GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 56
4 JUNE 2010
IN THIS ISSUE
● The (Tax-Payer Funded) Drum From Bob Ellis – A New Rant On Israel
● Nancy’s Pick-of-the-Week – Geoffrey Barker on Ptolemaic Cosmology And All That
● What’s Your Average Taxi-Driver Really Thinking? Donald McDonald Helps Out from London and The Hague
● Maurice Newman Segment (Continued) : Yet Another Group-Think on Late Night Live Detected
● Charles Waterstreet’s (Not-So-Private) Thoughts – On Sex and Sun-Herald Readers
● Julian Burnside QC’s Woeful History – On The Late (And Unlamented) Bert Evatt and on Mandatory Detention (Don’t Mention the Keating Government)
● A Voice From The Past – Pete or is it Peter or is it Alan Steedman on Melbourne University in the ‘60s and Gerard Henderson’s Response
● Cliché of the Week : Laura Tingle In a White Flag, With a Cliché, In the Lion’s Den
STOP PRESS
BOB ELLIS BOUNCES BACK (AGAIN) – A WHEELCHAIR INTERPRETATION OF THE MIDDLE-EAST CRISIS
MWD certainly hopes that contributors to the ABC’s website The Drum Unleashed get financially remunerated. Since Bob Ellis now appears regularly on the taxpayer funded website, payment might make it possible for the Failed Prophet to repay the money he owes Nancy’s co-owner after his cheques to the value of $500 were bounced by Ellis’ bank. See Issue 56.
On 3 June The Drum Unleashed carried a piece by Bob Ellis titled “Israeli exceptionalism persists”. It was your typical Ellis rant about Israel – accompanied by his familiar (boring) literary props. For example, an Ellis proposition followed by the direction “Discuss” and the evocation (which he pinched from Kurt Vonnegut) “And so it goes”.
According to Ellis, the action by the Israeli Defence Force to prevent a convoy of ships breaking its blockade of Gaza this week was all about piracy in order to “kill people for bringing in wheelchairs”. He also raised the possibility that Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul McGeough, who was travelling with the convoy, might be “killed or tortured by Israelis”. He wasn’t.
According the False Prophet of Palm Beach, Israel’s actions this week can be explained by virtue of the fact that Jonathan Netanyahu, the brother of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once led the Entebbe raid. It is simple as that. As Ellis wrote on The Drum Unleashed :
Bibi’s brother Jonathan died at Entebbe in the raid he commanded, and Bibi hates all Muslims now.
It speaks volumes for the editorial standards of the ABC’s website that a columnist can get away with such undocumented tripe. The reference is to the Entebbe raid in July 1976 when Israeli commandos freed a number of hijack victims, killing the hijackers in the process.
But what’s this got to do with the Gaza boycott? Nothing. For starters, Entebbe is in Uganda. The raid took place over three decades ago. And Ellis has no evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu “hates all Muslims now” – or that he hates all Ugandans for that matter. By the way, the hyperlink to the word “raid” in the Ellis rant is sourced to Wikipedia. Wow. So Wikipedia is now a primary source of evidence for contributors to The Drum.
NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK
Geoffrey Barker Digs Up Copernicus – Buries Bogans – And So On
Nancy has always been a huge fan of the Australian Financial Review’s Geoffrey Barker – ever since he put endnotes at the end of his columns to demonstrate just how learned he really is. It seems that your man Barker has little time for those not in the footnote genre, so to speak.
In his AFR column on 22 February 2010 – written while he was a visiting fellow at the government funded Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University – Mr Barker criticised Kevin Rudd, bagged Tony Abbott and then dismissed the rest of the country as “bogans”. The AFR even headed his rant “Going for the bogan vote”.
The Barker thesis is that the Opposition’s policies are remarkably similar to those of the Tea Party movement in the United States and that:
As a country that slavishly mimics overseas (especially US) political styles, Tea Party tactics might influence Abbott’s campaign. The Tea Party and the Coalition are ideological soulmates. If so, we will have entered the age of bogan politics for a bogan nation: vulgar, simplistic, and focused on aggression, and extremist and alarmist claims. It will be politics to appeal to a dumbed-down electorate, attracted to tattoos and leaders who wear Speedoes and fluorescent lycra cycling outfits.
