God Save TV Queen Kerri-Anne Kennerley

It’s a miracle! Leftist group-think has not completely taken over the Australian entertainment industry. The greatest resistors of this appear to be female television presenters who are daring enough to let loose during “hot topic” segments.

Fiery Female Presenters

First there was Sonia Kruger, host of Today Extra on Nine who expressed concern about Muslim immigration in 2016. For expressing her opinion, she was subjected to a NSW Anti-Discrimination complaint that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Following Kruger there was Samantha Armatage, host of Sunrise who called out Kmart’s ‘rubbish’ excuse for banning the words Christian and Jesus from its photo-booths earlier this year.

Then there is of course Prue McSween, who contributes to a vareity of television and radio programs and is most known for joking on 2GB she wouldn’t swerve out of the way on the road if she saw Yassmin Abdel-Maiged.

Kerri-Anne’s Career Highlights

In 2019, these brave women were joined by the Queen of Australian Television, Kerri-Anne Kennerley. Her career has spanned 50 years and she is best known to my generation as being the host of Midday and Mornings on the Nine Network.

She made her debut on Australian television at the age of 13 in 1967 on Channel Nine Brisbane. She has also had stints as a singer and an actress. She became a household name in Australia when she was a co-host of the first incarnation of Good Morning Australia on Network Ten in the 1980s.

Although her shows were known for plenty of infomercials, she created many iconic moments in Australian political history. Peter Costello’s macaroni, Kevin Rudd’s dance moves and cooking. She also brilliantly and professionally handled a drunk John Stamos when he was a guest on her show in 2009.

Kerri-Anne has received three nominations for the TV Week Gold Logie, all during her tenure as host of Midday in the late 90s, but didn’t take out the award. But she was honored for her successful lifetime in television in 2017 by being inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame.

Personal Life

Early in her career, Kerri-Anne moved to New York to pursue a professional singing career. While there she met record producer Jimmy Miller and they soon married. However, Miller became physically abusive and controlling.

She was saved when she met her knight in shining armor, English-Australian businessman John Kennerley, who helped her leave the abusive marriage. Marrying in 1984, the Kennerleys tried for children for many years but sadly it was not to be, with Kerri-Anne experiencing a miscarriage.

Tragedy struck the Kennerleys in 2016 when John was paralysed after injuring his neck in a fall at a golf tournament in Coffs Habour on the Central Coast, becoming quadriplegic.

Kerri-Anne continued her television career while caring for John who still enjoyed a high quality of life. John passed away in February of this year at the age of 78.

Recent Television Career

Kerri-Anne was fired from Nine in 2010 when her Mornings show was cancelled. Over this current decade, she has popped up for guest stints on Seven’s Sunday Night and the Morning Show, was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, hosted a true-crime series for Foxtel and was a guest panellist on Ten’s The Project.

Kerri-Anne finally returned to our daily viewing lives when she became a panellist on Ten’s flagship morning program Studio 10 in September 2019.

Kerri-Anne’s Hot Topic Takes

Kerri-Anne had never expressed her political views previously in her television career. But in the current year everything is political, and if you are on a panel show with a “hot topic” segment you should be expressing your honest opinion. And oh boy, that is what Kerri-Anne has done.

But also, in the current year, expressing unpopular political opinions earns you the wrath of the social-media activists. They try to get you fired and pressure woke corporations to withdraw their advertising from your show.

Kerri-Anne first learnt this when expressing her opinion on the ‘Invasion Day’ Australia Day protestors. She asked whether they were serious about fixing indigenous disadvantage or were just virtue-signalling: “Has any single one of those people been out to the outback, where children, babies, five-year-olds are being raped? Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. They get no education. What have you done?”

Former VJ and television and radio host Yumi Stynes, who was a fill-in presenter on Studio 10 that day, responded “That is not even faintly true Kerri-Anne and you’re sounding quite racist now”. Kerri-Anne snapped back “I’m offended by that, Yumi” to which she responded “Well, keep going then, because every time you open your mouth, you’re sounding racist.”

And that was the last we saw of Yumi Stynes on Australian television in 2019. She was too cowardly to turn up to work again the next day and hid under her bed and behind her phone, only tweeting her opinions.

This was the first time activists demanded Kerri-Anne be sacked from Studio 10. But the only error Ten made was allowing Yumi Stynes back on the network after her 2012 on-air conduct on Studio 10’s predecessor The Circle, when she said Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith didn’t have much of a brain. This was widely cited as being responsible for the cancellation of the show.

Kerri-Anne fronted up to work the next day, engaged with indigenous commentators on the issue of disadvantage and took up the offer to visit a remote indigenous community to see the living conditions for herself.

Undeterred Kerri-Anne

Despite the social-media mob making her its latest target, Kerri-Anne was not deterred one bit from expressing her honest opinion on Studio 10 once again. Being in the entertainment industry 50 years, she would have survived tougher attacks than that.

Kerri-Anne’s next target in a fiery hot topic segment was her own employer Network Ten for its part in airing “moronic” reality TV. The Studio 10 panel was discussing Ten’s Bachelor in Paradise program airing two women kissing.

