GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 790

4 September 2026

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The Latest – The Saturday Paper’s “special” assessment of One Nation

Did anyone hear the stunning performance on ABC Radio National Breakfast on Friday 4 September by Jason Koutsoukis of The Saturday Paper?

Your man Koutsoukis is The Saturday Paper’s special correspondent. He was on a panel presented by Sally Sara along with Steph Boris (ABC) and Noam Yim (The Australian).

Asked about One Nation’s strong vote in the Secret Harbour by-election in southern Perth, Koutsoukis stated:

Jason Koutsoukis: I think the [Secret Harbour] by-election had a message for the Labor leadership in Canberra, but I wouldn’t overstate it. I think these caveats are important. It’s important to be reminded of them. This was a state by-election. Voters know that it doesn’t have any real consequence if they elect a One Nation MP. So I’d be cautious about reading too much into it….I think the [Secret Harbour] by-election has a message for the Labor leadership in Canberra, but I wouldn’t overstate it. I think these caveats are important. It’s important to be reminded of them. This was a state by-election. Voters know that it doesn’t have any real consequence if they elect a One Nation MP. So I’d be cautious about reading too much into it….

Later on, Comrade K had this to say about One Nation:

Jason Koutsoukis: Well, there’s clearly a lot of disunity there. They can’t agree on what the right number is for the annual migration intake, and that’s just one policy area. I think there’s signs that there are real kind of a range of views in One Nation that would be very difficult, I think, for Pauline Hanson to reconcile as we get closer to an election, and I think the other point to make about One Nation is that they’re not really offering us a plan yet for how they’re going to govern. And I think the closer we get to the election, the more pressure on, the pressure is going to build on One Nation, and I expect that that’s when we’ll really see voters start to take more care about what they tell opinion pollsters.

Sure it’s a long time to the next federal election. But Labor and the Coalition are very concerned about the level of the One Nation vote in opinion polls. As well as in the Farrer by-election and the South Australian state election plus Secret Harbour.

As to whether One Nation has a plan – whether a Five Year plan or something else – it is not clear right now if Australians really care, since they are disillusioned with the major parties.

Who knows? The Saturday Paper’s special correspondent is so special he may be proven correct in time. Right now, however, Comrade K seems to be into wish fulfillment. His fellow panellists exhibited a considerably more reasoned assessment of One Nation’s current place in Australian national politics.

  • On Late Night Live Kemi Badenoch is described as “silly” and “stupid”

On ABC Radio National Late Night Live, presenter David Marr interviews Ian Dunt on British politics and Bruce Shapiro on United States politics. Both are left-wing or “progressive” types. There are no conservative or right-of-centre regular commentators on either nation. But then the taxpayer funded public broadcaster is a Conservative Free Zone – so what would an avid Media Watch Dog reader expect?

On 1 September, Comrade Dunt devoted much of his commentary to criticising Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservatives in Britain. The most recent More in Common opinion poll has the Conservative Party second – behind Labour and ahead of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

But Dunt was critical of Badenoch – primarily because she is a black woman who opposes identity politics. David Marr said nothing when Dunt described Badenoch as “silly” on four occasions and “stupid” and “catastrophically stupid” on one occasion each. By the way, the British-born Conservative Party leader has degrees in engineering and law. Even Dunt acknowledged, albeit in a condescending way, that Badenoch is “not unintelligent”.

What was missing from the interview was any attempt to analyse why Badenoch has presided over an increase in support for the Conservative Party during her time as leader.

It seems that Comrade Dunt is of the view that Kemi Badenoch should not be critical of the movement of black single African men to Britain via France because she herself is black. Can You Bear It?

[No, not really, now that you ask. Perhaps you should include in MWD this audio grab of Dunt in a ‘silly’/’stupid’/’catastrophically’ stupid moment of Late Night Left – see here. – MWD Editor.]

  • Richard Flanagan makes false allegations about President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

The left-wing activist author Richard Flanagan was the star performer at the taxpayer-funded Festival of Dangerous Ideas held in Sydney on 22 August. He spoke on the topic “Heresies: The necessity of saying the unsayable”. His session was chaired by Ann Mossop, the left-wing director of the taxpayer-funded Sydney Writers’ Festival.