What’s wrong with tats? Or a bit of lycra among consenting cyclists? Well, it seems that the tattoo-crowd may not really know enough about Copernicus, that’s what. In a truly wonderfully learned piece in last Monday’s AFR, Geoffrey Barker cited Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Thomas Kuhn and Adam Smith to make a case for wait for it – a resource rent tax. How about that? Mr Barker claimed that :
Australia’s great post-budget economic policy debate, including the government’s proposed resource rent tax, is not unlike the debate that faced astronomy in the 16th century following the Copernican revolution.
Go on. He did. There followed a reference to “the pre-Copernican Ptolemaic model of the universe” and “Ptolemaic cosmology”. Wow. And Geoffrey Barker concluded:
The opposition has cast itself in the role of the medieval Polish church, blindly supporting miners in defence of the status quo. It is prepared to bury reform in an unmarked grave, but the grave is unlikely to stay closed for 467 years. World events are challenging economic theory, just as Copernicus challenged our pictures of the heavens. Such events are not heresy; they are crises that lead to superior science.
Yeah, right. That’s pretty clear, then. To all except bogans with tats, at least, who don’t know what “Ptolemaic cosmology” means. But why be concerned about them? That lot would think that an endnote was a suicide message, no doubt.
Nancy doesn’t give a stuff about Copernicus – but she is interested in buried bones – and just loved Geoffrey Barker’s most recent column.
DONALD McDONALD BORES FROM LONDON
Much – too much – has been written about the alleged “culture wars” initiated by John Howard’s government circa 2005-2006. In fact, the Howard Government rarely raised a musket against the teeming masses of the sandal-wearing inner-city left.
Take the ABC, for example. During this time as prime minister, Mr Howard made three errors in his handling of the public broadcaster. First, John Howard appointed his friend Donald McDonald chairman of the ABC. Second, Howard appointed McDonald to a second five year term. Third, Howard extended McDonald’s final term.
All up, Donald McDonald was ABC chairman for over a decade. And for over a decade the ABC chairman did not believe that there was a fashionable leftist culture at the public broadcaster which criticised both the Liberal and National parties and Labor from the left. Clearly if John Howard intended to launch a culture war at the ABC – he shot himself in the foot soon after dawn on the first day of battle. Consequently, there was no ABC reform during the time of the Howard Government. So much so that years after Howard (unwisely) called for the ABC to engage a “right-wing Phillip Adams”, the public broadcaster does not have one conservative or right-of-centre presenter or regular commentator on any of its main programs. Not one.
The Howard Government also presided over a substantial increase in the ABC chairman’s remuneration. And when Mr McDonald’s term as ABC chairman came to an (undistinguished) end, the Howard Government appointed him to yet another government funded job – this time as the full-time director of the Classification Review Board. At the time this appointment was made, Mr McDonald was aged 68.
So what’s Donald McDonald doing in his new (taxpayer funded) role? Well, according to the “Diary” section in last Friday’s The Spectator Australia, Mr McDonald has just been on a trip to London and The Hague. Here’s what Donald McDonald found.
• In London, DMcD reports on the British general election. His source? – London taxi drivers “who can be such a wonderfully direct source of commentary on the world”. Really. According to DMcD, the coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats at Westminster might work since “Australia has had decades of government by a coalition with as many widely separated views as the two British parties”. This is arrant nonsense – as anyone who understands Australia and British politics would know, including taxi drivers.
• From London, DMcD also reflects that Government House in Sydney “remains unoccupied, the Governor of NSW being denied occupancy by the ideology of a former Premier [Labor’s Bob Carr] who astonishingly claims to be interested in history and heritage”. In fact, the first NSW governor to reside away from Government House, Gordon Samuels, did not want to live in the official residence and nor did his wife. Bob Carr’s decision opened up Government House for greater use by the community in addition to ceremonial activities involving the Governor. What’s wrong with that?
• DMcD visits the National Portrait Gallery and then trains it to The Hague – in order to avoid “anxiety about the cloud of volcanic ash” floating over London – where he attends the European Classifiers’ Conference. He visits the Mauritius art museum which contains the work of Vermeers and others.
