GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 759

23 January 2026

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ELLIE’S BACK

Media Watch Dog returns today after what Ellie’s (male) co-owner calls a holiday but what so many journalists call a Well Earned Break.  Or WEB.  MWD last appeared at the end of the second last week of December and is back today shortly before the Australia Day public holiday – i.e. a 4 week holiday.  Meanwhile, the ABC TV’s Media Watch finished on 23 November and presumably will return on Monday 2 February – a 10-week WEB.  Nice WEB if you can get one – per courtesy of the Australian taxpayer. Re which see MWD’s (hugely popular) Can You Bear It? segment.

 

 

THE LATEST

  •  David (“Oh yes, I’m the great interrupter”) Speers gives Matt Canavan a spray

Wasn’t it great to see David (“Please call me Speersy”) Speers back on ABC TV this week? With Insiders still on its W.E.B. (i.e. Well Earned Break), your man Speers filled in as 7.30 presenter.

From Media Watch Dog’s perspective, the test for Speersy was whether he could interrupt a conservative politician more than 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson and, in particular, whether he could break his own record of 29 interruptions in a 17 minute interview – achieved when he interviewed Liberal Party MP Tim Wilson on Insiders on 17 August 2025.

Well, Speersy has broken his record.  Interviewing Nationals MP Matt Canavan on Thursday 22 January, the 7.30 presenter interrupted Canavan on no fewer than 23 occasions in a 10-minute interview. Well done Speersy.

The problem with interruptions is that they invariably mean that the interviewer is not listening – since he/she is concentrating on his/her next comment.  Speers ran his old trick of asking the same question over and over again.  Matt Canavan is a good media performer and unlikely to be put off his game by Speers’  interruptions.  But Speers’ interview technique makes for poor television since it assumes that viewers are primarily interested in his queries or gotcha moments.  This is not the case as viewers can make up their own minds. ABC management would be well advised to tell Mr Speers so.

[Good stuff.   But perhaps Speers is aiming for Sarah Ferguson’s job and demonstrating that he is tops when it comes to interruptions.  After all, on 17 November 2025 Comrade Ferguson interrupted Opposition leader Sussan Ley on 29 occasions – or was it 35?  MWD lost count.  At times, Ferguson appeared to be interrupting her own interruptions.  Speers has the task ahead of him if he is to replace Comrade Ferguson. – MWD Editor.]

  • The ABC TV’s Media Watch misses the media’s coverage of big stories

The period between the lead-up to, and aftermath of, the Christmas/New Year holiday period has been rife with news.  Including the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach and the United  States’ capture of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro plus the political problems facing the Labor government and the Liberal Party and the Nationals in Opposition and more besides.

However, ABC TV’s Media Watch went on what journalists like to call a Well Earned Break on 23 November 2025 and will not return until 3 February 2026.  A 10-week WEB.  And little was heard from John Lyons – the ABC’s Editor Americas who told us all that his Washington DC-based job was to interpret the Trump administration to Australia.  Lyons appeared on ABC TV 7.30 on 6 January and on Radio National on 8 January.  The US commenced attacks on certain Venezuelan ships in late December and it captured Maduro on 3 January.

Which raises the question – was the ABC’s Editor Americas, Absent With Leave during what used to be called the media’s Funny Season but is no more?  If so, what’s the point if Comrade Lyons is not around to report from Washington DC on one of the most newsworthy events in the Americas since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?

As to Linton Besser, MWD looks forward to Media Watch’s return on 3 February when he will resume his media pulpit lecturing journalists what they should or should not be doing.  Ellie’s (male) co-owner can barely wait. In the meantime, Can You Bear It? [I note that in over three decades Media Watch has never had a conservative presenter. – MWD Editor.]

  • Cathy Wilcox throws the switch to anger following criticism of her controversial cartoon on (alleged) Jewish influence in Australia

Maybe it is a myth that there is one universal truth.  But the statement that many, many journalists are sensitive to criticism certainly goes close to being a universal truth.  In other words, oh-so-many journalists can dish out criticism – but they cannot take it.

