GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG
ISSUE – NO. 753
7 November
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· The Latest – Ten’s Ashleigh Raper throws the switch to sexism and ignorance; Julian Leeser v David Marr on The Dismissal
· Can You Bear It? – CBD finds “news” in a Paul Keating claim about what he would have done in 1975; Grace Tame’s Saturday Paper rant; AFR Letters Page runs an attack on Tony Abbott
· Five Paws Award – Step Forward Andrew Clennell
· An ABC Update – Crime Night! A Review!
· The ABC/Australia Institute Entente – Comrade Bennett is suspicious of Labor lining up with the mining sector
· A Niki Savva Moment – Niki Savva tells an old tale again
· History Corner – The false recollection of the late Jim Killen
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THE LATEST
● Ten’s Ashleigh Raper throws the switch to sexism and ignorance
What a stunning performance by Ashleigh Raper on ABC Radio National Breakfast, Friday 7 November. Sally Sara was in the presenter’s chair and her panel in the weekly political round-up consisted of Charles Croucher (Nine News chief political editor), Ashleigh Raper (Ten News First political editor) and Melissa Clarke (Radio National political correspondent).
It was very much a case of members of the Canberra Bubble talking to each other inside the Canberra Bubble.
First up, the issue was raised concerning comments made by Victorian Liberal Party Senator Sarah Henderson. Speaking on Sky News that very morning, Henderson had made some comments which were interpreted as expressing doubt about the political future of Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley.
When discussion ensued, Ashleigh Raper was quick to say that the Senator had “been put out there” to put pressure on Sussan Ley – and made the point that any successor to Ms Ley would be a male.
How sexist can a Canberra journalist get? Henderson is an experienced politician with a background in business and journalism. She does not need to be told what to do on a Friday morning by a number of (anonymous) blokes.
Later on, the discussion turned on Net Zero Emissions by 2050 and all that. Ms Raper declared that all the world was committed to this target. Turn it up. Ten News First’s political editor seems unaware that the United States has pulled out of the Paris Agreement – and China and India are not committed to Net Zero until 2060.
Neither Ms Sara nor Ms Clarke objected to Raper’s evident sexism. Nor did either of this duo, plus Mr Crowther, correct Ms Raper’s howler on Net Zero.
And that is the best political panel that RN Breakfast can put out on a Friday morning. Really.
● Julian Leeser v David Marr – in discussion about the Dismissal
As avid Media Watch Dog readers are aware, the prospect that Gerard Henderson should break the ABC rule that he appears on the Radio National’s Late Night Live (aka Late Night Left) once every 25 years fell at the first hurdle. As the saying goes.
David Marr suggested to Ellie’s (male) co-owner, in a text exchange, that he should discuss his new book Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection (Connor Court, 2025) on LNL. The problem was that David (“Have you noticed my Pymble accent?”) Marr wanted to discuss what kind of prime minister Malcolm Fraser would have been if he came to office by means of an election rather than by an appointment – following Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s dismissal of Gough Whitlam and his government on 11 November 1975. Hendo’s view was that there is little point in discussing what might have been – since we do not know because it didn’t happen. So, it’s back to 2040 for his next appearance on Late Night Left as a token conservative.
The good news is that the Coalition’s Julian Leeser, a lawyer by training, appeared on LNL on Thursday 6 November. Comrade Marr was in an agitated “Maintain the Rage” mode against Fraser and Kerr over the Dismissal of half a century ago. It was like late 1975/early 1976 all over again.
However, Mr Leeser was remarkably calm as he refuted Marr’s assertions that Sir John Kerr had acted improperly one by one. MWD will discuss the Marr/Leeser interview next week. In the meantime, it’s worth listening to the exchange on the ABC’s website.
