Howard-Hating Lefties Foil Howard Glorifiers, Again!

By Darryl Mason

Gerard Henderson, Australia's most boring columnist, and former John Howard government staffer, hates a new doco on the Howard era so much he makes me want to watch it. I mean if it shits Gerard Henderson this much, it must be good :

If you want to work out who won what was billed as "the culture wars" during the time of the Howard government, tune into SBS One at 8.30 pm tonight. This is the first episode of the three-part series titled Liberal Rule: The Politics that Changed Australia, which is produced by Nick Torrens Film Productions and written by Nick Torrens and Garry Sturgess.

Liberal Rule is a shocker and a disgrace.

There would have been no problem if Torrens and Sturgess had sought to present a balanced picture of the Howard government by seeking a diversity of opinions....

Sounds like they didn't bother to interview Henderson. That's a cardinal sin for producers of documentaries about John Howard.

Over the three episodes, the left has free kick after free kick with the support of the documentary's narrator, who added what Torrens described as "the necessary layers of subtext". In fact, the "balanced picture" of the Howard government was provided by...Howard-haters...

Only people who like John Howard should be interviewed for documentaries about John Howard, apparently.

Unlike the Labor Party, the Liberals do not take their history seriously.

C'mon, Hendo, it's hard for anyone, even some Liberals, to look back at the last five or six years of Liberal Party history and not splutter with laughter.

The Opposition frontbencher George Brandis is one of the brightest Liberals. Writing in The Spectator, he complained that that Liberals are not celebrating the 100th anniversary of the formation of the inaugural Liberal Party. But Brandis could have arranged such a celebration himself.

It was a party even Brandis knew few would bother to attend, even if the booze was free and Peter Costello was booked to do Peter Garrett impersonations. Probably why Henderson didn't organise such an anniversary celebration at his Sydney Institute.

Henderson castigates those he brands Howard-Hating Lefties for spending thousands of hours researching, filming and editing a three hour documentary, for not a whole lot of money, but who else is bothering to make documentaries, even for YouTube, about the Howard years?

What exactly is stopping all these people who truly believe the John Howard years were the golden days of 21st century Australia from going and making their own documentaries?

Absolutely nothing.

With digital video technology, searchable document and record databases, cheap or free sound editing software, and presumably easy access to all the Liberal Party talking heads they could want (and don't forget Gerard Henderson), conservative Howard Hugging documentary makers can go to town spending a couple of years crafting their own version of the Diamond Days Of John Howard without spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

They could probably raise a reasonable production budget at a couple of fund-raising dinners.

But they won't do that, of course.

Pulling together a three hour documentary, featuring dozens of interviews, on a low budget, is fucking hard work.

Watching the same interviews dozens of times until they haunt your sleep, doing transcripts, searching endlessly for that one bit of essential footage or audio clip you were sure you had but now can't find, and when you do finally find it it turns out to be useless, all of this leaches away at your life and spirit. It's not a nine to five job, it becomes an obsession to get the thing right, to make it flow, to make the story move forward, always.

Anyone can do all this now for a small to reasonable budget and make 1, 2, 3 or 12 hour documentaries about that tell the story of the Howard Years that Goddamn Lefties Don't Want Australiia To Know About.

Gerard Henderson could have made a John Howard : He Made This Country What It Is Today You Ungrateful Bastards documentary himself, for very little money, screened it at his Sydney Institute, whined until the ABC paid him for the rights to screen it, complained about them not promoting it enough, or giving him an interview on the 7.30 Report, turned a reasonable profit, and then Gerard could have spent months bitching bitterly about its reviews.

But he didn't do that, did he?

No. He didn't.

Too much like hard work?

Tobias Ziegler at Pure Poison has more.

And Peter Brent has more here

Yes, The Sky Is Blue

Australia's most boring columnist states the bleeding obvious as only he can :



You may soon be called upon to donate to ensure sufficient emergency "new blood" supplies are available for The Liberal Party, because plenty of blood will spill, as surreal discussions break out over in Canberra about whether it should be Christopher Pyne or Joe Hockey who will replace Malcolm Turnbull as opposition leader.