Like Nine’s cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, for example.  As avid readers will be aware, on 7 January The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published a Wilcox cartoon titled “Grass Roots” which Arsen Ostrovsky (who was injured in the Bondi terrorist attack) later described as an “unadulterated form of Jew hatred”.

In her artistic statement opposing calls for a royal commission into the Bondi terrorist attack, Wilcox drew anonymous lawyers, business people, open-letter writers, sports greats, (alleged) Labor has-beens and, yes, dogs declaring “Don’t mention the war” – a reference to the Israel/Hamas war. This group was standing on a box. The said box was being held up by Jillian Segal, John Howard, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Sussan Ley and David Littleproud –  all of whom supported the establishment of a royal commission at the time.  Marching behind the box carriers was Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of the Jewish state of Israel.  He was beating a drum.  In other words, Australian lackeys were marching to the Israel leader’s beating drum – which implied Jews were running Australia. This despite the fact that Nine Newspapers boasted not so long ago that they were all about “Respect” – with a capital “R”.

In time, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald issued an apology of the non-apology kind.  But Wilcox’s cartoon lives on the Nine website.  How about that?

So, how has Comrade Wilcox handled this matter? Well, not too well – since she was clearly aggrieved even by Nine’s (sort of) apology.  As indicated in this exchange with a certain Rosco the Grouch:

How about that?  Comrade Wilcox, in angry mode, queries whether the Nine newspaper, who employ her, possess even “some integrity”.  But she appears to remain on the payroll.

Comrade Wilcox also directed this comment concerning Sky News’s Oscar Godsell who sought comment from her: “You and your hit squad goons can fu-k right off.”

How’s that for a leading Nine journalist practicing RESPECT?  Moreover, Can You Bear It?

  • Sabra Lane’s temporary exit from the ABC

While many journalists cannot take criticism, most sure like being praised.  Take Sabra Lane, who has presented the ABC AM program – which runs on ABC Radio as well as on ABC Radio National – for example.

On 24 December 2025, Comrade Lane had this to say from her base in Hobart where she moved to a decade ago:

Sabra Lane: And now some news from me. It’s time to turn off the early morning alarm. Today’s program is my last hosting AM. I’m taking a long break over summer, and I’ll be back next year in a different role. So, as I prepare to turn off the mic, colleague Nick Grimm has crafted a retrospective of my time in the studio.

[Banjo music starts]

In other words, another ABC exit of the Hotel California kind.  Comrade Lane is checking out of the ABC – but not leaving.

Nick Grimm reported that AM’s former producer, Kim Landers, who worked closely with Lane, said she had been wonderful. Quelle Surprise!  There were excerpts of Lane’s friendly interviews with Labor’s Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong – and no friendly interviews with the Liberal Party’s Scott Morrison, James McGrath and Sussan Ley. And then Comrade Lane reported her departure from AM:

Sabra Lane:  AM’s former Executive producer Kim Landers there. Nick Grimm with that report. Thank you Nick and thank you to all my ABC colleagues, and to you dear listener, thank you.  It’s been an absolute privilege.

How’s that for self-indulgence?  Can You Bear It?

  • New evidence to disprove Nine’s Tony Wright howler re The Dismissal & Jim Killen

Without question, Nine’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald were tops for fake news in their coverage of the 50th Anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr on 11 November 1975.

On 1 November 2025, Tony Wright wrote a story in Nine newspapers titled “The unlikely friendship that survived the rolling rage of The Dismissal”.  As documented in MWD issue 753, Comrade Wright reported that he had interviewed Diana Killen – the daughter of the late Liberal Party MP Jim Killen (1925-2007).  She recalled how she had dinner with her father on the evening of 11 November 1975 and that he was morose about the events of the day, maintaining that he was troubled about Kerr’s actions in using the reserve powers to dismiss a government.

