Gerard Henderson’s Weekly Column – The Sydney Institute

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Gerard Henderson
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The Conversation and the ABC demean public debate

Opposition realises it’s the conservative vote that counts

40 years on, welcome signs of a more constructive Aunty

Britain’s Supreme Court sides with ‘European’ progressives

It’s not a conversation when only one view is allowed

The pointscoring behind the Liu pile-on

Lesson on Christian leadership ought to begin at home

How Cormann saved the election for the Liberal Party

Anti-Pell media pile-on has its day despite Weinberg dissent

Labor missed the boat by threatening to raise taxes

Even the Police and 60 Minutes can be Gulled on Occasion

Elementary to leave Bob Brown’s wind farm comments unreported

20190720

Concentration camps? You can’t be serious, Tom Keneally

20190706

Claiming unwinnable election gives Libs a season of calm

20190629

Conservative injection should be easy as learning ABC

20190622

Good governance trumps rigid party agendas

20190715

Croatian Six: miscarriage of justice unredressed 40 years on

20190608

There was always a path to victory for Morrison’s Libs

20190601

Shorten has had his Chifley big-end-of-town moment

20190525

Linking rise of tolerance to Christchurch is a cheap shot

20190518

Respectfully, Keating is the pot calling the kettle black

20190511

None so superior as the leftist elite

20190504

Fabric of democracy fraying under weight of the mob

20190427

We march to honour Anzacs’ unfashionable truths

20190420

ALP’s poll position far from decisive

20190413

Capacity to pay, not a tribunal, should determine wages

20190405

Turnbull’s poor 2016 poll performance haunts coalition

20190329

NZ no progressive promised land

20190322

Pell case attracts inaccurate views

20190316

It’s not uncommon for jury verdicts to be questioned

20190309

Pell’s ordeal reinforces the case for judge-only trials

20190302

Palmer unlikely to upend our stable two-party tradition

20190223

Border security policy not based on ‘racism’ and ‘hate’

20190216

ABC’s infatuation with independents is pretty pointless

20190209

Aunty’s built-in bias is plain when it fails to question its favourites too closely

20190202

This nation of immigrants rightly cherishes its rich past

20190126

Our only instability is an infatuation with independents

20190119

Nasties, yes, but we’ve never been fertile soil for Nazis

20190112

Discussion, conversation replaced by the shrill voice of accusation

20190105

No respite from dog of a year

20181229

Coalition could benefit from ‘doing the hypocrisies’

20181222

Wilson case offers a study in contrasting coverage

20181215

Jerusalem is not out of our reach

20181208

We can learn a lot about attribution bias from Malcolm Turnbull

20181201

Last thing the nation needs is an unnecessary inquisition

20181124

Let our leaders speak the truth

20181117

Leftists ignorant in their assault on Douglas Haig for his war service

20181110

Turnbull joins miserable ghosts haunting living rooms

20181103

Biggest swing? In Wills, Cleary outpolled Wentworth’s Phelps

20181027

Aunty offers rising son a platform for ‘crazy’ party claims

20181020

After Hewson in Wentworth, will Turnbull turn against Liberals?

20181013

‘Miserable ghosts’: How do you solve a problem like an ex-PM?

20181006

Tear down ABC’s silos of groupthink

20180929

ABC tries spicing up a stew that lacks basic ingredients

20180922

Turnbull stirs Liberal turmoil with advice on Dutton

20180915

Menzies got the ball rolling on women in parliament

20180908

Turnbull, not News nor 2GB, was the author of his demise

20180901

With a true Liberal back at the helm, next step is unity

20180825

Rhiannon says farewell but not ‘I’m sorry’

20180818

Sky News ban: politics of racism defy a black and white interpretation

20180811

Tell Lenin’s victims that wearing his T-shirt is a bit of fun

20180804

Contrary opinions need a public voice for society to flourish

20180728

At ABC, only one side of story counts

20180721

Labor’s latest rodent, Mark Latham, joins distinguished company

20180714

Upholding law doesn’t make Dutton a fascist

20180707

Albanese, Butler better on business than Shorten, Swan

20180630

ABC presenters never express opinions? Let’s fact-check that

20180623

Hewett story reaction shows the left protect its own regardless of the obscenities

