at The Guardian today benefit from the (inconvenient) truth that The Guardian came into existence as a consequence of the slave trade.

The paper, established by John Edward Taylor in Manchester in 1821, was originally called The Manchester Guardian. It dropped the word Manchester in 1959 and the paper relocated to London in 1964. John Edward Taylor, along with some other Manchester businessmen, profited from the slave trade. Taylor was a cotton merchant. In March 2023, the Scott Trust’s Legacies of Enslavement Report, revealed that Taylor had links to the cotton manufacturing firm Oakden & Taylor and the cotton merchant company Shuttleworth which imported raw cotton picked by slaves in America.

It took the comrades at The Guardian a mere two centuries to ‘fess up about the newspaper’s dirty little secret.  The Guardian is financially sustained by revenue from the Scott Trust.  It is named after C.P. Scott – an influential former editor.

Paul Daley Uses Remembrance Day in Australia to Promote the Cause of the Pro-Communist International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War

But MWD digresses, not for the first time.  On 10 November, The Guardian Australia celebrated the eve of Remembrance Day in November with an article by Paul Daley titled “Why is there no official memorial in Australia to citizens who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War?”

Good question? Not really.   Comrade Daley’s query relates to those Australians who joined the International Brigades and went to Spain to fight with the left-wing Republican government and against the Nationalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the International Brigades as follows:

International Brigades, groups of foreign volunteers who fought on the Republican side against the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). So called because their members (initially) came from some 50 countries, the International Brigades were recruited, organised, and directed by the Comintern (Communist International), with headquarters in Paris. A large number of the mostly young recruits were Communists before they became involved in the conflict; more joined the party during the course of the war. The French were the largest single foreign group (some 28,000); Germany, Austria, Poland, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Hungary, and Belgium were also represented by significant numbers of volunteers.

An estimated 70 Australians joined the International Brigades of whom it is estimated that about 15 died.  Australia did not commit forces to either side during the Spanish Civil War.  Consequently, there is no good reason why there should be an official memorial to Australians who participated in the International Brigades as ideologically motivated mercenaries.  There is an unofficial monument to the Australians who fought for the Republic in Canberra’s Lennox Gardens on the south side of Lake Burley Griffin and close to the Albert Hall.  MWD visited this site some years ago.

The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

The Spanish Civil War commenced on 18 July 1936 when General Franco issued a manifesto indicating that Spanish officers were loyal to their country rather than the Republican government in Madrid.  Franco’s forces achieved a total victory on 1 April 1939.

All up, probably around 500,000 Spaniards died in battle or close to the battle lines.  It was an appalling conflict – as most civil wars are. There was considerable brutality on both sides – and there were fine Spaniards who died in defence of the Republican or Nationalist causes.

In the April 2012 issue of Standpoint magazine, the veteran historian Hugh Thomas reviewed Professor Paul Preston’s book The Spanish Holocaust. Thomas, who is not a Catholic, queried Preston’s continuing support for the Spanish Left of the 1930s and the Republican government. Thomas wrote that he was “not sure that Professor Preston has quite entered into the minds of the Right in Spain…who from 1934 onwards felt threatened by a left-wing revolution on the Russian model”. Thomas argued that there was a danger of a Soviet-style revolution in Spain and that there “was a cult of violence in the Anarchist movement”.  In view of this, it is scarcely surprising that the Catholic Church in Spain supported Franco’s forces.

In 2001, the collection Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War was released by Yale University Press.  Edited by Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck and Grigory Sevostianov, the book consists of documents released following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Reviewing Spain Betrayed  in National Review, the author David Pryce-Jones (also not a Catholic) commented that “taken together, these documents show that [Josef] Stalin aimed to transform Spain into a Soviet satellite”.  He added that had Stalin succeeded, he would have extended the Communist reach, and encircled both Germany and France”.  This would have been of special danger to Britain during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Pryce-Jones also made the important point that Franco’s refusal to grant Hitler access to Spain to facilitate the seizure of Gibraltar, and interdict oil supplies from the Middle East, “may have saved Britain in 1940”. Unlike the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who took Italy into the Second World War as an ally of Nazi Germany, the military dictator Franco made Spain a neutral country.

