GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 793

25 September 2026

The Latest – The AFR On The “Power” Of Pauline Hanson And Louise Adler Among Others

The Australian Financial Review Magazine’s annual “Power” issue has just come out.  As usual, the reader is greeted with advertisements for expensive watches and jewellery and cruises and furniture (including beds) and private jets and electric Porsches and boats and Range Rovers and so on.

Some ads are so exclusive that your average reader (if average readers of this publication there are) would have no idea of what is being flogged.

For example, what story does an advertisement tell which simply says “Brunello Cucinelli…`and then we came forth to see again the stars’ – Dante”?  By the way, it depicts a young boy looking at the stars while lying on his back on a roof. And then there is the pic of a tiger looking at a diamond-clad lizard followed by the word Cartier.

Let’s start with the Overt Power section. The following are listed in order. Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers, Mark Butler, Pauline Hanson, Penny Wong, Michelle Bullock, Richard Marles, Sally McManus, Matt Comyn and David Pocock.

Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor is excluded. Despite the fact that he is the Leader of the Opposition which can support or oppose government legislation in the Senate. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in the Senate has 4 votes and Teal-like Independent David Pocock just one. The Coalition, led by Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan has a total of 27 votes. In short, the Coalition shares the balance of power in the Senate with the Greens.

And yet the Overt Power panellists maintain that Senators Hanson and Pocock have “power” – while Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan have no power. Sure, the likes of Hanson and Pocock have influence – but no more than that. For the moment at least.

Look through pages and watches etcetera and you get to the Cultural Power section.  Number 10 on this list is Louise Adler.  This is how Comrade Adler is described:

Adler had been the last woman standing – and speaking – through serial Gaza controversies, from Israeli funding for the Sydney Festival in 2022 to Creative Australia’s 2025 Venice Biennale debate. Until, that is, her resignation in January. She had been clear coming into the Adelaide Writers’ Week job four years ago that she wanted to create brave spaces rather than safe ones. And it worked: driving the festival to record audiences and profile.

Her departure, correspondingly, underlines just how fraught that endeavour had become in the past year. Nor did anyone walk away from the AWW fiasco reputation intact. Within a week, Adler was accused of hypocrisy by former Adelaide Festival board member Tony Berg who said she’d threatened to quit two years earlier unless Thomas Friedman’s invitation was rescinded. Her warnings that AWW was the canary down the coalmine – “friends and colleagues in the arts, beware the future” – was widely noted.

What a load of absolute tosh. The funding by the Israeli government for the Sydney Festival in 2022 was for a small amount to facilitate a musical performance. The overwhelming amount of money for such occasions as the Sydney Festival, the Sydney Writers Festival, and the Adelaide Writers Week and so on, comes from Australian taxpayers. Such festivals are invariably captured by the left.

As Media Watch Dog has documented over the last decade, the likes of the SWF and the AWF (which Adler headed for some years), are invariably left-wing stacks. The idea that Louise Adler created “brave spaces rather than safe ones” overlooks the fact that, overwhelmingly, it was left-wing writers who get invited.

The idea that Adler’s warning about the canaries in the coal mine is just a cliché.  If left-wing artists were removed from the festival that Adler presided over for years there would be few performers left.

Of the seven panellists who chose the Cultural Power list, three made comments.

Matthew Drummond commented: “She speaks for a lot of Australians who feel that protest against the Israel government should not be seen as antisemitic.”

This overlooks the fact that Adler is a vehement opponent of Israel who, when director of the AWW, stacked forums on Israel with opponents of Israel – some of which presented as antisemitic. This has been documented by Julie Szego among others. Matthew Drummond is the AFR Magazine’s  editor. Really.

Tracey Holmes said this: “Because of the way the algorithm is working, you are forced to pick a side and if you choose to stay in the grey zone, you’re slammed from both sides and it takes a particularly strong character to withstand that.”

Not even Louise Adler would put herself in the “grey zone” with respect to Israel—a country she has been hostile to for years.

And Dan Rosen said this:  “I don’t think she [Adler] was in the grey zone and I think she was exposed as hypocritical. She’s ‘It’s free speech as long as I agree with the speech and the speaker.'”