20180616

ABC’s problem with political diversity goes a long way back

20180609

Liberal tension a pointless distraction

20180602

Peter Ridd’s sea of troubles

20180528

Sorry, no apology for Bean’s past faults

20180521

Don’t bite government hand that feeds you, Aunty

20180514

ABC plays host to guests of a left-liberal perspective

20180507

Washington’s Canberra mission is in capable hands with James Carouso

20180430

Anzac Day: field marshal rank the wrong way to honour General John Monash and WWI dead

20180423

Turnbull needs shock, awe and Abbott to reunite party

20180416

ABC journalists treat child sexual assault as a Catholic problem

20180407

Nick McKim Would Be in Jail if Australia Were A Fascist State

20180331

Shorten’s funding vow to Catholics is clever politics

20180324

Trump’s disruption works to Australia’s advantage

20180317

Hodgman’s Tasmania win offers lessons for Turnbull

20180310

Ainsley Gotto was John Gorton’s secretary, not his mistress

20180303

ABC’s moralising choir hits a jarring note

20180224

Anti-Catholic news report finds church owns much property

20180217

ABC’s case against Kevin Lyons rests entirely on hearsay

20180210

Record shows ICAC’s pointless blows, so why emulate it at a federal level?

20180203

Refugees policy: We play bad cop so NZ can afford to be virtuous

Australia Day debate shouldn’t overshadow child abuse

Anti-Trump forces willing to adopt old Soviet methods to topple him

Facts give way to mockery in media’s reporting of politics

Left’s year of Trump-phobia and other insults

Bennelong, New England will mean little by next election

Abuse royal commission: Catholic institutions guilty but so are others

Profumo affair offers lessons best heeded by Sam Dastyari

Keating’s ‘woeful coward’ slur against Menzies ignores historical truths

Foreign policy white paper: do business with China, stay close to US

Same-sex marriage: Thanks to Abbott, the people have had their say on marriage

Dual citizenship decision is brutalist, but the High Court isn’t

Beersheba serves an important reminder

Workers can unite but not with same urgency as in Marx’s time

Left using conspiracies to fuel obsession with Whitlam dismissal

Fabricated claims of racism in Australia give left a drum to beat

Kezelman saga timely reminder for McClennan royal commission

Same-sex marriage: Yes vote a plunge into the great unknown

Labor faithful never waver in their affection for Lionel Murphy

Turnbull moves toward Abbott policies in quest for success

Imagine Kim Jong’s-un’s power if CND and NDP had succeeded

Sanctity of confessional early test of religious freedom

Minchin’s Rant Counter-Productive to Yes Case on Same-Sex Marriage

All the News That Fits the Narrative at Their ABC

Imagine Kim Jong’s-un’s Power if CND and NDP Had Succeeded

Mike Seccombe Errs in Finding Catholics at Heart of NSW Liberals Dispute

MPs Should Know Their Citizenship Status Entering Parliament

Two Labor Figures, but Only One Gets the Numbers Right

Some Free Advice, Think Tank Agony Aunts: Put a Sock In It

Robert Menzies’ success was not based on ‘progressive’ policies

Media Watch: here’s another lesson from the ABC’s bully pulpit

Left-liberals need to explain to public why they are such losers

Left incapable of acknowledging Islamist terrorist threat

Christians are under assault

Whatever Turnbull says, Menzies was more than small-l liberalism

Conservative values, and money, unsafe in liberal academic hands

Coalition’s multicultural statement shows importance of mixing

Australia goes from being power rich to facing an energy crisis

Many Australians resent the ABC’s daily leftist sermons

Hitler, Mussolini … Trump? No, the Donald isn’t a dictator

Netanyahu shows failings of Hawke-Rudd call for Palestinian state

Indigenous school attendance could be the most important gap

Bernardi likely to be a bit player

Child abuse royal commission: don’t just target Catholic Church

Madonna, Streep, Fonda: leaders of opposition to Donald Trump?