Paul Daley, a man of the left, holds the views that have been criticised by such British historians as the late Hugh Thomas and David Pryce-Jones.

Comrade Daley’s Errors of Commission & Omission

Paul Daley commenced his article with reference to the Wollongong steelworker Jim McNeill, who joined the International Brigades.  He also refers to Wollongong steelworker Joe Carter and Sydney dockworker Jack Franklyn. McNeill and Franklin were members of the Communist Party of Australia and supported the Soviet Union’s totalitarian dictator Josef Stalin.  Daley has this to say about the likes of McNeill.

The group of men fought Europe fascism on the battlefield when the conservative Menzies government of Australia, like many others internationally, was still wedded to appeasement of fascist leaders such as [Adolf] Hitler and Franco.

This is historically false.  Robert Menzies did not become prime minister of Australia until 26 April 1939 – replacing Joseph Lyons who died in office. Menzies was not in office during the Spanish  Civil War and neither said nor wrote much about the conflict.

It is true that during most of the 1930s Menzies supported a policy of appeasement with respect to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  He was not alone. Daley neglected to mention that John Curtin, who led the Labor Party from 1937 until his death in 1945, also supported appeasement.  So did most other Australian politicians at the time – with the exception of Billy Hughes who left/was expelled from the Labor Party in 1916 on account of his advocacy for conscription for overseas services.  Appeasement of Germany throughout most of the 1930s was the policy of most Western nations at the time.

When British prime minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany on 1 September 1939 following Germany’s invasion of Poland, Menzies declared that Australia was also at war.  In time, the Menzies government committed the Second Australian Imperial Force to the war in Europe and North Africa against Germany and its ally Italy.  The Labor opposition opposed the deployment of Australian forces to the European theatre.  Daley does not mention this in his Guardian piece.

Early in his article Daley makes this (misleading) point:

The Australian members of the International Brigades travelled and fought under their own steam. Though they came from all walks of life and professions, a good many were communists and dedicated trade unionists like McNeill, and their actions at the time were at odds with – and frowned upon – by their government.

The fact is that the International Brigades were under the control of the Comintern (i.e. the Communist International) which was controlled by Vladimir Lenin’s heirs in Moscow.  Sure the International Brigades fought Franco’s Nationalist Army – but they also fought the Anarchists who were opposed to Stalin as well as Franco.  If Daley has read George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, he will know that Orwell fought with the Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and detested the Stalinist members of the International Brigade.

It is true that not all members of the International Brigades were members of the Communist Party – but many were.  In any event, the International Brigades were controlled by the Soviet Union and a victory by the Republicans would almost certainly have led to a communist coup in Madrid.

An Attack on Robert Menzies but Not John Curtin

Comrade Daley continued:

The year after this rugged trio [i.e. McNeill, Carter and Franklyn] survived [the Battle of] Ebro, their government back home was still appeasing European fascism, with Robert Menzies in July 1939 declaring: “History will label Hitler as one of the really great men of the century.” Not so much, as it happened. Australia was not alone in choosing to ignore the ominous warning signs of the moment, highlighting perhaps how hindsight, like rigorous history, can sometimes feel onerously prescient.

In fact, the full Menzies quote – taken from the Perth Mirror – of 15 July , is as follows:

History will label Hitler as one of the really great men of the century…As far as the German people are concerned, Hitler has proved himself-self a great man and a tireless worker. He dragged his nation from bankruptcy and revolution, and I think he has too much intelligence lightly to cast them back into another war.

Sure, Menzies may have made some unwise comments about Hitler in July 1939. But so did Curtin and many other political leaders at the time.

Virtually no one anticipated in the 1930s how Hitler’s Nazi regime would act.  Menzies in 1939 believed that the type of government chosen by the Germans was suitable for Germany. So did Labor leader John Curtin.  As Anne Henderson documents in her book Menzies at War (New South 2014), on 9 May 1939 John Curtin said this to the House of Representatives:

The efforts of the British Government in its negotiations for peace were to some extent made difficult by the partisan activities of those who are more concerned, as it were, with fighting Hitler than with establishing peace. There is unquestionably in the world a class that has a vested interest in war and war-making, and the propagandistic activities which are employed in the interests of this exploiting and ruthless class, which is international in character, have made difficulties for all governments, including, I believe, the governments of dictators.