• From The Hague, DMcD also reflects on just how tall the Dutch are. Fancy that. He comments on the cycling habits of the Dutch but, alas, does not reflect on Dutch taxi drivers. Pity really – it would have been just great to find out what they think about the longevity of the Cameron-Clegg government in Britain.
Back in London en route to Sydney, DMcD reflects on the Australian and British economies. He declares himself “perplexed”. Just like readers of last week’s Diary column, no doubt. DMcD flies out of London “leaving the risk of volcanic clouds behind” him. Nevertheless, it seems that a cloud remained over Donald McDonald as he composed his thoughts from London and The Hague for The Spectator Australia. [What about commissioning the former ABC chairman to opine on very small people in Lilliput or some other European nation? – Ed.]
MAURICE NEWMAN SEGMENT (CONTINUED YET AGAIN)
Phillip and Amruta and Gideon and Hannan
This (popular) segment is devoted to ABC Chairman Maurice Newman’s suggestion that a certain “group think” might be prevelant at the ABC – and to ABC 1 Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes’ certainty that no such phenomenon is extant within the public broadcaster.
This week, support for the Newman thesis comes from last night’s Late Night Live program which was produced by Amruta Slee. Presenter Phillip Adams interviewed Palestinian activist Dr Hannan Ashrawi and Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, a left-wing columnist for Haaretz.
Phillip agreed with Hannan who agreed with Gideon that the action of the Israeli Defence Force in blockading Gaza was – in the words of the program’s blurb – “unpopular, politically costly and ultimately pointless”. At the end of this intellectual love-in, Dr Ashrawi made a comment criticising the policies of the Netanyahu government in Israel and the Obama administration in the United States. The following exchange then took place:
Phillip Adams: Gideon, do you share in broad terms Hannan’s views?
Gideon Levy: I suppose it goes without saying, by definition. I share her views.
Enough said, it goes without saying [So why say it? – Ed].
SPECIAL – TOO MUCH INFORMATION SECTION
Charles Waterstreet on Charles Waterstreet on Something Else
How about this from Charles Waterstreet in last Sunday’s Sun-Herald :
Many is the time I have been in a threesome with two girls and closed my eyes and fantasised about being with another two women, completely different.
Mr Waterstreet’s recollection offers a new interpretation of the biblical instruction against lust in the mind.
HISTORY CORNER
Julian Burnside QC White-Washes Leftist Hero Bert Evatt
There was a time when Julian Burnside QC – (for QC he is) used to be a conservative-inclined Liberal Party supporter. He voted for John Howard in 1996, for example. Then JB QC took a brief to appear for the left-wing Maritime Union of Australia in the legal challenges to the Howard Government’s reform of the Australian waterfront. JB QC became quite a fan of the MUA and all its works and much enjoyed the acclaim of the leftist-luvvie set. Soon after he learnt that asylum seekers were being held in detention in Australia and became one of the most vocal critics of the Howard Government’s handling of the asylum seeker/refugee issue – and also a critic of Prime Minister Howard’s approach to foreign policy and national security. By 2004 JB QC was publicly calling for the electorate to dump the party which he had helped put into office just over eight years previously.
On 18 May 2010 in Canberra, Julian Burnside QC delivered the Sir Richard Blackburn Lecture titled “Injustice Within the Law – An Update”, which commenced as follows:
In 1934, Dr H.V. Evatt published a small book titled Injustice Within the Law.
JB QC admired the Evatt monograph so much that he used its title for his address to ACT Law Society. Which raises the question as to what Mr Burnside QC really knows about H.V. Evatt.
Dr Herbert Vere (“call me Doc”) Evatt was born in 1894. He was appointed to the High Court of Australia by the Scullin Labor Government in 1930 and remained there until 1940, when he was elected as the Labor MP for the Sydney based seat of Barton. Between October 1941 and December 1949, Evatt was Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs in the Labor governments led by John Curtin and Ben Chifley.
