Gerard Henderson

Gerard Henderson (born 1945) is an Australian author, columnist and political commentator noted for his right-wing Catholic and conservative views. He founded and is the executive director of The Sydney Institute, a privately funded Australian current affairs forum.

Education and earlier career Henderson was educated at Melbourne's Catholic, Jesuit-run Xavier College, one of the city's elite private schools. He went on to study arts and law at the prestigious University of Melbourne during the second half of the 1960s. He later completed a PhD.

Henderson taught at the Tasmania and La Trobe universities before working for four years on the staff of Kevin Newman in the Fraser government. He moved to the Department of Industrial Relations in 1980; from 1984 to 1986 he was chief-of-staff to John Howard, during which time Howard was deputy leader, then leader, of the Liberal Party of Australia. In December 2013, his column moved to The Weekend Australian, which also carries Media Watch Dog.

He has written several books. Mr Santamaria and the Bishops (Hale & Iremonger, 1982; ) Australian Answers (Random House Australia, 1990; ) Gerard Henderson Scribbles On (Wilkinson Books, 1993; ) Menzies' Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (HarperCollins, 1994; second edition 1998: ) A Howard Government? Inside the Coalition (HarperCollins, 1995; ) B. A. Santamaria (HarperCollins, 2005; ) Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man (MUP, 2015; ) Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt (Connor Court Publishing, 2021; )

Media appearances In 1994, Henderson profiled former prime minister Bob Hawke for the ABC TV program Four Corners.

Views In 2006, Henderson said John Howard had lost the ongoing culture wars, writing, "In my view, there is only one area where the Coalition has failed to have a significant impact – namely, in what some have termed 'the culture wars'."

Henderson has supported the movement for Australia to become a republic.