In saying the alleged “unsayable”, Flanagan just ran an anti-Israel line. In fact, such a view about Israel is not “unsayable”. Rather, it is a prevailing position on university campuses, at literary festivals etc. Flanagan even blamed Jewish Australians who support Israel for the appalling rise of Antisemitism in Australia.

At one point in his speech Flanagan said this when criticising Jillian Segal, who was appointed by the Albanese government as the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia on 9 July 2024:

“Mysteriously, Segal was appointed Australia’s Special Envoy for Antisemitism in 2024, after, according to the pro-Israel Jerusalem News Service [sic], sustained pressure on the Albanese government by the Trump administration that saw the Albanese government as having drifted too far from Australia’s traditional support of Israel.”

This is hopelessly wrong. Ms Segal was appointed Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia by the Albanese government on 9 July 2024. In July 2024, Joe Biden was President of the United States – not Donald Trump. This has not been corrected on the Festival of Dangerous Ideas website. So Flanagan’s anti-Israel conspiracy theory remains on its website.

By the way, the report in the Jerusalem News Syndicate (not Service) did not write what Flanagan claimed at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Moreover, it would seem that Comrade Mossop was not listening when Flanagan claimed that Trump was president in July 2024. Or was she also ignorant of which administration was in office at the time of Segal’s appointment? And here’s another question – Can You Bear It?

  • David Marr falsely claims that when at university Robert Menzies dressed as a grandee

On 2 September on Radio National Late Night Live, David Marr interviewed left-wing author Jeff Sparrow on a book he has written on the poet and left-wing activist Lesbia Harford (1891-1927). Harford and Robert Menzies were fellow law students at Melbourne University, circa 1915.

Both Harford and Menzies wrote poetry when young. Sparrow described Menzies as a “terrible poet”. Then David Marr had this to say:

David Marr: Menzies was in fancy dress all the time. He was a country grocer’s son, trying to be a grandee. And you know the grandee requires the kind of rhetoric [poetry] that he [Menzies] wrote at the time.

Menzies’ father, James, ran the general store in the Victorian town of Jeparit. He later became a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. Marr’s reference to a “grocer’s son” seems to be a snobbish put-down by someone who admits to possessing a “Pymble accent” – derived from growing up in Sydney’s North Shore.

As to Robert Menzies, it is simply abuse for Marr to state that Menzies tried to be a “grandee” and that, when young, was in “fancy dress all the time”. Marr just made this up. Below is a photo of Menzies at Melbourne University in 1916 – he is seated in the middle of the first row – when President of the Students’ Representative Council.

As the photo demonstrates, Menzies dressed as did other male university students at the time – in a suit and tie. Not as a grandee – whatever that might mean. Can You Bear It?

[By the way, the award-winning Australian poet Geoffrey Lehmann has told MWD that he recalls that Menzies was “a competent and unexciting poet”. And that it was “Light/light verse”. Lehmann added that Menzies was “diffident about his poetry”. Lehmann presents as better qualified to discuss poetry than Comrade Sparrow. – MWD Editor.]

Robert Menzies, in 1916, centre in the front row of the Melbourne University SRC. He is not wearing “fancy dress all the time”.

 

Grandees of the Spanish kind as depicted on Wikipedia. They are not wearing fancy dress

  • Cathy Wilcox says goodbye to the Age/SMH

Cathy Wilcox, the editorial cartoonist for Nine Entertainment’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, is understood to have applied for, and received, a redundancy package. Comrade Wilcox was a regular guest on ABC TV’s Insiders’ “Talking Pictures” segment. “Talking Pictures” is presented by photographer Mike Bowers – formerly with the left-wing Guardian Australia and now with the left-wing New Daily. You get the picture. Comrade Wilcox’s final cartoon appeared on Friday 28 August and she discussed her decision on “Talking Pictures” the following Sunday.