Fake news is new, but Left shows fabricated reports are not

Truths need to be told about Australian bushranger Ned Kelly

Block to Israeli-Palestinian peace remains the same as in 1967

2016: The year that was, in all its wildly inaccurate prophecies

Right empowered as terrorists exploit EU’s immigration policies

No, there won’t be a republic in Australia anytime soon

Truth, post-truth and nothing like the whole truth

Castro death reaction shows Left’s hypocrisy, Trump can be right

Switzer alone cannot redress political imbalance in the ABC, USSC

Malcolm Fraser’s Lebanese concession became a disaster

Keating, Wong comments on US alliance are stirring the possum

A condescending media misread middle America

Case against Cardinal George Pell falls down for lack of evidence

No place in political debate for the Queen’s representatives

Attacks on free speech continue while legislation enables them

Offended Left claims exclusive right to freedom of expression

Bad old-fashioned anti-Catholic sectarianism colours accounts

Turnbull can survive political instability by being decisive

Q&A shows why same-sex marriage opponents need campaign funding

What’s deplorable is leftist disdain for the ‘ill-educated’

ABC cannot deny the reprehensible actions of Richard Neville

Mass murderer Mao Zedong undeserving of any commemoration

Freedom of speech at risk from advocates of existing section 18C

Vietnam war: Australia’s role misrepresented on ABC, Sky News

Hindsight has not cleared the vision of an atrocity

Liberal Party does best when conservative forces are kept close

Divided Greens can’t see the common good for the trees

Discussing Europe’s failed multiculturalism is not Islamophobic

Trump, Hanson and Kruger’s views don’t deserve ridicule

Bernardi can help Turnbull guard Coalition against Hanson

Malcolm Turnbull must connect with conservative base, not Mao

Black and white and Rudd all over

The public has every right to a same-sex marriage plebiscite

New blood will revive Coalition

Other religions do not preach hate like radical Islam

Alberici, West, Green and Birmingham follow Obama on Islam

Anti-Catholic tax activists blind to good churches do for free

Guys, it’s an exciting time to be an offence-taker

Federal election 2016: Media should just let Turnbull be

Sex abuse royal commission fails test of fairness

Federal election 2016: conservatives show disunity doesn’t mean death

US freedom of speech harmed as conservative voices are excluded

Flash of credentials can’t disguise self-interest in taxes letter

Unsubstantiated sex claims ruin the life’s work of good men

Little to celebrate about Ireland’s Easter Rising 100 years on

Terror represents an ‘irritant’ at our collective peril

Liberals flirting with Greens send out a mixed message

Pell’s ‘implausible’ testimony not met with facts to the contrary

Tension in the Coalition room as Liberals celebrate Howard’s win

Cardinal George Pell’s enemies sneer as police leak smears

Tim Minchin’s abusive song fires up Cardinal George Pell haters

Comedic stunts aside, soft borders cost lives

Double dissolution could be Turnbull’s ticket to corral senators

A referendum would hurt republicans

Liberals have lessons to learn from the Robert Menzies era

Kerry O’Brien, Germany’s ZDF avoid responsibility in journalism

Allan Ashbolt’s ghost still haunts conservative-free ABC

George Pell: a scapegoat at the altar of progressivism

2015: failed soothsaying, gross hyperbole and rank trivia

Muddled thinking makes Australia less resilient in face of terror

Malcolm Turnbull needs to focus on Coalition unity

George Pell should be given a fair go at royal commission

Some journalists think Tony Abbott should be seen and not heard

Paris attacks: Apologists lose plot on Islamist threat

Today it’s harder to maintain rage over the Whitlam dismissal

Dismissal a temporary difficulty in our parliamentary system

Anti-coal false prophets lack solutions for world’s poor

With our way of life under threat, focus on what unites us

Children in detention: doctors throw switch to moral outrage

Ex-PM Tony Abbott’s ‘Team Australia’ makes a lot of sens

Partisan ABC allows attacks on non-feral Tony Abbott