It may be time for Brendan "I've Never Voted Liberal In My Life!!?!" Nelson to rise phoenix-like, hell, make that Howard-like, from the ashes of the Old Liberals and reclaim the big chair so Rudd can giggle up to and right through a federal election.

Gerard Henderson can't deny three appalling polls for the Liberals, all published on the same day, all but declaring that The Greens could become the 'two', in a two-party political system, if the Liberals don't get it together and finish cleaning house of the remaining old geezers the Liberals major donors wanted to fuck off last year.

Gerard, probably still shattered that Elizabeth Murdoch was right when she said John Howard destroyed the Liberal Party, cannot muster much enthusiasm to froth about Turnbull and dumps his usual dreary analysis, designed to lull all readers into believing that politics is mostly boring, and cuts loose, for the intro at least :

To suffer a significant downturn in one opinion poll might be due to chance, a statistical discrepancy or whatever.

Yes, Gerard Henderson really did just toss off "or whatever".

He should have gone for "or, like, whatever."

Gerard must be reading blogs. He must have noticed that bloggers who can't be arsed going too deep into the details can easily throw out "whatever" when they run out things to say about the subject under analysis, and nobody usually complains. Maybe Gerard thought, 'Well, why can't I get away with that, too?'

Yeah, whatever.

UPDATE : Gerard Henderson, Howard Hater :

Howard failed as prime minister to do what he said he would do - oversee an orderly transition of leadership in the way the Liberal Party founder, Robert Menzies, did in 1966.

If Howard had stepped down in early 2006 he would have been succeeded by Costello, when Labor was led by Kim Beazley. The ALP may or may not have replaced Beazley with Rudd. If Costello happened to win in 2007, there would be no problem now.

Except for the Global Financial Crisis.

Go Hard Gerard Busts Another Evil Big Lefty Media Conspiracy

Or Not

By Darryl Mason

Australia's most boring columnist, Gerard Henderson, sniffs out yet another Big Left media conspiracy, one that has unfolded in suspicious silence, up until now.

For Gerard Henderson, a journalist with The Australian, Amanda Meade, initially appears to be in cahoots with God knows who else in the Big Left media ranks to conceal from Gerard Henderson the exact age of the 7.30 Report's Kerry O'Brien.

Gerard Henderson doesn't think birthdates published on Wikipedia or printed in those new-fangled print newspapers, are to be trusted. Google? Don't make Gerard laugh. For him, the only volume of biographical record is one that most people would be surprised to hear is still actually being published.

It's time for Go Hard Gerard to confront this awful Big Lefty conspiracy. It's time for his infamously bland and whiney e-mails to start flowing :

Excerpts :

Email From Gerard Henderson To Amanda Meade - 3 June 2009

Amanda

I would be grateful if you would advise precisely where Mr O’Brien’s date of birth is on the public record.

Kerry O’Brien does not cite a date of birth in his entry in Who’s Who in Australia. Moreover, the biographical details about Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report’s website do not record either his age or the fact that he once worked for Gough Whitlam. So I ask: Where on the “public record” is there reference to Mr O’Brien’s age? Here’s hoping for a prompt response.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

* * * * *

Email From Amanda Meade To Gerard Henderson - 3 June 2009

Subject: O’Brien’s age: O’Brien willingly told us his age in 2006, see below. And his birthdate is on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_O%27Brien_(journalist)

Article attached: “Milestones for the host we trust the most” - by Amanda Meade in The Australian 15 June 2006.

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Amanda Meade - 3 June 2009

For someone who lectures others about journalistic standards, I am genuinely surprised that you regard Wikipedia as an authoritative source on the public record. It is nothing of the kind.

If Mr O’Brien wanted others to know his age he would put it in his Who’s Who entry (which he prepares) or arrange to have this material placed on the 7.30 Report website.

Gerard Henderson

* * * * *

Email From Amanda Meade To Gerard Henderson - 3 June 2009

Gerard

I did not rely on Wikipeda for my information, I simply point it out to you as one source. O’Brien told me his birth date in the interview, and I [sic] it is certainly not a state secret. By the way, you [sic] age is not in your bio either.