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
Nine’s CBD column finds “news” in a Paul Keating claim made that if he was PM half a century ago he would have arrested the Governor-General
The 50th anniversary of Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s dismissal of the Gough Whitlam Labor government on 11 November 1975 occurs next Tuesday. On 5 November, the CBD column in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald focused on the occasion. Since the Melbourne-based CBD scribe Stephen Brook was probably caught up in the Melbourne Cup and all that, it can be assumed that Sydney-based Kishor Napier-Raman was covering events in Sydney – with the help, on this occasion, of Cara Waters. Here is what he had to say under the heading “Fit King Keating”:
Speaking to a packed house at the State Library of NSW on Monday, the 81-year-old Keating maintained the bravado that made him a cult hero of Australian politics despite being prone to the occasional, uncharacteristically Biden-esque ramble. This was hardly helped by interviewer Troy Bramston of The Australian, who, while launching his Gough Whitlam biography, directed much of their hour-long discussion to the minutiae of the 1975 dismissal.
Not a problem for the crowd of mostly grey-haired True Believers, who remain indignant about governor-general Sir John Kerr’s treachery half a century later. Keating, for his part, insisted that had he been in Whitlam’s shoes, he’d have put Kerr in prison. “If he’d have dismissed me, I would have arrested him,” the former PM said.
Could it be that Mr Napier-Raman’s reference to Mr Keating’s (alleged) “Biden-esque ramble” is a revenge for the former prime minister once having referred to Sydney’s hyphenated-name set? As to Paul Keating’s reference to how, if he had been dismissed, he would have Kerr arrested. Well, alas, this was not news.
As MWD recalls, when launching Michael Sexton’s The Great Crash, on 10 November 2005, Keating was reported as saying: “We should [have] put Kerr immediately under house-arrest. And if I had been prime minister, I certainly would have.”
Turn it up. Kerr dismissed Whitlam. At that stage, Whitlam was a member of the House of Representatives. That’s all. Even as prime minister, Whitlam did not have the authority to order police to arrest anybody. In any event, what would the charges have been? – since there was never any doubt that Kerr had acted in accordance with the Constitution and his action was never challenged legally.
In any event, Paul Keating’s view was first reported (in so far as MWD can recall) two decades ago. And CBD reckons that Keating’s “I would have arrested Kerr” declaration was news worthy of coverage in a column (supposedly) devoted to what goes on in the business districts of Sydney and Melbourne. Can You Bear It?
● Grace Tame’s Saturday Paper rant at Tony Abbott’s book
It is notable that some left-wing newspapers have chosen to criticise Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History – not with analysis but with abuse. The Saturday Paper (editor-in-chief Erik Jensen) commissioned Grace Tame to review the book. It was published on 1 November.
The review, titled “His Story on Australia”, was all over the place, Tame referred to Australia’s 28th prime minister with such references to “budgie smugglers”, “a great white political shark”, “friend to ironing housewives of the nation”, “mortal enemy of raw root vegetables”, “rose-tinted onion goggles”, “myopic perspectives” and so on. You get the picture.
Tame implies that the author is soft on genocide and sanitised the White Australia Policy. She suggests that Abbott might have regarded small pox as a gift to Indigenous Australians. But no direct quotes were provided to support these assertions.
The left-of-centre historian Frank Bongiorno is no political conservative. However, writing in the avowedly leftist Guardian Australia, he delivered a thoughtful, but not uncritical, review of Australia: A History. But Tame sees no merit in the book whatsoever – as the following extract demonstrates:
On the whole, the book is as unoriginal as it is biased and boring. Much like the glitchy AI systems that scrape the annals of the internet to generate content and pass it off as something new, Abbott has hallucinated a fragmentary history from existing works and filled the gaps with wishful thinking. From the gold rush to World War I, the Great Depression and beyond, there is little that can’t be found in a high-school curriculum. There are no revelations, no ground is broken.
Anyone who has read Abbott’s book will know that it provides a fresh, positive but not uncritical interpretation of Australian history supported by endnotes and a bibliography. Abbott believes that Australia basically got it right since European settlement in 1788 but acknowledges there were some serious errors in governance.
Grace Tame suggests that Abbott is a follower of Donald Trump but overlooks the fact that Australia’s 28th prime minister left the Prime Minister’s Office before President Trump entered the White House. Also, she does not identify any of Abbott’s positions which are derived from Trump.