Evatt led the ALP from 1951 until his retirement from politics in 1960 when he was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales for a brief period. Evatt had progressed from being a barrister and part-time historian, to become a judge and then a politician and then a judge again (this time on the New South Wales Supreme Court). Evatt died in December 1965 after a lengthy period of mental and physical ill-health. The “Doc” led the ALP to election defeats in 1954, 1955 and 1958 and was the instigator of the disasterous Labor Split of 1954/1957.
Julian Burnside on Bert Evatt and “Justice” – Or was it Injustice?
In his Sir Richard Blackburn Lecture, Julian Burnside gave the impression that Bert Evatt – who remains a hero of the Australian left – always spoke up for justice and railed against injustice. Not really. As Roderick Meagher (formerly a justice of the NSW Supreme Court) wrote in 1991:
The sad truth seems to be that Dr Evatt was vigorous in upholding the civil liberties of his friends and equally vigorous in denying the civil liberties of his enemies. [See Roderick Meagher, “Evatt and Civil Liberties” in Seeing Red, Evatt Foundation, 1991, pp 179-186.]
Roderick Meagher’s thesis is validated by comparing the manner in which Evatt treated left-wing communists during the Second World War with the way in which he treated right-wing nationalists.
On 15 June 1940 the United Australia Party government, led by Robert Menzies, declared the Communist Party to be an illegal organisation – the ban was imposed under the National Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations. In 1940 the Communist Party supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact and, consequently, was opposed to the Allied war effort against Hitler. The UAP Government lost office in October 1941 and was replaced by the Labor administration headed by John Curtin – with Evatt the third ranking in Cabinet seniority, behind Curtin and Ben Chifley.
In December 1942 the ban on the Communist Party was formally lifted – on account of the fact that the Soviet Union was now fighting on the Allied side. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 had ended the Nazi Soviet Pact. On 21 October 1941, the Curtin Government released from prison Horace Ratcliff and Max Thomas. Both were members of the Communist Party – and both had been convicted of hindering the war effort. Bert Evatt, when in Opposition, had campaigned for the release of Ratcliff and Thomas and he continued his advocacy soon after becoming attorney-general.
In March 1942 – when Evatt was Attorney-General – twenty members of the right-wing Australia First Movement were detained. Of the four arrested in Perth, two were convicted on the charge of conspiracy to assist a public enemy (i.e. Japan). The two AFM members who had been acquitted in Perth plus the 16 arrested in Sydney, plus one other, were detained for various periods under the National Security Regulations by ministerial orders – sanctioned by Bert Evatt.
The Australia First Movement was an unpleasantly nationalistic and, at times, racist organisation. But AFM members were in no sense disloyal to Australia – and none supported Australia’s enemies during war-time, namely Germany, Italy and Japan. The likes of Ratcliff and Thomas, on the other hand, had supported Australia’s enemies in the field and had attempted to harm Australia’s war effort.
P.R. (“Inky”) Stephensen – a Queensland Rhodes Scholar, writer and publisher – was the best known member of the Australia First Movement. As Attorney-General, Evatt presided over and encouraged the monitoring of Stephensen and other members of the Australia First Movement up to the time some two dozen of its members were detained. Evatt was then instrumental in deciding that they be detained for lengthy periods
The full details of the treatment of the Australia First Movement are set out by Paul Hasluck in Series 4 Volume 1 of the official war history titled The Government and the People: 1942-1945 (Australian War Memorial, 1970). According to Hasluck, the AFM was “neither coherent not purposeful” – it was a small organisation without firm direction. Moreover, there is no evidence that AFM members were engaged in subservise activity.
After reviewing all the evidence for the official war history, Paul Hasluck commented:
The detention of some of the 21 persons concerned was undoubtedly the grossest infringement of individual liberty made during the war and the tardiness in rectifying it was a matter of shame to the democratic institution and to the authorities concerned.
Dr Evatt – whom Julian Burnside believes was an opponent of injustice within the law – was Australia’s first law officer when this gross and shameful infringement of liberty took place.
Yet Burnside seems to believe that Dr Evatt was the embodiment of justice and the foe of injustice. In fact Evatt exhibited a concern for justice with respect to members of the Australian Communist Party but trampled on the civil liberties of members of the Australian First Movement.