After much praise from Comrade Bowers, Wilcox had this to say on Insiders – reading from her cartoon in The Age and SMH of Friday 28 August:

Cathy Wilcox: This is my last offering for the Herald and The Age: This paper has been my home. I grew up with it…. When I grew up, it was where I wanted to be, filling spaces with pictures and words about ever-changing topics… I never had to change jobs; it grew with me. It’s been the greatest privilege to be trusted and free to comment on all things, from the ridiculous to the deadly serious. The conversation has been with you, dear reader. You’ve met my ideas with heart and intellect. It’s been the best job in the world, but it’s time for me to take a break. Thank you and good night. –

David Speers: Cathy, thank you so much for all of those contributions in the paper over so many years, and we wish you well for whatever comes next.

How about that? David Speers works for the ABC. But he used the ABC to thank Wilcox for her “contributions in the paper over so many years”. The paper was The Age and Sydney Morning Herald – not ABC Online.

There was no mention of what was perhaps the most famous Wilcox cartoon of all time. Or, perhaps infamous is a better word. The cartoon appeared in MWD last year, Here it is:

Wilcox depicted, from left to right, Rupert Murdoch, Jillian Segal, John Howard, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, then Liberal leader Sussan Ley and then Nationals leader David Littleproud carrying supporters of the establishment of a royal commission into anti-Semitism in Australia. All marching to the beat of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s drum. Wilcox’s message was that the leader of the Jewish state is interfering in Australian politics.

On 9 June 2026 the Australian Press Council found that the Wilcox cartoon breached its Standards of Practice. Its finding included this comment:

“The Council acknowledges the publications’ comments that the cartoon’s intention was to comment on the politicisation of the calls for a Royal Commission. The Council also acknowledges the publications’ comments that there was no intention to cause offence or prejudice. The Council notes that the intention of the cartoon or the message it is attempting to convey may be interpreted in different ways. In this context, the Council notes the depiction of political figures carrying the purported grassroots movement above their heads, while Netanyahu, who is both Jewish and the Israeli Prime Minister, stands apart, beating the drum to which the political figures march. The Council considers this imagery encodes the antisemitic trope that Jewish people secretly control or manipulate global events, governments, financial systems, or the media. The Council considers this imagery was likely to cause or contribute to substantial offence, distress and prejudice particularly to those who are Jewish.”

Needless to say, there was no mention of Comrade Wilcox’s most controversial cartoon in the send-off for The Age and SMH cartoonist on the taxpayer funded public broadcaster. Can You Bear It?

  • ABC refuses to state why Sarah Henderson’s comment on Sarah Ferguson was deleted from the ABC website

As The Australian’s “Media Diary” reported last Monday, the ABC has cut a segment from the ABC’s website. It covers the 19 August interview with the Coalition’s shadow Communications Minister Senator Henderson and Radio National Breakfast presenter Sally Sara. Media Watch Dog commented on this in Issue 789, 28 August. MWD heard the interview live but was unaware that it had been deleted in part – until this was revealed in The Australian.

During the interview, in response to a question from Sally Sara, Senator Henderson criticised a number of ABC programs including Four Corners and Race Around The World. As The Australian reported last Monday, this is the sentence which was deleted:

Sarah Henderson: We’ve had Sarah Ferguson caught up in a scandal involving her being the EP of a documentary funded by an animal-rights activist when, of course, she was the host of the 7.30 program.

Now, Ferguson was not paid for her role as executive producer of Sentient which was directed by former ABC “star” Tony Jones. But the evidence suggests that she was involved in fundraising for the film.

As avid MWD readers know, the feature of ABC Communications is that it does not communicate. For evidence, see below a part of the email exchange on 2 September between MWD and an ABC spokesperson:

Gerard Henderson: I would be grateful if ABC Communications will let me know as to whether the ABC proposes to put out a statement which addresses the reason for the omission of Senator Henderson’s comment re Sarah Ferguson.

ABC Spokesperson: Several edits were made to the digital version of the program based on legal advice.

The ABC will not say what the legal issue was which made it necessary to cut out one of Sarah Henderson’s sentences – without advising listeners.

The ABC is a member of the Right to Know Coalition. However, the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster invariably goes into “no comment” or “scant comment” mode when taxpayers want to know what the ABC is up to.

An Insiders Moment – Waleed Aly & Ashleigh Raper try their hand at humour

For the most part ABC TV’s Insiders program at Hangover Time on a Sunday is worthy but dull. After all, the Canberra-based presenter David Speers presides over a panel of primarily Canberra-based journalists discussing Australia’s national politics. Plus, on occasions, someone from Melbourne or Sydney, usually of left-of-centre mode.