To Tame, Australia: A History is a product of hallucination. This is how her review concludes:
Far from adding to Australia’s colourful story, Abbott has whittled it down to an outdated, destructive doctrine. One that reinforces already debunked socioeconomic theories borrowed from Trump and, worse, casts doubt on the efficacy of efforts to save the planet and repair the damage wrought by systemic discrimination.
I quickly descended into despair over these bleak contents. Before I had managed to claw my way to the end, I made the mistake of bringing Australia: A History into the home of a close friend, who proceeded to cleanse me and her property with sage. She almost set the book on fire in the process, possibly on purpose. Thankfully, there are those of us who can resist the temptation to sink so low.
So, there you have it. Not only is Abbott a hopeless author. According to Tame he is responsible, in part at least, for the (forthcoming) end of the world due to his refusal to save the planet. Whatever that might mean. Even Bill Gates appears to have resigned from The-End-of-the-World-is-Nigh Club.
Surely Comrade Jensen can do better than this. Which raises the question. Can You Bear It?
● AFR Letters Page runs a sectarian (and more besides) attack on Tony Abbott
While on the topic of Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History, did anyone see Graeme Troy’s (of Wagstaffe, NSW) letter in the Australian Financial Review on 4 November?
Comrade Troy is one of the soviet of well-off left-wing correspondents who are published regularly in the AFR’s Letters to the Editor segment. On this occasion the letter consisted of a fact-free rant against Tony Abbott and all his works and all his pomps. Here’s how the second paragraph commenced:
He [Abbott] certainly had no vision. He was rejected by his broad-minded, middle-class electorate. The great Australian knocker whose policy cabinet was bare. A misogynist, fearmonger, mate and manipulator. A Peta Credlin puppet. A mad monk, carbon-tax knocker and wrecking ball. As appealing as an unpeeled raw onion.
That’s not clever. That’s just abuse, with a touch of anti-Christian sectarianism. The reference to Abbott as a “mad monk”. [I have never met a monk who was mad – but then I don’t live near the water in Wagstaffe on the NSW Central Coast. – MWD Editor.]
The AFR’s Letters Page on 4 November finished with a contribution from a Michael Giggler of Melbourne. He suggested that the likes of Comrade Troy should form an advisory body to the Commonwealth Parliament since Comrade Troy, along with two other contributors to the AFR Letters Page, “appear to have all the answers to Australia’s most pressing needs”.
Can Mr Giggler be serious? Apparently so. Which raises the question: Can You Bear It?
THE ABC/AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE ENTENTE
As Media Watch Dog readers know, this blog has been monitoring the ABC/Guardian Axis and the ABC/Australia Institute Entente. That is, the ready access that journalists from the left-wing The Guardian Australia and political operatives from the avowedly leftist Australia Institute (which is based in the Canberra Bubble) get on the ABC. Meanwhile, political operatives from the conservative Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Robert Menzies Institute in Melbourne and the Menzies Centre in Sydney have been effectively de-platformed by the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster. [Don’t you mean censored? MWD Editor.]
The Australia Institute’s Comrade Bennett is suspicious of Labor lining up with the mining sector
Ebony Bennett, the deputy director of the avowedly leftist Australia Institute appeared once again on the ABC TV’s News Breakfast this week on Thursday.
This is how the interview commenced:
Bridget Brennan: Plenty of news in Canberra this week. I mean, a big focus on the environment. The Environment Minister, Murray Watt, is trying to appease two sides here. What do miners want from this deal?
Ebony Bennett: Yeah, The Australian reporting this morning that the Minerals Council of Australia is urging Labor and the Coalition to strike a quick deal to pass these environmental law reforms, hopefully before Christmas…. And I think that probably shows you who thinks they’re going to benefit out of these proposed reforms.
This exchange demonstrates again that the ABC readily runs criticism of the Labor Party – but invariably it is from the left-wing perspective. That’s why Comrade Bennett is a regular commentator on News Breakfast. She usually criticises the Coalition from the left – except when she is criticising Labor from the left. The Australia Institute looks kindly on the Greens and, occasionally, the Labor left along with the Teals. But the Labor right, along with the Coalition, are invariably criticised. In this instance, for (allegedly) supporting mining in Australia.