The historian Peter Crockett obtained access to Evatt’s papers for his book Evatt: A Life (OUP, 1993). This is not an unsympathetic book. Yet, as Crockett documents, Evatt was an aggressive type who (i) exhibited terrible wrath, (ii) bullied and spied on his staff, (iii) treated waiters with extreme rudeness, (iv) refused to fly in a plane because it had all African-American crew, (v) acted unethically in legal matters and (vi) behaved in an authoritarian manner in government.
Peter Crockett also produced evidence that Evatt pursued Stephensen because Stephensen had written a scathing review of Evatt’s 1940 biography of W.A. Holman in the Australian First Movement’s magazine. It is true that Evatt exhibited a concern for civil liberties when he was in Opposition. But when he was in government Evatt, in Crockett’s words, tended “to exercise power in an illiberal manner”. The Inky Stephensen matter provided a case study of Evatt’s intolerance of those with whom he disagreed.
Julian Burnside QC Forgets Who Commenced Mandatory Detention
Julian Burnside does not know much about the real Dr H.V. Evatt. The same can be said about mandatory detention. In his Sir Richard Blackburn Lecture, Burnside had this to say about the mandatory detention of asylum seekers:
Then we have the legislation concerning asylum seekers. By statute, until recently, anyone who came to Australia without a visa had to be detained and remain in detention until they received a visa or were removed from Australia. In practice, under Howard and Ruddock, this meant that men, women and children who had committed no offence at all were held on conditions of hopelessness and despair for months or years, even though most of them were eventually accepted as genuine refugees.
In fact, mandatory detention for asylum seekers was introduced by Paul Keating’s Labor government in 1992. Men, women and children were detained by the Keating Government – and some of the adult detainees engaged in acts of self-harm. In 1994, the mid-point of the Keating Government, there were some 350 children in mandatory detention.
Clearly Julian Burnside QC does not know much about the history of mandatory detention in Australia. He did not criticise mandatory detention when it was introduced in 1992 and he still seems unaware that Labor introduced the practice almost two decades ago.
CORRESPONDENCE
Peter (nee Pete) Looks Back At Melbourne University In the 1960s – And In Anger At Gerard Henderson
In Issue 47, MWD commented on how one-time student radical Pete Steedman had morphed into the much more respectful Peter Steedman. MWD reflected on how Mr Steedman, who was Labor MP for Casey between March 1983 and December 1984, had re-invented his past as his post-university career moved on to such areas as politics, ministerial adviser and bureaucrat.
As a university student, Pete Steedman’s political activities were effectively subsidised by the taxpayer. Such student newspapers as Lot’s Wife and Farrago – which Pete Steedman edited – were not commercial ventures and were kept in “business” through subsidies from the relevant Student Representatives Councils – which were funded by money acquired from the taxpayer (per courtesy of the Commonwealth Government Scholarship Scheme) and compulsorily acquired student fees. In his post-student career, Mr Steedman held a number of positions which were funded by the public purse.
Soon after the publication of MWD Issue 47, Mr Steedman wrote to Gerard Henderson – the letter, which was not dated, was received on 21 April 2010. Gerard Henderson replied on 12 May 2010. The correspondence is published in full here – except for the deletion of one unimportant personal reference.
Letter to Gerard Henderson from Pete Steedman – 21 April 2010
Dear Gerry,
You will have to control this fascination you have with me and the absence of an R in my name as you continue to attempt to rewrite our history of over 40 years ago. You should also do more research to ensure you get at least some of your so-called facts right. I have noted over the years that you are particularly pedantic when any comment is made about you and the extraordinary lengths you go to, to justify yourself and ensure history is writ as you want it.
While you remember ‘Pete’, I remember ‘Gerry’ that is before you became a forelock tugger to the establishment and developed that plumy accent, you hoped would gain you acceptance with the Sassenachs [sic]. Unfortunately not an atypical response from certain sections of the Catholic community at that time who had severe inferiority complexes, mainly due to the role that many wanted to play as ‘underdogs’. That way of course nothing is your fault and it is all those nasty Proddies who have kept us down.