In spite of Dan Rosen’s thoughtful dissent, Louise Adler made it to 10th place on the Cultural Power List in 2026.

Can You Bear It?

James Massola downplays the importance of fuel prices on “real Australians so-called”

James Massola is chief political correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. On ABC TV’s Insiders on Sunday 20 September, your man Massola was critical of Coalition’s policy to cut the petrol price by around 27 cents a litre if the international price of Brent crude oil stays above $100 US for two weeks or more. The aim of the policy is to relieve the financial pressure on lower income earning Australians in the current difficult economic environment. Let’s go to the transcript:

James Massola: Again, this is purely about politics. While Anthony Albanese is at the UN, you know, strutting the world stage – Angus Taylor is going to be turning up at petrol stations, talking about the concerns of you know, real Australians, so-called. It will be, it will make for quite a contrast.

It’s hardly news that an Australian prime minister who is currently in the United States is going to receive significant media coverage at home. Or that an Opposition leader can struggle to get coverage in between elections. But Comrade Massola – he of the Canberra Press Gallery – dismissed the genuine concerns of Australians who are more interested in the cost of petrol than what the PM says in New York. As to the reference to “real Australians so-called” – that is just an unwarranted put-down. Can You Bear It?

Jane Norman reports on PM Albanese’s “warning” to US & China

It may be a myth. But it has been reported that a small town newspaper in Queensland in the lead-up to the First World War, ran a headline which declared “We Warn The Kaiser!”

The point being that a small town newspaper in Queensland was warning the leader of Imperial Germany about military matters in early 1914. Alas, it did not stop the German Army marching into neutral Belgium on the way to attempting to conquer France – as Kaiser Wilhelm II intended.

On the morning of Thursday 24 September, Jane Norman, the ABC’s national affairs correspondentwho is accompanying Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on his official trip to New York, wrote this on ABC Online – she delivered a similar report on ABC Radio that morning:

Anthony Albanese will declare the post-1945 world order “is no longer fit for purpose” and warn China and the United States that the Indo-Pacific is not a “chessboard” for global superpowers. In a major foreign policy speech to be delivered in New York, the prime minister will say Australia needs to help shape the new global order by building new relationships, standing up for the rules governing how countries interact with each other and rejecting the notion that might is right. Underscoring the stark warning….

Turn it up. The idea that Australia can give “stark warnings” to either the United States or China — or, indeed, any nation (except perhaps New Zealand), is just, well, starkers (as in stark raving mad). Yet the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster sent Comrade Norman to New York from where she filed this sludge. Can You Bear It?

Claudia Long blames domestic violence in Indigenous communities on systemic racism

On Tuesday 22 September, the ABC News Daily covered domestic violence in Australia with a focus on the numbers of women and children killed this year. ABC journalist Melissa Clarke was the presenter and she introduced ABC political reporter Claudia Long. Discussion turned on the role of police in the states and territories. Comrade Long had this to say:

Claudia Long: The police are really crying out for more resourcing, given how many of these incidents they are attending. Now, of course, it’s worth noting that the relationship between police and not just, I’m not saying the New South Wales police, but police in any state and territory when it comes to domestic and family violence is complex. And that’s both because of the history that they have with this area, particularly with communities that have faced systemic racism like First Nations communities.

Claudia Long is yet another ABC journalist who diverts the key issue of the very high levels of domestic violence against women and children in Indigenous communities to historical racism. There is no evidence that violent crime against women and children in Indigenous communities is due to alleged historic and current systemic racism. Long’s comment is just a distraction from the real issue which has been brought to the attention of Australians by the likes of Senator Nampijinpa Price and such media outlets as News24 and The Australian. It would seem that Long is in denial. But her view was not challenged by Melissa Clarke. Can You Bear It?

An ABC Update – ABC’s Linton Besser goes in to bat for his ABC bro Mark Willacy

The ABC likes to boast that it has the ideal process for handling complaints:

First, a complaint can be made to the ABC itself, which can make corrections or clarifications on the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster’s website. This is required to be done within three months of a broadcast or article.