In other words, Curtin said as late as May 1939 that Nazi rule was good for Germans. He later changed his mind. Paul Daley continued:

…after returning to NSW, McNeill and Franklyn, both Communist Party members, later enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force to fight Nazi Germany and its allies in Europe when Australia followed Great Britain into the second world war after Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Forgetting the Nazi Soviet Pact

If McNeill and Franklyn did this they were an exception with regard to the Communist Party of Australia members.  What’s missing from Daley’s attempt at history is any mention of the Nazi Soviet Pact which came into operation on 23 August 1939.

Since Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union became allies as of 23 August 1939 the Communist Party opposed the Allied war effort and attempted to undermine Australia’s contribution to the war against Germany and Italy. The Communist Party said nothing when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the West while Germany invaded Poland from the East as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The CPA supported the Nazi Soviet Pact until Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.  It was only then that the Communist Party of Australia supported the war effort.  Daley does not mention this in his Guardian article.

Daley refers to Michael Samaras’ book called McNeill Anti-Fascist and writes:

Samaras references a 1948 booklet, Australians in Spain, which gives insight into the thinking of Australians who fought in Spain and later enlisted in the empire’s war against Nazi Germany and its allies. “They went to Spain for the same reason as Australians a few years later went to El Alamein and Tobruk, to the battle for Britain, to Syria and Singapore, Timor and Milne Bay and the Kokoda Trail, and so on to Bougainville and Balikpapan – because they saw a fight between freedom and tyranny, and they had to be in it on freedom’s side. All that has happened since has made it clear that Spain was the first stage of an international war into which we would all be drawn sooner or later.”

This is ahistorical. Daley makes no reference to the fact that Australians in Spain was written by Len Fox, a Communist Party of Australia operative. This is referenced Amirah Inglis’ Australians in the Spanish Civil War (Allen & Unwin, 1987).

Certainly, McNeill joined the Second AIF in 1939 and fought in the Second World War. But most CPA members between mid-1938 and mid-1941 opposed Australia’s war effort.

This is how Paul Daley’s piece in The Guardian Australia concluded:

It is high time, surely, that Australia’s official memory extended to the veterans of Spain. They should be memorialised consistently with the ethos of Remembrance Day to remember all veterans who fought and died.

The fact is that if the Communist Party of Australia had got its way between 23 August  1939 and 22 June 1941, Hitler would have defeated the allies (mainly Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India) before Germany marched on the Soviet Union.

And there’s another inconvenient truth.  For all his faults, Franco remained neutral in the Second World War. As David Pryce-Jones points out, if the Republicans had prevailed in the Spanish Civil War, Spain would soon have been controlled by the Spanish communists who, in turn, were controlled by the Soviet Union.  If Spain had been an ally of the Soviet Union between mid-1939 and mid-1941, Germany would have controlled Gibraltar and could have effected a successful naval blockade of Britain.

Remembering Australia’s Nugent Bull

Among the Australians who fought in the Spanish Civil War it is Nugent Bull who deserves a medal. Only one Australian signed on with the Nationalists.  Nugent Bull, a schoolboy cricket star at St Joseph’s Hunters Hill in Sydney – who had played alongside Stan McCabe (later a great batsman for Australia) fought with the Nationalists and took part in Franco’s victory parade through Madrid in May 1939.  Nugent Bull died on 9 September 1940 when the Wellington bomber (on which he was a tail-gunner) crashed after being hit by flak during an attack on Nazi Germany shipping over the English Channel.  Nugent Bull survived his time on active service supporting Franco – and he died on active service attacking Hitler.

Nugent Bull’s career is covered in the book by Sydney-based historian Judith Keene titled Fighting for Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 (Leicester University Press, 2001).

Unlike some members of the International Brigades Australia, Nugent Bull never supported Nazi Germany’s war aims between mid-1939 and mid-1941.  Paul Daley’s understanding of the Spanish Civil War is shallow.