Mal Brough speaks on Senate voting as smaller parties fall in Canning

Tony Abbott’s accusations against the media have some merit

Christians should be given special consideration in refugee plan

Christians targeted by sneering secularists at The Saturday Paper

ABC under Mark Scott facilitates decline in media standards

How Menzies would have dealt with conscience votes is guesswork

Plebiscite on same-sex marriage is a reasonable compromise

ABC’s leftist staff monoculture stifles debate of ideas

My friendship with the charismatic, unusual Bob Santamaria

The Queen’s Nazi salute was just the act of a mimic

On criticism and censorship

Academics inflate nuclear war risk yet deride Islamist threat

Zaky Mallah Q&A affair another case of ABC leftist groupthink

The Pope can have his climate change say, but …

The Pope can have his climate change say, but …

Wanted dead or alive: confirmed deductions in biographies

Left-leaning Vanstone starting to emulate a certain former Liberal PM

Broad support of indigenous groups needed for referendum success

Persecutors of Cardinal George Pell wilfully ignore the history

1970s Lebanese Commission led to an immigration debacle

Little respect shown by aggressive ABC interviewers

SBS’s Struggle Street a condescending picture of poverty

Scott McIntyre in poor company as Left loses World War I again

Stalin-lovers Jessie Street, the Webbs unworthy heroes for Shorten ALP

Time to look at contemporary attitudes to our role in Vietnam

Home-grown fascists are a mere blip on the radar

Left’s imagination runs rampant over Abbott and Fraser

Malcolm Fraser’s unreliable memoir makes legacy even more unclear

Labor-Green opposition blocks essential infrastructure in NSW

Radical tolerance for the Left but intolerance towards conservatives

ABC guilty of double standard in coverage of child sex abuse

Left’s tolerance of Islamists exposes hostility to Western values

ABC sees David Hicks, who fought with Taliban, as worthy of an apology

We need to have conversation about economic reform

Senate shortfall obstructs economic reform for Coalition

There’s no need for such pessimism — our democracy is a world-beater

What’s in a name? For the Liberal Party, often a big disadvantage

Intelligentsia ignores ugly new phase in French anti-Semitism

ABC must confront the inconvenient truth about Islamic terrorism

Sydney siege: If it looks, smells and feels like terrorism and the perpetrator says so, then it is

ABC’s bias against the Abbott government has its parallel in Britain

Alienated Bryant’s Rise and Fall misses the point that world leaders respect, admire Abbott

Constant negotiation is key to Senate victory

Unlike his Cairo speech, in Brisbane Barack Obama offended his hosts

ANU’s alarmist Hugh White gets it wrong each time on US-China ‘tensions’

Libertarians like Leyonhjelm naively dismiss terrorists as ‘dickheads’

ABC’s Scott reckless to take on his only friend on the Coalition frontbench

John Kerr acted more honourably than Whitlam and Fraser in 1975

Sorry, Mike, Nazism was a secular movement — unlike today’s Islamic State

Let’s celebrate the party as we fondly remember Menzies, the father of the Liberals

Minority groups should engage in self-reflection, not victim mentality

ABC must present both sides of the debate on terrorism

Commentators need terror guides for dummies

Not much rotten in the state of NSW that PR won’t exaggerate

It’s the lefties and their love-ins — not Abbott — who oppose freedom

Human rights chief shows little appreciation for her brief as an impartial inquisitor

War pact between the Nazis and Stalin left out of history

ABC preys on conservative Catholics over church response to sexual abuse

On the issue of terrorism, the libertarian lobby has been cosying up to the Green-Left

Why did editors take so long?

Historically, action taken by our politicians and military forces in Great War stands up well

An unfair focus on Gaza toll

Palmer and Fraser need to think of the real victims before they employ hyperbole

Putting meat on the bones of a 1957 agreement

Someone tell Friends of the ABC it’s not run by board

Who’s the narcissist now?