This was the case last Sunday when the panel comprised Waleed Aly, a Melbourne-based left-of-centre academic who writes a column for The Age and SMH and co-hosts the all-but-incomprehensible The Minefield program on ABC Radio National with Scott Stephens. The other panellists were Anna Henderson (SBS) and Ashleigh Raper (Network 10).

So, what were the highlights of last Sunday’s Insiders? – MWD hears avid readers cry. Well, early on Comrade Aly cracked a “joke” about the name of the seat – Secret Harbour – in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly which Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party won in a landslide last Saturday. Your man Aly’s “joke” was as follows:

Waleed Aly: …My other observation is that Secret Harbour has to be the best-named seat.

Ashleigh Raper: Everybody’s been talking about it.

Waleed Aly: I can’t believe I didn’t know we had a Secret Harbour – and, I mean I guess it was a secret.

Waleed Aly: Sounds like a TV show.

Ashleigh Raper: Yeah, we should commission it.

Anna Henderson was smart enough not to involve herself in this non-humour humour. After all Aly’s Secret Harbour joke is as old as Methuselah. Groan. What’s more, if Comrade Aly had bothered to consult an Atlas or Google, he would have known that Secret Harbour is a southern suburb of Perth.

Towards the end of the program, panellist Ashleigh Raper tried to put some life into the discussion. She compared the Western Australian government’s determination to keep the current system for the distribution of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to the States and Territories in place and not alter it to WA’s disadvantage, to a rich uncle at the pub.

Let’s go to the transcript:

David Speers: And on the GST. Look, the West Australian government is very happy. The rest of the premiers seem pretty restless about this. Is the PM going to have to cough up more [money] for them?

Ashleigh Raper: Well, I think so, and it’s what, you know. It’s like WA is the really rich uncle that comes to the family dinner at the pub, and you’re there with your whole family. He earns much more than everybody else, but he’s the most stingy in terms of carving up what we’re going to eat.

David Speers: Won’t shout a round.

Ashleigh Raper: And at the end of the dinner, bags up everybody else’s food for the doggie bag, and then wants grandma to pay for his cab home, and this is what’s happening and so at some point the other siblings around the table go, What are we doing?

Anna Henderson: Yeah, but they wouldn’t have the food otherwise, Ash….

Groan. So there you have it – demonstrated by Ms Raper’s exaggerated hand movements. In any event, rightly or wrongly, Western Australia is not taking food off the table but rather attempting to keep its food on its table. So that was a good point by Ms (no relation) Henderson. After all, WA makes a substantial contribution to the Australian economy.

But Speers was so impressed – concluding the segment with this:

David Speers: I just love the rich uncle at the pub analogy. I’m going to keep using that one. That’s brilliant.

Brilliant? What a load of absolute tosh. Comrade Raper’s confused analogy was just an inside-the-bubble “joke”

Verily, An Insiders Moment.

John-Laws-Style “Deliberate” Mistake – Re the NSW ICAC, the Liberal Party and Barry O’Farrell

As avid Media Watch Dog readers know only too well, Ellie’s (male) co-owner follows the teaching of the Australian radio legend – the late John Laws – in classifying any mistakes as “deliberate”. However, from time to time, Hendo plants a real deliberate mistake in MWD to reward his (pedantic) critics – who are looking for something to do at either Gin & Tonic Time or Hangover Time.

An avid Media Watch Dog reader wrote to Ellie’s (male ) co-owner at Gin & Tonic time last Friday to this effect:

A couple of “John Laws” errors in today’s Media Watchdog. ICAC Commissioner is Fabian Gleeson. O’Farrell was not cleared by the Supreme Court. ICAC made no findings of corruption. For reasons best known to himself he resigned as premier over a memory relapse.

MWD responds:

Thanks for the correction re the name of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Assistant Commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC – who is presiding over the current hearings of Operation Rosny into the NSW Liberal Party and related matters.

MWD apologises for getting Mr Gleeson’s first name wrong in a quote from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. The reference in the SMH print edition was correct. Yet, somehow or other, the name in MWD was incorrect.