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Amanda Meade - 3 June 2009

Amanda

You are shifting ground. In “The Diary” on Monday you wrote that Kerry O’Brien’s age is on the public record. When I asked you where this information could be located on the public record, your only reference was to Wikipedia.

You should be aware that the principal source of biographical data in Australia is Who’s Who in Australia. If you bothered to check this, you would know that my date of birth is published in Who’s Who.

So basically Go Hard Gerard's beef is that he thought he had to reveal his age in Who's Who Of Australia, and included, but Kerry O'Brien realised a date-of-birth wasn't mandatory, so he didn't include it.

So what does this have to do with journalist Amanda Meade? Absolutely sweet fuck-all.

Amanda Meade puts it more succcinctly.

Email From Amanda Meade To Gerard Henderson - 3 June 2009

This is so boring and tedious.

I will say only this: Kerry O’Brien is 63 and I know this because he told me wen [sic] he was born in a profile interview. That fact was published in the Oz, which makes it on the public record.

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Amanda Meade - 3 June 2009

I don’t intend to continue the correspondence. But I would recommend that in future you have a glance at Who’s Who which does provide birth dates, where they are submitted, on the public record. If Kerry O’Brien did this he would not need you as his apologist.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

What a silly old bastard he is.

Go Hard Gerard is not put off at all by being told he's boring and tedious. He's used to that.

This is how the boss of supposedly Australia's (at least once) most influential think-tank, The Sydney Institute, passes his days.

And this is yet another example of why old people should be given free video games. Immediately. They keep the mind busy, while reducing the amount of annoyance the bored elderly, like Gerard, cause to people with better things to do than to be drawn into nonsensical e-mail arguments about absolutely nothing of any consequence.

Go Hard Gerard Doesn't Like Kerry O'Brien. At All

Gerard Henderson Fantasies About The Chaser 'Boys' Getting Their Throats Cut

Stop It, Gerard, Your Tongue Can't Get Any Browner

Stop Laughing At The Chaser's APEC Stunt, Demands Gerard, Terrorism Isn't Funny

Loser Conservatives Can't Stop Whining

I Hope Kerry O'Brien Really Did Say That, Because It's True

By Darryl Mason

Australia's most boring, dreariest columnist, Gerard Henderson, suddenly comes up with something to quicken the stale blood of all Australian conservatives obsessed with Lefty Commo Green Solar Nazi Pink Batt Obamaist Peter Costello-hating bias at the ABC, in all its most insidious forms.

Particularly that of Big Red himself, Kerry O'Brien :

Coalition Staffer: “Kerry , you realise…I respect Peter [Costello] a lot.”

O’Brien: “Well good luck to you then - I don’t. He doesn’t like politics; he has always been the first one out of here (Canberra) on Thursday. Peter Costello does not have the nation’s interests at heart. He is only in it for himself, always has been, always will be. He needs to get out.” (Note : O'Brien is out late, hammered on tequila, telling them what he thinks)

Coalition Staffer: “I actually really respect some of the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era.”

O’Brien: “Howard and Costello never recognised the importance of their reforms. Costello simply rode on the consequences of the Keating and Hawke wave of economic reform.”

Liberal Party staffers leaking on a journalist. Interesting.

Gerard Henderson only revealed the conversation notes of a close friend for the most hilarious and bitchiest of reasons :

....normally....(I) would not publish the note of a conversation conducted in private on a dark Canberra night or morning. But this is what the 7.30 Report’s political editor Michael Brissenden did concerning a conversation he and two others had with Peter Costello in 2005. Mr Brissenden’s release of the details of this off-the-record conversation a couple of years later was specifically approved by Kerry O’Brien.

Rowwrrr! Take that you unrepentant Whitlam groupie, you.

What really gnaws at the mind of Gerard Henderson is that hundreds of thousands of addicted 7.30 Report viewers will agree just about 100% with what Big Red told the coalition staffers that tequila-drenched post Budget morning. And oh, oh, how it eats at poor Gerard.