Dangerous ideas — Fraser’s Lebanon Concession, for example — should be handled with care

‘Occupied’ East Jerusalem stunt confuses fact and fiction

PM cops all the news that’s fit to print, and all of the spite that isn’t

Strong relations without fawning: a lesson for the campus Left

Populist attacks can make Abbott stronger

No Right to make your case

Fraser’s dangerous delusions on US alliance will find favour with no one but the Left

Shock headlines ruin lives and reputations

Deficit levy right idea for a difficult problem

Parliament will be interesting enough without the myths

Chasers have more power than Mark Scott

A great read with deeply troubling insights into the mind of Carr and his Israel-lobby obsession

Reality becoming a boring, distorted place as inner-city Left displaces the conservatives

Pot, kettle, black: Latham a joke as arbiter of standards

Taxpayers funding Left ABC agenda

Republicans may feel entitled to sneer, but it won’t help their cause

Freedom’ marchers trample on hopes of real refugees

Pro-pederasty past deserves an ABC apology

Press Council overshot its remit on James Ashby coverage

Pell an easy target for anti-Catholic commentators

Media Watch all bark, no bite and very few facts

Sectarian effort to smear PM

Public opinion shows sympathy for some, but never the Catholic Church

It’s easy being Green when you can sneer while on the public purse

John Pilger deploys a bludgeon against ‘racists’ like us

No room in the workplace for IR Club rules

Totalitarian slurs ignore the truth of ASIO activities

Prophet of doom fails to get real

Forecasters take care to avoid truck with facts

Pragmatic Tony Abbott no man’s acolyte

ASIO acting to prevent Australians fighting in Syrian war is not racist

Abbott’s anguish: inner-city types in media dislike him

Spying on Indonesia: ABC disclosures in conflict with its ‘soft diplomacy’

Great moderniser often disturbingly old-fashioned

Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister so get used to it

Julian Assange, Edward Snowden hypocrites over Vladimir Putin, Ecuador

Future for Labor is hit and myth alongside Greens

Twisted logic links the tragic NSW bushfires with the Prime Minister, climate change and abolishing the carbon tax