Second, a complaint can be made to the ABC Ombudsman. The ABC describes the ombudsman, currently Fiona Cameron, as “independent” . However, Ms Cameron is based in the ABC’s head office in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Ultimo, is appointed by the ABC, is on the ABC’s payroll and reports to the ABC’s board. How independent is that?

Third, if a complainant is not satisfied with the Ombudsman’s report, the matter can be taken to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Now consider the case of the ABC’s Four Corners program titled “Sacrifice”, which aired on 10 March 2025, covering the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Mark Willacy was the presenter, and the producer was Jonathan Miller. Media Watch Dog drew attention to the lack of viewpoint diversity on “Sacrifice” at the time. Gerard Henderson criticised the program in his first appearance on News 24’s The Media Show on 14 March 2025 – and in Media Watch Dog the same day, as follows:

“On Monday 10 March Four Corners did a critique of the War Memorial in Canberra presented by Mark Willacy. He interviewed people responsible for running the War Memorial – its chair Kim Beazley, its managing director Matt Anderson and a War Memorial Council member. Four Cornersthen rolled out 10 critics of the War Memorial – particularly with respect to its redevelopment and the fact that it receives funds from the armaments industry. Without acknowledging that without the armaments industry Australia would be defenceless.

MWD then cited the comments on “Sacrifice”:

Dr Sue Wareham: Redevelopment is, to put it bluntly, an abomination.

Peter Stanley: Now, I think that’s dirty money. It should not be accepting money from merchants of death…. The panel next to the [Afghanistan] display is to me, the most mealy-mouthed piece of writing the Memorial’s ever put up. It was completely inadequate because it didn’t explain the moral vacuum that those soldiers had fallen into.

And Henderson wrote this:

“Mark Willacy interviewed a member of the Greens but no one from the Coalition. The program lacked balance – led by Mark Willacy’s activist journalism.”

As is its wont, ABC management rejected all criticism of the program. A total of 7 complaints were made to the Ombudsman, 3 of which it investigated. Including one from the Australian War Memorial itself, which is chaired by one-time Labor leader and defence minister, Kim Beazley.

On 16 April 2025, the Ombudsman announced its finding: “The [Sacrifice] episode did not breach the Editorial Standards on accuracy, impartiality, or fair and honest dealing.”

An appeal was made to ACMA. ACMA released its finding on 17 September 2026, which was broadly consistent with Media Watch Dog’s own assessment, namely that “Sacrifice” lacked viewpoint diversity. Shortly after the release of ACMA’s report, it was dismissed by ABC managing director and editor-in-chief Hugh Marks in a media release titled “ABC rejects ACMA finding that Four Corners breached impartiality code”.

So there you have it: a complaint was made to the ABC Ombudsman and rejected. An appeal against the Ombudsman’s finding was made to ACMA, which broadly succeeded. Then ACMA’s finding was fanged by Mr. Marks.

But there is more. Linton Besser, the ABC presenter of the ABC TV’s Media Watch, led the program on Monday, 21 September with a segment titled “Four Corners: Impartial?”

Guess what? Comrade Besser doubled up on Hugh Marks’ statement and also fanged the ACMA report. In his invariably sneering style, Besser delivered a sermon condemning all ACMA’s works and all its pomps (as the saying goes). Comrade Besser’s Sermon on the ABC Mount included the following:

• A reference to Comrade Willacy as a “Gold Walkley-winning reporter”. Impressed?
• A put-down of the Australian War Memorial for allegedly having a “close relationship” with “some of the world’s biggest merchants of death”. How’s that for a leftist rant? Without what Besser calls “the merchants of death” – that is, arms manufacturing – without an armaments industry the allies never could have defeated Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
• An assertion that Four Corners did “enshrine balance in its story” by including comments from a member of the Memorial’s governing council, from its director and from its chairman, Kim Beazley. Fair enough? Not really, since no reference was made to the fact that the views of 10, yes, 10, vehement critics of the War Memorial were aired on “Sacrifice”. The left-of-centre Besser summed up support for his bagging of ACMA by citing, wait for it, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and ABC Online – all left-of-centre publications. How balanced is that?