The Professional Idiot meanwhile must repute any and all genuine and accurate slayings of his precious Peter. The Idiot appears to have given up his dream-duty of hosting MediaWatch, and is eying up The Chair of Chairs at the ABC, that of The 7.30 Report. But first he and Henderson must drive Big Red from his perch, it's not going to be easy. The Idiot :

Gerard Henderson reveals something on his blog that makes me uneasy,

No, not the rumoured 'FaceBook Style Raunch' photo set Gerard took of himself to help drive recruitment to the Liberal Party. The Professional Idiot is uneasy because Kerry O'Brien apparently expresses 'bias' when he's half-blasted in a pub after a long day.

These freaks of conformity don't even want people to have 'bias' after hours.

Friend : Kerry! What sort of wine should we have with dinner?

Big Red : I'm sorry, the ABC charter does not allow me to express a preference for either the white or the red. Let me list in detail both the positives and negatives present in making such a choice, but I cannot guide you in anyway as you choose....

Friend : Just grab a damned bottle of the red.

The more I think about the possibility of The Professional Idiot hosting Media Watch or, even more fantastically, The 7.30 Report, the funnier it seems. It can only be topped by imagining Gerard Henderson hosting either shows. Obviously the novelty value would wear out fast.

We Will Laugh At Their Coffins

Australia's most boring columnist, Gerard Henderson, thinks that The Chaser is "media".

After The Chaser boys completed some pre-new show publicity over The Vatican, Gerard Henderson unfurls a troubling little fantasy he has about what would happen, and how the ABC would respond, if The Chaser "Boys" tried to pull that kind of shit somewhere Islamic :

“The Chaser shoot was approved by ABC TV. Not all the Chaser boys got their throats cut in the resultant mob violence. Fortunately, one of The Boys was pretending to urinate in a Tehran toilet fixture display store at the time and escaped injury. He has our full support. We are certainly sad that two of The Boys did not make it safely home. But the return of The Boys’ coffins will provide an opportunity at gallows humour to match the 2007 skit by The Boy Licciardello aimed at the disabled in wheel-chairs.”

I hope Gerard wasn't touching himself inappropriately while conjuring up that fascinating little fantasy.

Why Won't Someone Crucify Big Mo On A Missile For Art's Sake?

Gerard Henderson visits a modern art gallery, shuffles inside and immediately doesn't like what he sees :

Step inside the MCA and there, hanging from the ceiling, is an artwork titled A civilizacao occidental e crista (Western Christian Civilisation) by the Argentinian Leon Ferrari - depicting a crucified Christ attached to a US F-107 fighter aircraft.

This is presented as a critique of Western civilisation.

But what about the double standard involved?

Henderson now wants art works expressing 'the alternative view' to be presented in galleries and museums to counter the inherent Evil Pagan Lefty bias on display whenever artists create just about anything. He has some ideas :

...an artwork which showed the prophet Muhammad attached to, say, an Iranian missile.

Yes, exactly. Why not Buddha crucified on the space shuttle?

Henderson appears to have struck America-Hating, Evil Pagan Lefty Gold.

...left-wing alienation is alive and well and on show in contemporary Australia.

But then, damn, he starts going on about the menace of elderly Commies. Then World War I and how the Dardanelles slaughter of Australian soldiers (28,000 casualties) did not go down as the War-Hating Evil Pagan Lefties would have you believe. You tell 'em, Gerry :

Sure, the Dardanelles campaign was a military debacle. But it was devised with the best of intentions...

Aren't they all, Gerry? Aren't they all?

The contrast between the views of the alienated intelligentsia and the majority of Australians are seldom more evident than at times of international events.

Gerry's right. It should be Big Mo on an Iranian missile.

Is It Worse To Be Remembered As A Loser Or A Coward?

Howard Now Remembered As Both



By Darryl Mason

Obviously all those Evil Pagan Lefty chants of 'Howard The Coward!' really made an impact on the former prime minister during his last years in office.

John Howard now freely admits, to former John Howard staffer Gerry "Brown Tongue" Henderson, that he refused to give up the leadership of the Liberal Party in the months leading up to his devastating 2007 federal election defeat because he didn't want to remembered as a coward who was too scared to face defeat.