Bill Shorten win puts paid to emerging conspiracy theory

ABC checks facts of others but does not check its own

All smoke and no smoking gun: Cardinal Pell was quick to act on abuse claims

Blame game should start with party names

Labor's problem not a personality issue – it's about poor policy

Detractors fail to recognise Abbott’s astounding success

Assault on Abbott over Catholicism made in bad faith

Abbott emerges stronger in the adaptation stakes

ALP’s preference strategy unwise and unnecessary

Rudd wedded to an idea that may backfire on him

Rudd has taken a leaf out of the negativity book

Chameleon Rudd keeps opponents and voters guessing

‘Sorry’ would give Rudd credibility

Dr No? Why Abbott is Captain Positive

A Problem Shared Demands Solution

Single and atheist an issue for voters, as are gay unions

Best of enemies: Labor relives its great depression

Assange’s acts of defiance have narcissistic edge

Fraser’s green spin won’t stop with Abbott win

Pell, Hart were leaders in addressing child sex abuse

Civil libertarians not so convincing after murder in London

Abbott, O’Farrell have equal claim to Menzies’ legacy

Coalition must be smarter when it issues preferences

Left-footed ABC needs to get on the right track

See what public thinks on same-sex marriage

The time has come for blunt talking

Thatcher’s critics neither balanced nor respectful

Foster ties with China, but do so in broad context

Policy, not gender, will decide Gillard’s fate at ballot box

Labor so lost that even its confused diehards stagger

‘National interest’ is in Labor’s interest

Labor must learn art of government

Spotlight on Labor failings misses what Abbott has got right

Talk of dual-citizen disloyalty in Zygier affair simply irresponsible

Papal pundits should repent of unforgivable ignorance

Ministers turn judge and jury in sport case

Political success does not hinge on how popular you are

Howard’s popularity key asset in Abbott’s push for The Lodge

War on terrorism needs a united front

Arrogant Assange digs his own rave with delusions of grandeur

Abbott wants ABC to flush out bias but Turnbull does not see its stacked deck

Margaret Thatcher and The Falklands

Turns out Mayans weren’t alone in getting carried away about 2012

Minority rule makes fools of both sides of the house

Royal prank should trigger media soul-searching, but not regulation

UN vote unlikely to help fragile Labor

The polls mislead – people living in suburbia will decide next federal election

Hamas will never achieve a Palestinian state while killing Israeli civilians

Eyes are averted to indigenous abuse

White paper risks obscuring long history of engagement with Asia

Fashionable or not, Mundine’s views strike a blow for free speech

Short-sighted see hate at every turn

The ultimate dilemma – freedom to preach v freedom of speech

Commander’s regret over Afghanistan proves the case for public silence

Media response to inconvenient truths reveals hidden agenda

Multiculturalism still has a long road to travel to reach all

Condemnation by long memory tends to stretch matters

It’s not destroying the joint, but this double standard is a cow

Left closes ranks to consign Kerr to wrong side of history

The lessons of Goulburn resonate in schools 50 years later

Boats will keep coming until someone waves the red flag

Toss ‘The Boss’ palaver, leader’s economic legacy the real issue

Abbott’s realistic approach to China only offends fawners

Dumping PM won’t stem bleeding caused by thorny Greens

Pell and the church are scapegoats for a multitude of sins

Old hatreds resurface in party afraid of a hiding

WikiLeaks founder does not merit a different set of rules

Power of the press a lot less muscular than some imagine

His story, but certainly not history

Well may we not sing God Save the Queen, but let it play on

Modern hostility to mining poses some worrying questions

Lame duck Labor likely to waddle on to term

Time to put to rest claims of Abbott’s DLP tendencies

Absence of competition breeds unions’ contempt for members

Sexist abuse of PM fits a general deterioration in political discourse

Newstart and unfair dismissal laws pour salt on wounds of jobless

Gillard the ace negotiator deals Labor into trouble again

Left-wing critique of US alliance is a little hit and myth

Supporters hope Abbott PM will be Fraser with teeth

Media’s soft treatment of Brown opens door to the little Greens men

Maybe it’s Habib who should apologise for outlandish claims

Well-off get a free ride on taxpayer for children's education

Swan’s indulgent essay sidesteps the important questions

Lawyers and academics propose more regulation? It’s hardly news

Hold the hyperbole, Labor’s problems are just same old same old

Forecast is for continued fog of delusion and conflict over policy

PM’s steadily declining authority is all of her own making

Threat from enemy within makes anti-terrorism laws indispensable

Abbott creates handy diversion as carbon tax hobbles Labor

No vote at all is better than a win for the No

Fair work for some, but small business is not so easy

Shackle the free press? Crikey, it just doesn’t bear thinking about

ABC’s leftish drift still needs to be corrected by its deeds

Laying it on thick from the masters of embroidery

Asylum seeker tragedy: why the figures speak for themselves

Dead letter used on Abbott as Cameron’s climate commitment slips

Iran remains at the heart of Middle Eastern instability

European culture of entitlement is mercifully absent Down Under

Whoever started it, the US embrace has turned into a group hug

The media are picking up good vibrations but can’t shake off the facts

Survival the key for media, not to be broken on the rack of regulation

Qantas workers must face global facts of life

Placards aplenty at protest but it’s hard to see the good for the pleas

In times of uncertainty, these hereditary celebrities reign

Unions choose masters over members in carbon tax debate

Sectarian rant against Abbott is full of holes, despite QC’s excitement

Australia has always had its own opinion on Israel policy

Comedy or not, the producers are green

Explanation required when a judge's verdict gives rise to disquiet

Activist judges give mixed signals

Literary festivals and prizes champion politics over quality

Road to ruin for traditional Labor

Ex-blacksmith may be needed to hammer out Senate deals

Now more than ever, tax and red tape are an economic deathtrap

Right-wing extremism forces rethink on civil liberties

Murdoch critics bury the lead in premature obituaries

Jews know acceptance still has its exceptions

It’s not so easy being Green in this jungle

Cool heads needed for climate talk

It’s not personal, it’s policy – why Labor is flatlining