The ABC’s Besser was upset that ACMA had “turned up its nose” at Willacy’s approach to TV interviewing. Surely Besser means criticised. Besser implied that Matt Anderson, the Australian War Memorial’s director, should have resigned due to his (alleged) poor performance when interviewed by Willacy. Really.

And this is how Linton Besser concluded his one-sided coverage of “Sacrifice” :

Whatever good works the regulator [ACMA] might perform for the Australian community it has, on this occasion, embarrassed itself, breaching Four Corners for its failure to inject what would have amounted to false balance in an otherwise important public interest investigation that highlighted uncomfortable truths about this sacred civic institution. Surely, the ACMA has better things to do than dance around on the head of a pin.

Yet another cliché. What’s the “head of a pin” got to do with ACMA?” This reference was preceded by use of such words as “silly” and such terms as “tatted on his forehead,” “turned up its nose,” and so on. Along with attempts at irony. Groan.

By the way, Media Watch Dog advises avid readers not to complain to the ABC about “Sacrifice” or any other such production. It’s a waste of time. If the complaint is not upheld by the Ombudsman but upheld on appeal by ACMA, it’s sure to be rejected by Hugh Marks and ridiculed by Linton Besser.

New Segment – Top Media Trivia Of the Week – A labor of love – Peter + Suze tie the knot in Canberra as reported by Nine Newspapers

It was (very) early morning on Monday 21 September when the Sydney Morning Herald, along with three other newspapers, landed heavily on Ellie’s kennel. The incident was disruptive enough to awaken a deaf canine.

Ellie’s (male) co-owner eventually got around to opening the Sydney Morning Herald. It being hangover-time Hendo turned to the CBD column which seems to be about everything other than what is occurring in the Central Business Districts of Sydney or, indeed, Melbourne (where The Age carries the CBD column).

Written by John Buckley, the lead CBD story was headed “Canberra wedding brings together Labor inner circle”. Yes, you’ve got it. Comrade John Buckley reported on a wedding that took place in Canberra. Here’s how the report commenced:

“Well, it turns out there is a new power couple in Canberra we weren’t even aware of. And over the weekend, they tied the knot.”

Well, how about that? A (power) couple in Canberra, whom your man Buckley did not know about, got married. Gerard Henderson AC (aka Always Courteous), being a courteous kind of guy, has decided not to name the surnames of the newlyweds. And the story goes like this:

Peter (whose old man works for the ABC in Melbourne) married Suze (whose old man worked for the SMH in Canberra and whose mother was literary editor of The Canberra Times). Suze’s sister was an ABC journalist and Suze once worked for AAP. How frightfully interesting, don’t you think? And somewhat incestuous – in a political/media kind of way.

Now Peter works for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke while Suze works for Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. As a gushing Buckley reported:

Of course, the pair isn’t the first to find love in Canberra, and they didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Burke himself married former staffer Skye Laris in 2015, and we hear made himself available to attend the intimate wedding on Saturday, more than a decade later. Bowen also went along….

Comrade Buckley went on to name the names of Labor Party staffers who attended the wedding. There was Andrew and Jacqui and Georgia and Rosie (who works for the ALP) plus Liz and Lachlan and Stela who used to work for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (a big fan of Kylie Minogue who, it seems, did not get an invite). Kylie, that is. [Nor did Ellie’s (male) co-owner. – MWD Editor.]

Comrade Buckley concluded his CBD news with this: “A big congratulations to the happy couple.” A sentiment which was surely shared by all the ladies and gentlemen in the Central Business District of Sydney and Melbourne last Monday morning who must surely love stories about love – or else your man Buckley would not write about such trivia.

Nancy’s Courtesy Classes – Kevin Rudd’s abrupt response to Nick Bryant

As avid readers are aware, the late Nancy (2004-2017) did not die. In modern terminology, she merely “passed” on to the Other Side. Hence MWD has been able to keep in touch and seek Nancy’s advice about behaviour, courtesy and all that – with the help of the American psychic John Edward of Crossing Over fame. He who has a direct line to the recently departed. Or so it seems. Sadly, MWD missed Mr Edward’s recent visit to Australia before which he received a soft-interview on ABC TV’s News Breakfast.