This of course is a response to your ‘latest mention’ of me, this time in your Media Watchdog. You cannot have it both ways, objecting ad nauseam to any real or perceived threat you see to your image (as it has been carefully built) but at the same time spreading the same half truths, innuendos and misrepresentations that you so vigorously object to when you are the target. Sounds like the ‘can hand it out but can’t take it’ syndrome.
Would you accept comments about yourself if it was preceded by ‘at the time the gossip at Melbourne University was’. I mean get real son, when is gossip reality. How damning would you be if someone used such a flimsy tactic to launch an attack on you?
It’s like the throwaway line you had in one of your publications some years ago, in an attempt to denigrate those who were your opponents at the University of Melbourne (correct title) that they all ‘went off to Pete’s place’ for some sort of frivolous activity, which of course did not make them legitimate political activists. You needed to present me as some sort of dilettante so that I could be dismissed and you did not have to get into meaningful debate with me.
The problem was that you and your mates never really understood what was going on and you didn’t understand the nuances. We were not playing by your rules any more. We were playing by mine.
But locked into your Cold War mindset and the unhealthy associations you had had with ‘behind the scenes’ extremely conservative political bodies you hadn’t noticed that the times were a changing.
It suited me to have you all dismiss me as a light weight, but then it must have been galling when I kept doing you over. I mean you were all men of political commitment and knowledge, who knew what was good for us all and I was just a foul mouthed show pony.
You must have missed that bit in the Nation of August 1967 that showed a bit more perception than your mob which stated ‘There is more calculation – political calculation – than is immediately apparent in his uncouth appearance and speech’. Come in Spinner.
Now I realize most of your crew and your mates in the ALP Club were not getting much sex and lived very boring and frustrating lives overwhelmed by internal contradictions and a massive guilt due to your backgrounds, but you didn’t need to get your vicarious thrills observing my lifestyle.
Actually, the Pete/r thing can be redundant as my name is actually Alan. This was my father’s name and in our family (many generations of Army) the child received the father’s name, in case they didn’t come home, as many didn’t.
I have always been bemused by the stories put about by the jealous and frustrated groups who had to invent an exotic background for me to shore up their own shaky personas.
A bit of simple checking would have found that my father and his brothers were earthmoving contractors, not builders and they started out with a pick and shovel and graduated into bulldozers and trucks as they made their way in the building boom following the War. They did well as any hard workers could in those days and worked on many major projects before being done over by the new emerging ‘educated class’ and going broke in the early 70’s.
I remember being with him in digging the foundations for the Borthwick factory in Footscray after it burnt down in 1947, the foundations for APM in Fairfield and the road layouts for the new town of Moe.
As to my education, I was always a part time student, working a variety of jobs to pay for my ‘lifestyle’ as you refer to it including stints as a High School teacher, Statistical Research Assistant, a waiter and many more. The Porsche was purchased for $800, a lot of money then, but with a background as a Scots Presbyterian, we had been taught the value of money and how to save. And what, may I ask does ‘living beyond the means of students’ mean? Opens up so many avenues to suggest inherited wealth and opulence. You obviously never came around to my lodgings.
Yes, I was shipped across town to Wesley for my secondary education and as well as being expelled (see A Great Australian School: Wesley College Examined, by Andrew Lemoni) it enabled me to meet the class of person I would spend most of my life fighting. It was a useful training course in the aspirations of those who thought they were born to rule.
The educational options in Brunswick in the early 50’s were not all that good unless you were one of the top students who had a chance to go to Moonee Ponds Central and then University High. I wanted to go to Brunswick Tech to be a carpenter, but my parents, like many after the war, wanted me to get as much education as possible and by this stage could afford to pay for it.
As for working class, I’ve never said that, but I suppose a unsewered Brunswick in the 40’s and 50’s with a large Irish population was working class, but I think we had aspirations. In fact most who lived in Brunswick in those years wanted out and they formed a large contingent of those first post war waves that went East wanting new lifestyles, first to Rosanna and the Doncaster/Templestowe.
Again for the record, after being expelled from school and being in considerable trouble with the police, my ‘indulgent’ father threw me out of home and we didn’t speak for many years.