So Howard is a loser and a coward, because he ultimately lost the election after he refused to step aside for a new leader when it still might have made a different to the Liberal Party's election chances, all due to his terror at the possible puncturing of his massive ego.

More here :

The senior Liberal Andrew Robb told John Howard late last year the Coalition government was headed for a "train wreck" as he mounted a last-ditch bid to have him step aside for Peter Costello.

But Mr Howard told his minister that while he was pessimistic about the election, he "had more show of winning than Peter" and if he stepped down voluntarily, history would regard him as "a coward".

Mr Howard (said) the party as a whole never made its view clear. "If my senior colleagues were, as a group, prepared to own a request for me to go, I'd have gone," he said.

"But I was not going to, out of the blue, go because I didn't think that would have produced a different result and that I would have rightly been criticised for cowardice."

Consider all this an attempt by John Howard, and his loyal former staffer Gerry, to get down on the record their version of what happened before the release of Peter Costello's memoir, which will very likely detail a different reality.

For someone who claimed he would not be around yabbering away in the media all the time after he left office (like former prime minister Paul Keating), John Howard sure spends a lot of time talking to the media (like Paul Keating).

Not complaining of course, it's still very fucking funny indeed to see Howard trying to shore up his version of how he absolutely did not all but destroy the party he led for 12 years because he was terrified of being remembered as a coward, primarily by his wife Janet.

Hilariously, now Howard is remembered as both a Coward and a Loser by former key members of his own government, and much of the Australian public.

Howard is much more entertaining now he's just another whining baby boomer reflecting on past glories, and failures.

Sleepy Time

Former John Howard staffer Gerard Henderson confirms he is Australia's most boring columnist, and is keeping himself busy pumping the mythology of his old boss :

No doubt about it. Nine months after the Coalition's devastating election loss, John Howard is looking better. Likewise Peter Costello. So much so that the former prime minister did not seem out of place among political leaders at the Olympic swimming events on Sunday.

...the Howard/Costello legacy seems stronger today than it did on election night.

Stop it, Gerry. Your tongue cannot get any browner, no matter how long or deep you lick.

Loser Conservatives Can't Stop Whining

Think tanker Gerard Henderson lashes the "Australian conservative movement", whatever that is, for not being intellectual or influential enough in a humiliatingly whiny rant that is neither intellectual or influential and reads like a letter to the editor of The Australian.

A rejected letter :

...it would be unwise to regard leadership as the only problem facing the Liberals. This issue disguises a deeper cultural problem that turns on the intellectual weakness of the politically conservative tradition in Australia, compared with that which prevails in similar democracies such as Britain and the US.

...towards the end of his administration it was difficult to find even three members of the Canberra Press Gallery who supported Howard on any one of such issues as Iraq, national security, Work Choices or climate change.

Aren't they supposed to be journalists, and therefore neutral? How can you complain about the media being filled with biased Evil Lefties and then bitch about how few in the press gallery "supported" Howard? Henderson shows he isn't concerned about political bias in Australian journalism, just that there's not enough Liberal campaigners disguised as journos (probably the crap wages for most) applauding Brendan Nelson from the press gallery. Fantastic.

During Howard's time there was considerable hype among the left about what were termed the culture wars. If such a cultural battle was ever engaged, Howard did not win it. His appointments to the ABC board did not change the national broadcaster's prevailing leftist culture.

Political cycles invariably turn, and the Liberal Party will almost certainly regain office somewhere, sometime.

That might make for a catchy Brendan Nelson brand slogan, "Somewhere, Sometime".

Meanwhile, the social democrats and the left still dominate the intellectual debate in Australia. This reality contributes to Nelson's evident difficulties and discontents, and especially to the fact that the Howard/Costello legacy is now being trashed.

What absolute twaddle. Nelson goes on a listening tour, it gets plenty of media coverage, he has nothing much to say, he listens a lot and then has few insightful comments on what he heard, and nobody generally gives a shit. Sure, blame the Evil Lefties for that, too. It would be terrible if Liberals actually had to take responsibility for their failing, falling ability to impact on the national conversation.

It's very simple, if your ideas are getting an airing and they're not finding much of an audience, there's a good chance the ideas are not interesting or popular, or worse, they're just plain disturbing and acutely divisive. Like much of Andrew Bolt's production line word vomit.