It’s possible that Jim Killen told his daughter this.  And it’s possible that his daughter has a clear recollection of an event that never happened.

In any event, Killen spoke in the Liberal Party Room on 16 October 1975 in favour of blocking supply.  This is recorded in the contemporaneous diaries of Liberal Party MPs Peter Baume and the late Alan Missen.  Also Killen indicated that he supported the blocking of supply in his 1989 book Killen: Inside Australian Politics.

And now there’s this.  In looking through his files over the Christmas holiday period Gerard Henderson came across a report in The Australian on 1 December 1975 headed “Lawyers back Kerr for sacking Labor”. The reference was to a letter supporting Kerr signed by 89 Queensland lawyers. Guess what?  The signatories included – wait for it – Jim Killen in his capacity as the Minister for Defence in the caretaker Fraser government.

Consequently what Tony Wright reported was misinformation.  Killen supported the Coalition Opposition’s decision to block supply before and after 11 November 1975 –  along with Kerr’s decision to dismiss Whitlam consequent upon his determination to govern without supply.  Which raises the question: how naïve can a journalist get by believing what was said without checking?  And here’s another question:  Can You Bear It?

[Interesting.  I note that Diana Killen even got an invitation to the Museum of Australian Democracy’s day-long discussion on the Dismissal in which there were no fewer than 30 speakers – most of them members of the Whitlam Fan Club.  Groan.  Ms Killen told her story to Kerr antagonist Niki Savva. Comrade Savva did not challenge her account. For more on MOAD and the Dismissal see MWD’s hugely popular Correspondence section.  – MWD Editor.]

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.

  • Greg Craven prevails over George Brandis

In the last month of 2026, two columnists made an obvious bid to receive MWD’s prestigious award. Step forward George Brandis (who writes a fortnightly column for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald) and Greg Craven (who writes an occasional column for The Australian). Here are their pitches:

Enter George Brandis.  On 29 December 2025, in an opinion piece titled “2005, a year best to forget? We never will”, your man Brandis wrote about the Museum of Australian Democracy’s coverage of 11 November 2025 of the Dismissal by Governor-General Sir John Kerr half a century earlier.  Re which also see this week’s Correspondence segment.

Under the heading “Most embarrassing commemoration – 50th anniversary of the Dismissal reference” George Brandis had this to say:

This gathering brought together most of the luminaries of the left, with a token sprinkling of Liberals, at the superbly atmospheric Old Parliament House. It could have been a serious opportunity to discuss still-unresolved constitutional issues while marking a defining historical event.

Instead, it degenerated into a festival of Gough, as true believers of a certain age hugely enjoyed themselves reliving those long-ago days of wine and rage (as Frank Moorhouse called them). Sadly, the wine had been cellared for far too long; the rage – aside from the customary ritualistic denunciations of Kerr – was that so few people cared any more. The conference dinner ended in sublime self-parody, as that songstress of the 1970s, Little Pattie, led the thinning ranks of Whitlam warriors in a croaking rendition of their tribal anthem It’s Time with all the gusto of a nursing home singalong. It was time – for bed.

Well done, don’t you think?  But then Greg Craven wrote this in The Australian on 24 December under the heading “Relatively speaking, all I want for Christmas is you (to go home)” – after equating Christmas as being like “the annual visit to the dentist”. His comment on the extended Craven family contained this assessment:

It’s just so hard to convince surplus relatives that you really, really hate them. I try with contemptuous presents, like tartan socks, perfume that smells like diluted ditchwater and even the annual faux history epic by Peter FitzSimons. Only the last one works, but that involves the embarrassment of publicly buying the book, like some teenager from the 1970s shuffling guiltily to the newsagency counter with a pornographic magazine.

What to choose?  Well George Brandis missed out due to presenting himself as a wine snob and on account of his ageism with respect to Patricia Amphlett (aka Little Pattie). Mr Brandis was born in 1957 and should not be mocking (alleged) croaking voices or nursing home singalongs.  What’s more Greg Craven scored well in dismissing Peter FitzSimons’ history tomes written with lotsa help from research assistants (who are acknowledged) as invariably being of scant value.