When asked for her view, Kerri-Anne responded, “Seriously? They put that stuff on because it’s titillating and it’ll rate and stupid people with half a brain like Paddy will make those remarks… Sorry, we have got a lot of issues to discuss but trust me, this is not one… I know it’s the network, sorry, so fire me now!”

Bill Shorten Rant

Three days before the May federal election, when at the time the polls suggested a Bill Shorten-led Labor Government, Kerri-Anne gave a dire warning on Studio 10 about how such a government would wreck Australia.

She began “If Bill Shorten gets in, it’s the end of life as we know it. Honestly, without question”. Her co-host Sarah Harris, eager to hear more, said ‘Tell us what you really think.”

Kerri-Anne first attacked Labor’s new taxes: “Taking money retrospectively, as they will do, that franking credits, I had to Google that, this is the way (for) self-funded retirees to not leach off the government pension. They look after themselves. They’ve got a plan. He’ll rip that off them. He’ll put in negative gearing… no more investment into houses so your rent will go up”.

Then she moved on to attack Labor’s gender-fluidity obsession: “One thing I’m seriously outraged about, the millions and millions they’ll spend on a Gender Commission. These kids out there who are gender-confused, and there’s a percentage of people out there gender-confused, they will put up this Commission and we, like Tasmania, will have a child and it won’t be male or female, it will be gender-free. That’ll be national.”

ACMA Complaints

Throughout the year, Kerri-Anne had two Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) complaints against her under investigation. Both were due to her on-air spat with Yumi Stynes back in January. The ACMA only revealed the results of these investigations earlier this month.

The ACMA found that Kennerley’s comments did not breach section 2.6.2 of the Commercial Television Code of Practice, which states a broadcaster must screen content likely “to provoke or perpetuate in, or by a reasonable person, intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group of people because of age, colour, gender, national or ethnic origin, disability, race, religion or sexual preference”.

Extinction Rebellion Hot Topic

With Kerri-Anne vindicated by the ACMA, she possibly felt more emboldened to make another triggering statement. Last week, Australian cities were in gridlock during peak hour due Rebellion Week protests.

Given the Extinction Rebellion protestors were receiving small fines with no convictions for supergluing themselves to roads, there have been proposals from politicians to introduce jail sentences to deter these types of disruptive protests.

The Studio 10 panel was discussing this proposal during another hot topic segment when co-host Sarah Harris asked “Kerri-Anne, jail time? Isn’t that a bit extreme?” To which she replied:

“Oh no! Personally, I would leave them all superglued to wherever they do it. The guy hanging from the Story Bridge. Why send emergency services? Leave him there until he gets himself out. No emergency services should help them, nobody should do anything, and you just put little witches hats around them, or use them as a speed bump.”

Sara Harris then quipped “God, you’re going to get us into trouble.” Kerri-Anne responded, “Is that wrong? Put them in jail and forget to feed them. Put them in some of the aged care homes around Australia, that would really sort them out.”

Given the week of frustration many Australian workers experienced last week due to Extinction Rebellion protests, Kerri-Anne was just saying what many were secretly thinking. It was of course a joke and no Extinction Rebellion protestor was run down by an irate motorist.

Fresh Kerri-Anne Outrage

But that didn’t stop climate cultists expressing outrage on social media and alleging that Kerri-Anne was calling for violence against climate change activists.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley has used her considerable influence to incite violence and spread hate speech, calling on climate heroes to be ran over by cars and used “as a speed bump.” @Channel10AU what is your response to these deplorable comments? https://t.co/OROP7mIytt

— Luke Buckmaster (@lukebuckmaster) October 9, 2019

There were of course renewed calls for Network Ten to sack Kerri-Anne. In a statement to Yahoo News, Network Ten showed no sign of caving in to this campaign. Ten agreed that her comments ‘were said in jest,’ and that ‘Kerri-Anne confirmed that she was indeed speaking in hyperbole and her words were clearly a joke. There was no intent to cause offence.’

Kate Halfpenny, in an opinion piece for the left-wing union-backed New Daily website, wrote that ‘Kerri-Anne Kennerley needs to bow out stage left while we still remember the good times‘. She argued that “we’ve already got our allocated Pauline Hanson for this lifetime” and “Kerri-Anne is a lot like slob Kyle Sandilands and misogynist Alan Jones”.

Kerri-Anne should ignore such advice. She rightfully has taken the view in the twilight of her highly successful career that she is going to use her well earned capital and platform on Studio 10 in this politically correct age to speak her mind; she does not care what the mob think.

Long Live the Queen

What does the outrage mob believe it is going to achieve? Take away her Logie Hall of Fame Award? Delete her from the archives of Australian Television? They may try, but good luck trying to erase the impact and memory of Australia’s TV Queen.

But the sad reality is we may not see many personalities like Kerri-Anne emerge from the next generation of Australian television stars. These days, to gain a mainstream gig you must toe the politically correct social-justice view within the industry, and not upset people online or woke advertisers.

God Save Kerri-Anne Kennerley the Australian TV Queen. May she reign on our screens for many more years to come, and keep speaking up for the Quiet Australians watching at home.