Media Watch Dog has no problem with Comrade Bennett appearing on News Breakfast. It’s just that the taxpayer funded public broadcaster should provide for viewpoint diversity. Which means giving political conservatives a go.
AN ABC UPDATE
ABC’s Crime Night! A Review!
When Crime Night! was announced, the ABC described it in the press release as “a comedy true-crime panel show where real-life cases are examined through the lens of criminology and comedy”. This raised eyebrows for some – including MWD (see issue 736 11 July 2025) – for potentially being in poor taste and insensitive to victims of crime.
Crime Night! premiered on the 5 of November, and it is being promoted by the ABC with somewhat different wording: “Each week Julia [Zemiro] is joined by expert criminologists Professor Danielle Reynald and Dr David Bartlett, alongside a rotating panel of Australia’s sharpest comedians to unpack a different area of crime and criminology”.
This first episode’s comedians were Celia Pacquola and Mel Buttle – and the area of discussion was eyewitness testimony.
Like many an ABC panel show, it seems unsure if it wants to be informative or comedy, so it jams the two together in a way that barely works. On Crime Night!, the two crime experts provide serious information about the topic. The comedians nod attentively and then make some little quips.
While one segment is appropriate for humour – talking pet parrots who have assisted police – the comedy element in much of the show is off-putting. A perfect example of the jarring tone of the show is the discussion on eyewitness testimony in the case of Richard Phillips.
In Detroit in 1971, Phillips was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was implicated in a case when he was misidentified by two eyewitnesses and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Phillips was jailed at age 25 and spent almost 46 years in prison before being exonerated – the longest wrongful conviction in US history.
After the details of the case are explained on Crime Night!, it is time for the comedians to weigh in. Regarding the eyewitnesses who misidentified Richard Phillips, Celia Pacquola jokes “I’d be like, someone should have gone to Specsavers”. What a contribution. Australia’s sharpest comedians indeed.
Celia Pacquola mimes rubbing her eyes to demonstrate how to avoid wrongfully identifying and dooming an innocent man to prison for 46 years
After the comedians finish their little bit of fun, Professor Reynald goes on to explain that the misidentification of Phillips, who is black, was likely influenced by racial bias. Not a need for anyone to attend an appointment at Specsavers, after all.
In another format, Crime Night! would be an engaging and informative show – if the ABC did not feel the bizarre need to drag comedians into it. It is as if the ABC is not aware it is possible to explore a topic without forcing it into a comedy panel show.
A NIKI SAVVA MOMENT
Niki Savva (once again) tells the story about how she acted when outraged by the Dismissal
Episode 3 of ABC TV’s I Was Actually There program subtitled “The Dismissal” aired on 21 October. It was a bit difficult to follow. Some ten individuals spoke about being in or near Old Parliament House when news came through that the Governor General Sir John Kerr had dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. As we know, the date was 11 November 1975.
Some of the talent was well known such as John Howard, journalist Niki Savva and former Labor minister Doug McClelland. Others not so much. The problem turned on the fact that there were no supas. That is, no one was identified until the credits rolled at the end of the program.
Only two journalists got a run. There was Andrew Potter, a former ABC journalist. He is in the anti-Kerr corner. This was his final hate-filled comment:
Andrew Potter: It ruined Sir John’s life. We’ve all seen the cartoons of him with the silly top hat and getting drunk at the Melbourne Cup. And he was a laughing stock. He turned out to be a terribly sad figure in history, and I think he deserved what he got.
This overlooks the fact that Kerr resolved a conflict which he did not commence.
But, without question, the star of the show was Niki Savva. Although a working journalist at the time, Comrade Savva threw the switch to activism and was angered that the Malcolm Fraser-led Opposition had blocked supply and Kerr had dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam because he insisted on governing without supply.
Comrade Savva told I Was Actually There that she was “outraged” by the Dismissal and described her immediate response on hearing the news:
Niki Savva: I saw a Liberal Party staffer. I leaned up and grabbed him by the lapels, and I said, “You won’t get away with this, you know” – and he just stared at me like I was a mad woman. A few years later, we got married.
Groan. Ms Savva has told this – no doubt true – story before. On many occasions. But it says something about the lady’s temperament.