Step forward Greg Craven: Five Paws

  • David Marr returns to Late Night Live after a W.E.B.

Wasn’t it great to see the ABC Radio National Late Night Live arise form the (media) dead on Monday?  Over LNL’s W.E.B., the ABC ran repeats of the 2025 program – as in “the Best of” format.

Ellie’s (male) co-owner just loves hearing Late Night Left presenter David Marr after dark.  Hendo invariably takes the said Ellie on her Late Night Walk while listening to the self-confessed show-off with the self-confessed Pymble accent interview invited talent.  For his part, Gerard Henderson gets to appear on LNL every quarter of a century and is looking forward to his next scheduled opportunity in 2040.

David (“I grew up in Pymble in Sydney’s Protestant infested North Shore”) Marr is a fine interviewer who is always well informed. Indeed, he appears to read at least some of the books that LNL covers which is not easy to do.  The problem with Late Night Live is that it lacks viewpoint diversity.

Look at it this way. In the first LNL week of 2026, the left-of-centre David Marr interviewed the left-of-centre Bernard Keane on Monday (about Australian politics), followed by the left-of-centre Bruce Shapiro on Tuesday (about United States politics), followed by the left-of-centre Ian Dunt on Wednesday (about United Kingdom politics). Not a conservative among this lot.

Then on Thursday the said Marr conducted a fascinating 55-minute long interview with Merlin Holden on his new book After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal.  Your man Holland is the maternal grandson of Oscar Wilde.  The discussion was devoid of alienated left-of-centre commentators sounding off.  It was great radio.

[Perhaps you should have given Comrade Marr the prestigious Five Paws Award for his interview about the playwright Oscar Wilde.  Just a thought.  By the way, I note that in the Marr/Dunt discussion it was revealed that the pair were scheduled to appear on no fewer than three sessions at the (now cancelled) 2026 Adelaide Writers Week. Yes three sessions with the left-of-centre Dunt talking to the left-of-centre Marr.  Wouldn’t two sessions be enough? – MWD Editor.]

As Media Watch Dog readers are well aware, Nine’s Shane Wright has risen without trace (as the late Kitty Muggeridge once said about the late David Frost) to become the senior economics correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald – not having published anything of note apart from newspaper articles and columns plus the occasional essay. Even so, you would expect a person in such an elevated position to know about the international energy market.

It’s only a few years since your man Wright ridiculed anyone who said that coal had any future as a part of energy supply – even in such markets as India, China and Indonesia. He declared on ABC TV Insiders on 11 June 2017 that “coal is like candlesticks” and compared those who said that there is still a demand for Australian coal exports with members of the Candle Makers Union circa 1870 who (allegedly) argued the case for candles over electricity. Now read on.

  • The end of coal continues to be pushed back

Late last year the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued a its latest Transition Plan for System Security. The report warned of the potential for blackouts if the Eraring coal-fired power plant, located south of Newcastle, closed as planned in August 2027. NSW Premier Chris Minns stated that negotiations would continue with Origin Energy, which operates Eraring, about the future of the plant.

It was no great shock then (except perhaps to Shane Wright), when, on Tuesday 20 January 2026 Origin announced that the closing date for Eraring had been pushed back another two years to 2029. This is the second extension of the plant, which was originally scheduled to shut down in mid-2025.

Origin CEO Frank Calabria was diplomatic about the state of the renewables transition when explaining the decision: “Good progress is being made on the delivery of new energy infrastructure…but it has become clear Eraring Power Station will need to run for longer to support secure and stable power supply”.

Once again, the much-anticipated end of coal power by the likes of Shane Wright has proven to be elusive.