Part of the problem of shouting 'Evil Lefty!' every time someone disagrees about the reality of the Iraq War or why hanging onto oil and coal as our main energy sources isn't going to be a good idea for the rest of this century, is that conservatives who believe these things are isolated because they don't see themselves as members of 'The Left', that outdated relic of obsession for a bunch of columnists who went to uni together in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Hendersons and the Bolts of the "conservative movement" need to spend less time whining about why they're not supposedly being heard, and more time trying to draw in those who truly believe conservative values are important, and can change the country for the better, without all the hysteria and bitterness.

Why would you want to be associated with the bitter, sulky likes of Andrew Bolt and Gerard Henderson, even if you did think they're mostly right, and not just Right?

If this great unrepresented mass of secret Liberal supporters is really out there, the Hendersons and Bolts have to make the beliefs and values they push far more attractive, and create enthusiasm for these ideas, and ideals, instead of pissing on about Evil Lefties hogging ABC air time and trying to turn every university student into the next Bob Brown or Al Gore.

It's fiction, and it's boring.

The people want to hear ideas they like, and believe in, they want to get excited by the new and challenging, but right now they're not hearing any of this from anyone much in the Liberal Party, or the mysterious "Australian conservative movement."

All they're still hearing from the Hendersons and Bolts is how awesome John Howard was, and how there's not enough appreciation for whatever it was he did during all those years in power.

Yeah, that gets people excited.

Don't Laugh, Live In Fear

Gerard Henderson shows what being a po-faced, humourless, pro-fear, auto-bot is all about with this absurdly miserable take on The Chaser's now worldwide famous jape at the APEC summit last week.

Gerard can barely conceal his outrage : How dare these 'comedians' make fun of terrorism by trying to drive a fake Osama Bin Laden up to President Bush's hotel!

Would relatives of Osama's victims find this "dangerous" stunt amusing, asks Gerard.

Yeah, some of them. Some probably thought it was absolutely hysterical. That's the beauty of humor and humans. You never know what is going to make someone shriek in delight and laugh until they cough. And Australians have one of the darkest, and most morbid, and most well-rounded sense of humour in the world.

But don't let all that stop Gerard. He's wired on his fury at such petulance from "taxpayer subsidised" comedians like The Chaser.

Gerard demands everyone stop laughing right now and instead cower in fear at the wrath of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden :

In Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, terrorism - and the threat of terrorism - is no joke.

And then there is Australia - where the threat of terrorism is a
(taxpayer-subsidised) joke. The Chaser's stunt, whereby the comedians breached security put in place for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Sydney by posing as the Canadian motorcade, received international media coverage. The image of Chas Licciardello, dressed as the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was featured in the print and electronic media on Friday.

Soon after bin Laden's latest video message was released. In it, posing with a newly dyed beard, bin Laden praised the Islamists who attacked the US on September 11, 2001, and called on Americans to "embrace Islam". Needless to say, no one regarded the real (bin Laden) thing as funny. Certainly not in Algeria, Britain, Morocco, Spain or the US, where al-Qaeda, or its affiliates, have been into mass murder in recent years.

Actually, plenty of people thought that new Bin Laden video was funny. Millions of people all over the world in fact. They thought it was funny, stupid, ridiculous and yet another sign of just what a complete dickhead and hopeless joke Bin Laden really is.

Seriously, who saw that new Bin Laden video, or read the transcript, and thought anything else but 'This beard-dyeing freak is telling me what to think and what to believe? Get f..ked, wanker.'

Those who happily mocked the new Bin Laden video included American senators, terror experts and commenters to news blogs and websites all over the world, including people in Britain, Spain and the United States.

But paranoid old Gerard detects an evil Leftoid conspiracy :

...The Chaser has moved to embrace fashionable leftist causes - the latest manifestation of which is that terrorism is not all that serious a problem and that, consequently, national security is not all that important.

Members of The Chaser, when asked by the media to comment on their stunt, said in so many words, "Lucky it was us and not Al Qaeda."

Damn right.