Due to overwhelming demand from avid Media Watch Dog readers, the highly popular Nancy’s Courtesy Classes segment returns this week – with a consideration of the behaviour of former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. Dr Rudd (for a doctor he now is) was interviewed by Nick Bryant on the ABC Radio National Saturday Extra program on 19 September. Here’s how the interview commenced:

Nick Bryant: Now initially we thought we’d talk to two people. One who could explain what was happening in Beijing and one who could explain what was happening in Washington. Then we read a speech delivered in Adelaide this week by a guy who covered both bases. That guy is the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who joins us on the show. Kevin, thanks for waking up early on a Saturday morning but I know that you are an early riser.

Kevin Rudd: No Nick. I’m actually just late to bed and usually late to rise. But there you go, I’m doing my best for Aunty.

Somewhat discourteous, don’t you think? Does anyone care whether PM Rudd is early to bed or early to rise? Or neither of the above?

Surely the learned doctor could have let Nick Bryant’s comment pass. But Australia’s 26th prime minister chose to correct his interviewer before the interview commenced. It sounded somewhat rude.

Kevin Rudd – Off to Nancy’s Courtesy Classes for you.

History Corner – Winston Churchill, Australians, Poor Stock And All That

On ABC Radio National Saturday Extra on 19 September, Nick Bryant interviewed James Curran about his recently published book Paul Keating’s global vision for Australia (Simon & Schuster, Australia).

Early in the discussion, James Curran had this to say:

Nick Bryant: Now, Churchill, you’d have thought, would have pressed a lot of buttons for Paul Keating, the architect of Gallipoli.

James Curran: That’s right.

Nick Bryant: The guy who abandoned Australia during the fall of Singapore, and yet Keating went there to pay homage.

James Curran: That’s right. It is the most unlikely kind of figure for someone who was a passionate republican, radical nationalist. And by this time, I mean I think whilst the kind of sore feelings and the bitterness of that period, in terms of the failure at Gallipoli, the inability of the British to protect the naval base at Singapore, the cable battles between Churchill and [John] Curtin, the fact that Churchill had said Australian soldiers were of bad stock. I mean, a lot of that by this time had kind of ebbed away.

The bitterness of it had been left behind, and Churchill was this kind of Cold War warrior and statesman. And I think Keating always liked Churchill of the 1930s. He loved his gallantry. He actually said, “I wish I could have met him, but I wasn’t old enough or important enough before he died”. And he said to me on one occasion, one of the interviews for this book, he said, “Look, I really would have relished a proper enemy like Hitler, like Churchill had”. You know, “if only I’d had a decent enemy”. So, it conjures up all these images, I guess, of what Paul Keating might have been like had he had someone formidable in front of him.

Hold it there. It is true that Winston Churchill is reported to have said Australians were of “bad stock”. Sure, this has been said by many over the years. But it’s worth checking. The reference is contained inChurchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran: The Struggle for Survival 1940-1965 (Cherokee Publishing, 1966)

Charles Wilson Moran was a medical doctor who became the first Baron Moran in 1943. He served as Churchill’s personal physician until Churchill died.

As historians have pointed out, Moran did not keep a diary in the traditional sense of the term. He did keep notes and his book seems to have been written based on contemporaneous notes.

The reference in Moran’s book is as follows:

“At one moment, he [Churchill] took the line that Curtin and his government did not represent the people of Australia. At another that the Australians came of bad stock. He was impatient with people who had nothing better to do than to criticise him”

This comment seems to have been based on Moran’s recall of what Churchill said to him. There is no documentation to support the claim. And Churchill had died when Moran made this claim.

It was quite improper for Churchill’s physician to comment on his health in public. In short, Lord Moran was an irresponsible person and his account of Churchill should not be automatically accepted as fact.

[Interesting , perhaps you could cover Churchill and the fall of Singapore in a future issue. – MWD Editor]

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Until Next Time.

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