[Speaking of rosy predictions that proved to be false, in 2021 AEMO’s incoming CEO Daniel Westerman spoke of the need to prepare by 2025 for periods when 100 per cent of the electricity grid’s needs would be provided by renewables. It is now 2026 and we are yet to see such an event. – MWD Editor]

DOCUMENTATION

  • Geoffrey Lehmann on how writers festivals are no longer about writers

As avid readers know, Gerard Henderson has been pointing to the lack of viewpoint diversity at taxpayer funded literary/writers festivals for eons.  Both in his Weekend Australian column and in Media Watch Dog.  Writing in The Spectator Australia in April 2011, Ellie’s (male) co-owner defined literary festivals as occasions when “a group of leftists invites their leftist friends to perform before an audience primarily made up of inner-city leftist luvvies, at the taxpayers’ expense”.

Nothing has changed since then – as the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week (director Louise Adler) attests.  Gerard Henderson wrote about the 2026 AWW controversy in his Weekend Australian column on Saturday 17 January 2026 – see here.  After reading this, Geoffrey Lehmann wrote to The  Sydney Institute in the following terms:

Having participated in several Adelaide Writers’ Weeks in the 1970s and early 1980s, what I find dispiriting about Adelaide Writers’ Week and many other current literary festivals is that they have become talk fests for personalities with a strong presence in the media and a lot of retired politicians. Many significant writers are never or rarely invited. Writers may be quite shy people – Salinger was a notorious example, and was ostentatiously elusive – but this does not mean they will be ineffective before an audience or don’t want attention for their work. Writers’ Weeks were once for writers. Arts administrators such as Louise Adler have degraded the currency of such events.

In the 1970s and early 1980s and presumably from the early 1960s, Adelaide Writers’ Week was about giving a profile to writers, many of whom might otherwise not have a strong media presence.

I decided to test the above thesis by reading the Amazon extract from Randa Abdel-Fattah’s novel Discipline. I found it was plainly and intelligently written, but in a didactic style which one might expect from a lawyer with sociological interests who is an academic. It was adequate but it felt oppressive to read, and not at all engaging.

I have been exposed to a lot of fiction over the years – perhaps thousands of books. I was one of the main reviewers of fiction for The Bulletin in the 1960s. In the early 1980s I was a member of Australia Council’s Literature Board for about three years. I was then on the judging panel for the NSW Literary Awards for just one year. I continued reviewing poetry and fiction on a sporadic basis in the early 2000s, then in 2021 and 2022 I was one of the judges for the Prime Minister’s Literary Prize in the fiction/poetry category, and in 2022 was the chair of this particular panel.

Contrary to the opinions of some people, who are unaware of what Australian writers are writing, there are dozens of outstanding writers of fiction and poetry who are actively writing now. About 200 works of fiction by Australian writers are published annually, and about 70 books of poetry. It’s actually too many books for many good writers to get very much attention. In the 1960s and early 1970s publication of a work of fiction or a book of poetry was an event. Other writers were aware of it, and also many members of the reading public. The better books also were reviewed. This is no longer so. The field is just too crowded.

How would I rate Abdel-Fatah’s Discipline, which has received the most favourable attention of all of her books? In terms of the 200 fiction works by Australian writers published annually, I would rate it as belonging to the top 100. But I would certainly not place it in a long list of the top 20, as it is didactic, mildly stereotyped and oppressive on the basis of what I’ve read, although clearly written and observed. The characters have some individuality, but they seem to be doing what they are doing to fulfil the author’s schematic program. They don’t really come alive.

There are many other Australian writers of merit – dozens of fiction writers and dozens of poets – who had a far better claim than Abdel-Fatah to be invited to Adelaide Writers’ Week and who do not seem to have aroused Louise Adler’s interest.

I’ve pasted below the publisher’s summary of Discipline as it appears on the Amazon website.  It’s Dullsville.

Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up?

Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community.
When a Year 12 student from a local Islamic college is arrested for protesting a university’s ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer, Ashraf sees an opportunity to exploit his personal connection to the situation for professional redemption. Meanwhile Hannah, who is juggling the demands of new motherhood and family trauma, fights racism in the newsroom. As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensifies into the final weeks of Ramadan, Ashraf and Hannah must reckon with their choices, values and places in their communities. Will they be prepared to make sacrifices in the pursuit of what is right?

With a focus on two of today’s most contested fields, academia and the media, Discipline tallies the price we all pay when those with privilege choose to remain silent.

]

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 (aka 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 but does not receive a response. Nevertheless, publication of this one-sided correspondence still takes place in MWD. For the record – and in the public interest, of course.

  • A visit to the Museum of Australian Democracy’s The Dismissal exhibition at Old Parliament House

When in Canberra on Saturday 20 December 2025, Gerard Henderson visited The Dismissal Exhibition at Old Parliament House – now called the Museum of Australian Democracy (MOAD). The exhibition coincided with the 50th anniversary of Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government on 11 November 1975.

Channelling the ABC and Adelaide Writers’ Week, both MOAD’s The Dismissal 50th Anniversary Panel Discussions (held on 11 November 2025) and MOAD’s The Dismissal Exhibition lack viewpoint diversity. It is like a flashback to the “Kerr’s a Bastard” chant of the pro-Whitlam left half a century ago.

Following time out for Christmas and all that, on 7 January 2026, Gerard Henderson wrote to the former ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy who is MOAD’s chair – Comrade Cassidy opened the function on 11 November 2025  in his capacity as Chair Old Parliament House.  Read on – s’il vous plait.

Gerard Henderson to Barrie Cassidy, Chair, MOAD – 7 January 2026

Dear Barrie

I was in Canberra recently and took some relatives on a tour of Old Parliament House.

I had noticed that Session 1 of the Museum of Australian Democracy’s discussions on “The Dismissal’s 50th Anniversary Panel”, which took place on 11 November 2025, consisted only of critics of Sir John Kerr’s decision on 11 November 1975.  Namely you, Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Kim Williams, Niki Savva, Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and Kerry O’Brien.  The rest of the sessions contained mainly critics of Kerr – but apparently not of Malcolm Fraser who, as you know, was primarily responsible for the Coalition’s decision to block supply.  After all, without Fraser there would not have been a Dismissal.

I had hoped that the taxpayer funded MOAD would do better with its current display titled “The Dismissal”.  Unfortunately, this is not the case. One caption contains a serious error. There are also minor errors/ambiguities. Here we go:

Serious Error

  • This is what one exhibit states:

Malcolm Fraser’s handwritten notes on conversation with Sir John Kerr – 11 November 1975

Kerr called Fraser on the morning of 11 November to discuss the conditions of his appointment, including a guarantee that Supply would pass. Kerr later claimed he had not spoken to Fraser that morning – this document suggests otherwise.

On loan from Malcolm Fraser Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Melbourne

This statement is manifestly false and damaging to the reputation of the late governor-general.

A simple fact check would reveal that, in his book Matters for Judgment (Macmillan 1978) on Page 355 Kerr wrote that, after phoning Gough Whitlam on the morning of 11 November 1975 to ascertain whether the government was intent on governing without supply:

I next spoke to Mr Fraser who confirmed the position and the Opposition policy remained the same. I said nothing else to him about the situation.

It is simply false for MOAD to state that “Kerr later claimed that he had not spoken to Fraser that morning – this document suggests otherwise”. This implies that Kerr lied about not making the call – a totally false statement. As MOAD should know, what Kerr later said related to the content of the phone conversation – not that the phone call never took place.

Moreover, at the very least, MOAD should have acknowledged that the content of the phone call is contested. Most people visiting the exhibition would not know this.

It was not until 1987, with the publication of Philip Ayres’ Malcolm Fraser:  A Biography, that Fraser claimed that, during their phone conversation  on 11 November 1975, Kerr asked him whether, if commissioned prime minister, he would undertake four conditions.  Kerr maintained that this conversation took place at Government House later that day around 1.15 pm, when he asked Fraser to accept six (not four) conditions – before swearing him in as caretaker prime minister.