As to Barry O’Farrell. As you state, Barry was not found to be corrupt by ICAC. He resigned after an ICAC public hearing in which he admitted — under ICAC examination — that he misled the commission about not having received an expensive present of a bottle of Penfolds Grange. He said he could not remember this. Since O’Farrell was not, to MWD’s knowledge, a wine connoisseur – and someone who in his position at the time received many gifts – this was not surprising. However, Barry’s career ceased due to a faulty memory regarding a wine bottle.

As you will be aware, ICAC loves public hearings. Once a Premier is named in an ICAC hearing – the way Nick Greiner, Barry O’Farrell and Gladys Berejiklian were – there is no alternative but to resign. By the time that ICAC found that Barry had a genuine failure of memory and that “there was no intention on Mr O’Farrell’s part to mislead this commission” it was too late.

As you know, Nick Greiner was cleared by the NSW Supreme Court. Gladys Berejiklian’s case against ICAC did not succeed – two judges were for upholding the ICAC finding and one against. You are correct in stating that O’Farrell was cleared by ICAC itself – not by the Supreme Court. This has been corrected in the online edition of MWD.

As mentioned above, since Barry O’Farrell made a false statement at a public ICAC hearing he had no option but to resign as premier. After all, the hearing was in April 2014 and Barry was cleared by ICAC in August 2017 – and there was a NSW election in between. That’s a very long time.

Thanks for drawing my attention to this matter.

Media Watch Dog.

  • You say Counsel, I hear Cancel – an Insiders confusion

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.

On 21 August 2026 (Issue 788), the “An Insiders Moment” ran a piece titled “Not a conservative on the Insiders couch last Sunday as Comrades Mark Kenny and Lenore Taylor star”. It contained this extract:

“Initially discussion turned on the fact that Senator Bragg had been counselled by some of his colleagues, including Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor, for what Speersy called “freelancing” at the National Press Club. Soon after, Comrade Professor Mark Kenny threw the switch to irony with this comment:

Mark Kenny: Well, look. First thing I’d say is it’s good to see that cancel culture is alive and well in the in the Coalition….

What a load of absolute tosh. The idea that Angus Taylor is presiding over a “cancel culture” within the Coalition is bonkers.”

It turns out that your man Kenny said “counsel culture” instead of “cancel culture”.

The words “counsel” and “cancel” sound similar. MWD has heard of a “cancel culture” but not of “counsel culture”. When listening to Insiders MWD heard “cancel culture”. Hence the confusion. Now read on s’il vous plait.

 

Mark Kenny to Gerard Henderson – 3 September 2026

Dear Gerard

Somebody raised your recent references to my comments in the last (but one) episode of Insiders.

For the record, I responded to the suggestion that Senator Bragg had been counselled (for his freelancing) by punning that “counsel culture” was alive and well. I did not say “cancel culture” at all, which would have made no sense. I’ll concede, I was hoping for a bit more of a laugh.

In fact, I went on to rebuff the invitation to criticise the frontbencher for being expansive in the ideas space.

Given that your subsequent critique rested so heavily on hearing “cancel culture”, I felt you might wish to know.

I’ll leave it up to you.

Kindest wishes

Mark

 

Gerard Henderson to Mark Kenny – 4 September 2026

Dear Professor Mark

How wonderful to hear from you. As I recall, we last met on Insiders a decade ago. In those days, I did not cover much of Insiders in my Media Watch Dog. Since being a courteous kind of guy who was well brought up, I felt it unprofessional to criticise fellow couch-sitters. In recent years, I have been “free” in this regard.

Pardon, but I did not realise that your “counsel culture” was in fact a joke. I now realise it was what I call a “non-joke joke”. As you concede, it did not get much of a laugh. But, on re-viewing the exchange, presenter David Speers and fellow panellist Jane Norman were courteous enough to offer a brief chuckle. Moreover, a minute had lapsed between when Norman mentioned the word “counsel” and your reference to “counsel”. And Insiders goes to air a Hangover Time.

However, for old time’s sake, I will put a clarification in next week’s MWD.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson AC (aka Always Courteous)

 

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Until next time.

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