This overwhelmingly popular segment of Media Watch Dog usually works like this. Someone or other thinks it would be a you-beaut idea to write to Gerard Henderson AC (Always Courteous) about something or other. And Hendo, being a courteous and well-brought-up kind of guy, replies. Then, hey presto, the correspondence is published in MWD – much to the delight of its avid readers.

There are occasions, however, when (the late) Jackie’s (male) co-owner decides to write a polite note to someone or other – who, in turn, believes that a reply is in order. Publication in MWD invariably follows. There are, alas, some occasions where your man Henderson sends a polite missive – but does not receive the courtesy of a reply. Nevertheless, publication of this one-sided correspondence still takes place. For the record – and in the public interest, of course.

  • DAANYAL SAEED & GERARD HENDERSON –  RE CRIKEY’S SEARCH FOR AUSTRALIA’S MEDIA “HEAVY HITTERS”

Ellie’s (male) co-owner has an on and off relationship with Crikey – albeit mainly off.  Hendo pays a Crikey sub each year.  But Eric Beecher’s staff at Private Media in inner-city Southbank (i.e. Sandalista Central in Melbourne) appear to want his views for free. [That’s all they’re worth – MWD Editor.]  Avid readers may, or may not, be interested in this (thanks but no thanks) response.  If so, read on:

Daanyal Saeed to Gerard Henderson – 20 November 2024

Hi Gerard,

I hope you’re well as we approach Gin and Tonic Time on this fine afternoon. I’m getting in touch because I’ve been tasked with reaching out to every heavy hitter in Australian media to participate in our media movers and shakers survey. The aim of the survey is simple — to ask the most influential people in media, on the record, for insights on the state of our industry.  What are the biggest challenges, where are the opportunities and where’s it all headed?

We’d really love it if you could participate — it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Ideally we’re asking you to fill out all eight questions but we understand you’re busy so if there are a handful you’d like to answer most we’ll take what we can get! We’ll be taking responses until Tuesday Dec 3.

[Crikey’s questions have been deleted to protect its Intellectual [sic] Property.]

Please let me know if you have any extra questions or if there’s a person you’d like to make sure is on our list. At this stage we’re contacting 200 people from journalists to editors to defamation lawyers to presenters, and we’ll also include the names of those who didn’t respond or declined to participate. We reckon we’ll be publishing about 4-8 pieces with the responses teasing out a particular topic — e.g. there will be a piece just on what everyone is reading / listening to / admiring.

Thanks in advance for your time,

Daanyal Saeed

Media Reporter

 

Gerard Henderson to Daanyal Saeed – 22 November 2024

My dear Comrade Saeed

How wonderful to receive your missive of Wednesday 20 November 2024, on the eve of Gin & Tonic Time, directed at “Crikey’s movers and shakers” headed “Comment request: Crikey’s Movers and Shakers.”  I was humbled to receive this honour – as the cliché goes.

I regret to advise that I will not be responding to any of your eight queries.  Even though I note that Crikey “will list everyone who did not respond or declined to participate in the final series” – whatever that might mean. It looks like I will appear on Crikey Editor Sophie Black’s “Little List”.  Please put my name near the top – since I need a morale boost.

The problem is that I do not regard myself as a “heavy hitter in Australian media”.  If this was the case, I would not have been “cancelled” by the taxpayer funded public broadcaster. As you may, or may not, know – not one ABC outlet in the whole of Australia chose to interview me on my most recent book Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt (Connor Court, now in its third edition). This despite the fact that the Conservative Free Zone led the media pile-on against the late George Pell.

Surely the ABC would have given me one interview – perhaps on ABC Radio Broken Hill at Hangover Time – if I qualified as a heavy hitting media mover.

All the best with the success of Crikey’s survey.  I usually read Crikey at Post Dinner Drinks Time since I find it easier to follow late at night. By the way, I will be on the lookout to see whether any of your respondents cite the Holy Name Monthly in their “media diet”.  I last read it circa 1956 and assume it is still extant.

Lotsa love to  Sophie, Bernard and the Crikey Team.

Keep Morale High.

Gerard Henderson

PS: Many thanks for describing Canine Ellie as “cute”. She returns the compliment.

 

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Until Next Time.

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