As you are probably aware, Fraser took a note of a conversation which he had with Kerr on 11 November but he mislaid this and did not locate the document until the early 2000s. What Fraser told Ayres was based on his memory of events – a decade earlier. Ayres told me in 1987 that Fraser did not show him a document.

If MOAD had done any research in this instance, it would be aware that I have contested the authenticity of Fraser’s handwritten note with respect to the date, time and signature – all of which are written in a different pen and in different handwriting with a dramatically different signature from that which Fraser used when he signed a House of Representatives censure motion at around 11.30 am on 11 November 1975. Also, Kerr contested this during his lifetime as have such commentators as Michael Connor in the September 2017 issue of Quadrant magazine.

All this is documented and illustrated, among other places, in my book Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection. Copies are now in the MOAD bookshop. I first wrote about this issue in The Weekend Australian on 30 January 1988 after speaking to both Kerr and Ayres. I also spoke to Fraser about this in 1991.

In short, what has happened here is not only that MOAD has made a serious error in maintaining that Kerr denied that a phone call took place but has refused to acknowledge that the content of the phone call is contested. In other words, MOAD has sided with the late Malcolm Fraser against the late John Kerr. This despite the fact that, in Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, Fraser wrote that his memory was “notoriously fallible”.  Which raises the question – why does MOAD believe Fraser and disbelieve Kerr – in view of the former’s acknowledgement of his poor memory?

MOAD’s error plays into the hands of Kerr’s antagonists who maintained that Kerr tipped-off Fraser that he was about to dismiss Whitlam and, consequently, betrayed Whitlam in an act of treachery.

Minor Errors/Ambiguities

  • MOAD’s “The Dismissal” contains this exhibition:

Fraser’s handwritten draft speech (green paper, red pen)

This afternoon the Governor-General has commissioned me to form a caretaker government….

In his essay in Sybil Nolan’s 2005 edited collection The Dismissal: Where were you on November 11, 1975? (MUP), David Kemp (Fraser’s senior adviser and speech writer at the time) wrote that he was the author of Fraser’s hand-printed red on green draft speech. Anyone who has examined Fraser’s writing style on other documents in MOAD’s “The Dismissal” exhibition would recognise that this is not Fraser’s handwriting or printing. By the way, Kemp’s essay was titled “Red Felt Pen and Green Paper”.

  • And then there is this:

Royal prerogative

…The Dismissal prompted questions about Australia’s relationship with the monarchy. Though the decision to dismiss Whitlam had been Kerr’s, to this day some believe since he was the Queen’s representative, Buckingham Palace had foreknowledge of, or had even approved, Kerr’s actions.

It is true that “some” Kerr critics, such as Jenny Hocking, “believe” that Buckingham Palace approved of Kerr’s actions on 11 November 1975.  But it is also true that other Kerr critics, such as Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston, do not believe that this was the case. Their views are not recorded with respect to this exhibit. Also, Kerr always denied that he had been influenced by the Palace.

Conclusion

I am a fan of the Old  Parliament House (if not all of its exhibits) and regret that the Opposition offices were not preserved. However, since MOAD boasts about the importance of democracy and warns about the danger of misinformation and disinformation, it should ensure that its political commentary is as accurate as possible – and that its functions should exhibit substantial viewpoint diversity when this is appropriate. As in this instance.

Best wishes

Gerard

Gerard Henderson

 

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Media Watch Dog was advised by MOAD on 22 January that the label re the Kerr/Fraser correspondence has been updated and stating that its “final sentence is imprecise”.  This issue will be addressed next week.  By the way, Barrie Cassidy did not acknowledge or reply to Gerard Henderson’s email.

[Perhaps Comrade Cassidy should enrol in one of the late Nancy’s Courtesy Classes conducted via the American psychic John Edward.  Just a thought. – MWD Editor.]

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Until Next Time.

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