Verily, A Niki Savva Moment.
Screenshot
FIVE PAWS AWARD
The modern Western world seems replete with people giving, or receiving, awards. In a highly competitive field, Ellie’s Five Paws Award comes in just behind the Nobel Peace Prize and the Academy Awards (aka the Oscars) as the most prestigious gong going around.
Andrew Clennell wins prestigious gong for listening to Matt Kean and briefly challenging his exaggerations
On 4 November, Sky News’ Andrew Clennell interviewed Matt Kean, the chair of the Climate Change Authority. As Media Watch Dog readers know, this is a part-time position. Mr Kean’s full-time job is Director, Regulatory and Strategic Partnerships at Wollemi Capital. Wollemi Capital presents itself as a company involved in “transforming the world’s economy to meet the demands of our changing climate”. Your man is an accountant by training.
Unlike many an ABC journalist, Andrew Clennell asks questions and listens to answers. This facilitates interviewees relaxing – which sometimes leads to over-confident but inaccurate responses. Let’s go to the transcript of Sky News Afternoon Agenda on 4 November:
Andrew Clennell: Joining me live is the Chair of the Climate Change Authority. Former New South Wales Treasurer, and Energy Minister as well, Matt Kean. Matt Kean, thanks for your time. You’ve written a piece in the Nine Newspapers today talking about the cost of dumping net zero by 2050. There are talks about increased insurance claims and the like. But do you accept if the rest of the world doesn’t act, Australia will cop those effects anyway?
Matt Kean: Well, the reality is, Andrew, that the rest of the world is acting. 84 per cent of the world’s GDP has committed to net zero emissions. So, those markets that have underwritten Australia’s prosperity for generations are changing the types of things they’re going to want or need from Australia. The good news is we’re really well placed to provide those new materials that those new economies are going to need also. And in doing so, make a lot of money and a lot of prosperity for our country.
Andrew Clennell: But America, China and India aren’t, are they? Not by 2050.
Matt Kean: Well, China is signed up to net zero emissions. America, the sub-national governments, the majority of them are signed up to net zero emissions. Take California, for example. If you were to look at their sub-national government, compared to national governments, that would be the fourth largest economy in the world, and they’re steaming ahead with their transition to net zero emissions. So, the reality is –
Andrew Clennell: Matt Kean, correct me if I’m wrong. China’s not by 2050, is it? Aren’t they 2060 or 2070?
Matt Kean: Well, they’ve committed to net zero…
Given a chance to answer two short questions, Matt Kean stumbled. Clennell was correct. China is committed to net zero by 2060. So is India. As for the United States, President Donald J. Trump told the United Nations that the effect of man-made climate change is “the greatest con-job ever perpetrated on the world”. As to California, well the move to AI is going to produce a high level of carbon emissions – unless California moves rapidly to greater nuclear energy.
So, there you have it. Andrew Clennell asked a question and listened to the answer without interrupting. He then asked two brief follow-up questions and Matt Kean stumbled with his answers.
That’s professional journalism – ABC take note.
Andrew Clennell: Five Paws.
HISTORY CORNER
The late Jim Killen (or is it his daughter?) is reported as having a “recollection” of an event that never happened.
As avid Media Watch Dog readers are well aware, memory is a very fallible entity. Some people state what is true, some tell falsehoods deliberately and some have clear “recollections” of events that never happened.
On 1 November, Nine’s The Age & Sydney Morning Herald ran an article by Tony Wright titled “The unlikely friendships that survived the rolling rage of the Dismissal”. The specific reference was to the events of October-November 1975 when Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser decided to block supply and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam decided to govern without supply. In the event, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Whitlam and appointed Fraser as caretaker prime minister on 11 November on the undertaking that he would call a double dissolution election for 13 December 1975. As is well known, the Coalition won in a landslide. On 11 November 1975 Whitlam publicly referred to Fraser as “Kerr’s cur” (meaning a mongrel dog or despicable person).
Comrade Wright’s piece highlighted the Fraser/Whitlam friendship which developed in the second half of the 1980s after Fraser turned on Kerr.