Gerard wants his readers to think that those connected with APEC security didn't find The Chaser's gag funny in the slightest. Rubbish. Police who arrested The Chaser can clearly be seen laughing with 'Bin Laden', and American secret service agents, jogging through the Botanical Gardens the next day, were heard howling with laughter over what "those Auzzies" had tried to pull off.

The Chaser's easy cruise through two levels of checkpoints also sparked an immediate and obviously greatly needed review of APEC security, making President Bush and the other world leaders even safer than they were before.

The real reason for Gerard's seething disgust at The Chaser team becomes obvious two-thirds of the way down his column. Turns out Gerard Henderson himself has been 'punked' by these "taxpayer subsidised" comedians :

...the troupe had unlawfully gatecrashed a booked-out Sydney Institute function (Gerard Henderson's Sydney Institute) and trespassed on private property. I was subsequently informed in writing...that such stunts were approved by the ABC and to expect more of the same.

No one can trespass on ABC property in, say, Sydney or Perth. But the ABC management reckons it's OK for The Chaser to trespass on the property of others.

Heartbreaking stuff.

Some years ago, The Chaser sought to make fun out of the victims of the Soham murders in Britain - as if the sexual assault and killing of pre-teenage girls is a suitable subject for humour.

This year Morrow and his colleagues thought it appropriate to turn the genocidal Nazi regime into a joke. And now we are told that we should all laugh at Licciardello frocked-up as the terrorist bin Laden. Tell that to the Germans and the Algerians.

Yeah, and how many comedians and film-makers have built entire careers off making fun of the Nazis? Hundreds? Thousands? Has Gerard never heard of one of the world's most successful musicals The Producers by any chance?

By Gerard's reckoning, any terror group or fucked-up slaughter outfit should not be subjected to mockery or ridicule because the victims, or the victims relatives, might find it offensive, or the danger and fear generated by such terrorists might somehow be lessened.

Tell that to the Australian Prisoners Of War who made fun of their World War 2 Japanese torturers through plays and musicals, right to their faces, even when they knew it would result in savage beatings.

Tell that to the British PoWs who relentlessly mocked their German captors during WW2 and then came home and created vastly successful television series and movies based on their experiences.

Tell that to the victims of 9/11 and the July 7 bombings in London who used humour and mockery to help them deal with their pain, their loss and the PTSD that threatened to cripple their lives.

Tell that to every victim of terror, abuse or crime who have managed to recover enough of their old self to not only laugh at their predicament, but to find relief in their ability to do so.

The Gerard Henderson mantra that terrorists like Bin Laden should not be made fun of because it could lessen the seriousness with which people view the threat of Al Qaeda is downright insulting to everyone who laughed at what The Chaser pulled off.

Who does he think he is to tell us what we should and should not find funny?

And as far as The Chaser being "taxpayer-subsidised" - yes, it's true, but the show is clearly a low-budget effort, and their DVDs have already sold by the hundreds of thousands, generating massive profits for the ABC. Plus their weekly show, and its repeats, pull more than 1.5 million viewers. The Chaser is one of the top five most watched programs on Australian television.

Clearly many, many Australians think they are getting value for money from the "taxpayer subsidised" show. The same cannot be said for the Howard government's insipid, endless advertising and propaganda campaigns, which have chewed up more than $2.2 billion of "fully taxpayer funded" air time over the past ten years.

The Chaser provided an invaluable and important release for Sydneysiders during APEC, after more than a solid month of dire warnings from politicians, police and the media about the
"violence" that was set to engulf the city.

They let us laugh at all that security and police state hardware and the snipers in helicopters hovering over our city and the steel cage surrounding the Opera House and entire streets in the heart of Sydney.

It was the first, and only, big laugh most Australians got out of the entire "taxpayer funded" APEC summit, which cost more than $400 million.

The Chaser's impressively successful joke at the absurdity of all the, however necessary, security gave millions of Australians exactly what they needed most : relief from all that fear-mongering. The very same sort of fear-mongering that Gerard Henderson has used to build himself a very profitable business.

But don't you dare laugh. You might upset Osama Bin Laden.

The Chaser's APEC Security Video Can Be Viewed Here