I only write all this Gerry, because at the moment…I have little to do to amuse myself and I am astonished at the way you old cold war warriors like to recreate the myths that no doubt warmed your hearts during your lonely formative years of the 60’s.
If you want any more information on me you only have to ask. I’ve become quite mellow of recent times and see the world in a slightly different way. I realize no one loved you when you needed it, but what else did you think were the options for Santa’s little helpers?
Peace man (Does that fit the stereotype?)
Pete
Letter from Gerard Henderson to Pete Steedman – 12 May 2010
Dear Pete/Peter/Alan
Thanks for your letter, which I received on 21 April 2010, in response to the mention to you in Issue No 47 of Media Watch Dog which went out on 29 March 2010. I understand that you were unhappy with the reference to you – titled “A Blast From The Past”.
As you will recall, I referred to the profile of you by Russell Robinson which was published in the Herald-Sun on 20 March 2010 – particularly the following comment:
He [Steedman] grew up in Brunswick in a working-class family – “my old man was a Digger who came back from Syria and New Guinea pretty battered by malaria, dengue fever and a bullet wound”. His father battled the bottle, and his mother died slowly of multiple sclerosis.
In response, MWD carried the following comment:
All this surprised Nancy’s part-owner. He recalls Pete Steedman at Melbourne University when Farrago editor in 1967 (at aged approaching 26) living beyond the means of most other students, driving a Porsche and not bothering too much about passing subjects. Your man Pete finally graduated with a B.Ed at La Trobe University some years later. At the time the gossip at Melbourne University was that PS had been educated at Wesley College and that he was financially supported by his father who was a builder – and that parental indulgence made it possible for him to support himself in an affluent lifestyle for the time without a full-time job. Readers of the Herald-Sun would have come to a different view. But, then, MWD may be mistaken. Maybe.
I do not understand the grievance of your 1250 word letter – since it actually confirms what I wrote about you in MWD. The fact is that, in your letter, you:
- acknowledge that you had a Porsche while at Melbourne University circa 1967 – which was purchased at the not inconsiderable sum of $800.
- acknowledge that, circa 1967, your father was a successful businessman. I said he was a builder – I should have said that he was an earth-moving contractor. In any event, he was involved in the construction industry. I note that Mr Steedman went broke in early 1970s – presumably during the recession which occurred at the time of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. But this was quite a while after your time at Melbourne University.
- acknowledge that you did undertake secondary education at Wesley College.
- acknowledge that you were a part-time student – although you did not state how long it took you (first at Monash University, then at the University of Melbourne and finally at La Trobe University) to obtain your undergraduate degree.
This confirms my critique of the Herald-Sun profile – where you presented yourself as the product of a working class family in Brunswick whose seriously ill father was an alcoholic returned serviceman. In other words, MWD’s dismissal of the mythology in your Herald-Sun profile was correct.
As for the rest of your letter, well it was a relief. Here I was planning a visit to a psychiatrist to find out where I am at – or was. And then along came your letter which referred to my alleged inferiority complex, massive guilt complex, jealousy, frustration – all manifested in my (allegedly) sad life since no one loved me. Thanks for the analysis.
All I can say is that I share your pain about being expelled from Wesley College around half a century ago, about being in considerable trouble with the police during your youth and about being thrown out of home by your father. If you would like me to drop around to your current abode whereby we could hold hands as we lament your youth, let me know. I’ll come running.
In conclusion I should state that I never called myself “Gerry” – although a few of my friends (like Frank Knopfelmacher) and a few of my opponents (like you) did. You changed your name from Pete to Peter – and now I find that you were an Alan all along. How about that?
Best wishes
Yours sincerely
Gerard Henderson
CLICHÉ OF THE WEEK
MS TINGLE – ALL FROCKED UP IN THE LION’S DEN
A sterling effort by Laura Tingle in her AFR column last Friday when she defended the Rudd Government’s holding firm on the resource super profits tax – and asked the rhetorical question, viz:
Would it therefore make particular sense to go in next week and haul up the white flag in the middle of the lion’s den?
Good question. Answer – Negative. Lions’ dens are dangerous places and lions are colour blind.
Until next time.