However, the main focus of the Wright piece covered the relationship between Jim Killen, a minister in Fraser’s caretaker government (and the subsequent Fraser government) and his daughter Diana. Here’s how the piece commenced:
Diana Killen, aged in her early 20s, was working in a new educational section of the National Library by the shore of Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin when word hurtled through the building that Gough Whitlam and his government had been sacked. She and colleagues abandoned their desks and hurried 700 metres up the road to the lawn opposite the old white wedding cake of a building that was Australia’s parliament house. There, they were absorbed within a roiling throng of disbelief, excitement and outrage as offices across the national capital emptied and thousands of their inhabitants rushed to take part in the greatest show in town.
So young Ms Killen was near the front of the steps of Old Parliament House when David Smith, the Governor-General’s official secretary, formally announced the Dismissal and Gough Whitlam spoke to the crowd that was angry, in particular with Fraser. Wright continued the story:
[Diana] Killen, like many young Australians, voted Labor in 1972 (“How could anyone vote for Billy McMahon?” she says) and she still approves of the Whitlam government’s storming program of legislation that transformed Australia. But she was not quite just another bystander at the Dismissal.
Her father was one of the Liberal Party’s most distinctive figures, Jim Killen, a parliamentarian since 1955. After the excitement of the day subsided, Diana had dinner with her father, and found him morose. Wedded to the Westminster system of government, he was troubled that the governor-general had sacked a government, using “reserve powers” that were not codified within the Constitution.
What a load of absolute tosh. MWD is prepared to believe that Jim Killen told his Labor-voting daughter that he was troubled that Sir John Kerr had sacked a government using the reserve-powers. But Jim Killen supported the decision at the time – both privately and in public.
There was only one member of the Coalition who expressed serious concern about blocking supply in the lead-up to the Dismissal. Namely, the Victorian Liberal Party Senator Alan Missen. In his contemporaneous Diary, Missen wrote that on 16 October 1975 Killen told the Joint Party Room (i.e. the Liberal Party plus the National Country Party) that, after initial reservations, he was now right behind blocking the Budget and demanding an election. This is confirmed by NSW Liberal Party Senator Peter Baume in his diary. Like Killen, Baume had initial reservations. But like Killen, Baume changed his mind and supported the decision to block supply. Baume later regretted his decision but never denied that he supported the Coalition’s decision to block supply in October-November 1975.
In the event, Missen did not oppose the decision to block supply but he later publicly regretted this decision. Fraser was a very strong Opposition leader and no one in the Opposition opposed him. As Missen wrote in his Diary : “It was clear to me that I would have no one who would stand up to the ultimate question of crossing the floor if the proposal was made.”
This is confirmed by Paul Kelly’s book November 1975 (Allen & Unwin, 1995) where he wrote that Killen spoke in favour of blocking supply at the Joint Party Meeting on 16 October 1975.
Moreover, in his own book Killen: Inside Australian Politics (Mandarin Australia, 1989), Jim Killen concluded his chapter titled “The Whitlam Fall” as follows:
Election day was fixed for 13 December 1975. The election campaign was arduous, hectic and at times violent. There was a landslide against the Labor Party. John Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister of Australia. The people of Australia had spoken.
No signs of regret from Killen about the Dismissal at that time.
Gerard Henderson has his own “memory” of the evening of 11 November 1975. It should be fact-checked. However, he recalls that on ABC TV’s 7.30 Report on 11 November, Jim Killen appeared in a debate with Paul Keating. Keating, who had been appointed Minister for Northern Australia only a few months earlier, was extremely angry about the Dismissal. Killen, on the other hand, defended the blocking of supply.
Also, Hendo recalls that the invariably verbose Jim Killen presented as, well, someone who had had a few Gin & Tonics before his 7.30 Report appearance.
So what to make of this? Did Diana Killen have a false memory about what her father said at dinner all those years ago. Or did Jim Killen have a clear recollection of an event that never occurred – namely his (alleged) concern that the Governor-General had dismissed Whitlam by use of the reserve power?
The lesson for Tony Wright is that self-serving claims deserve scrutiny.
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Until Next Time.
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