THE ASTBURY FILE

I thought I should leave this topic alone today. And I was going to. But not everybody gets a kicking at somebody else’s funeral.

I am talking about Graham Kennedy and my comments about him last week. My claim that I believed he had died of an AIDS- related illness. Since then I have been criticized – daily -- on various news services and on Today Tonight and A Current Affair. Even on Rove last night.

Not to mention various people on this radio station. I really do believe I shall eventually be proven right. Even though Kennedy was cremated. And this is not homophobic. Despite what Andrew Bolt accused me of on television last night. As I have said: I have had several gay friends, dear friends, who have died of AIDS. I mean, I researched and wrote the first book about AIDS back in the 1980s. It was sympathetic to AIDS victims and I personally paid for it to be published.

I am not homophobic. And maybe I sound like I protest too much. But you can’t be involved with an actress like Jacki Weaver for a couple of decades without being involved with gays in the theatre. I used to call them the “moll patrol” and the “greasepaint mafia”.

And some of them are still cherished friends.

I said that I still thought I would be proven right – and I do believe that Graham Kennedy was the first, the best King of Australian TV. No doubt. No doubt at all.

But to push a tired wheelbarrow: All history owes the dead is the truth.

I interviewed one of Kennedy’s male lovers last week. When I asked former TV and radio sports reporter Rob Astbury was he Kennedy’s lover. He said” “No comment”. I asked him if he was HIV Positive and he said “No comment”. I knew the answers before I asked the questions.

Ask me those comments and I wouldn’t say “no comment”. I’d say “Yes” or “No” or “Go to hell.” Or “None of your business”. Wait for the Astbury TV documentary. It was shot in Thailand this week. I shall be vindicated.

I have been given a real kicking about comments about Kennedy and AIDS and lack of evidence.

Well, I can tell you now, one compelling promised interviewee pulled out three minutes before I went to air last Friday. I suspect he was nobbled by people close to Kennedy. Protecting the image.

Funny isn’t it. The double standard. They all got outraged about my comments on radio last week. But when Kennedy’s comic writer Mike McColl Jones used me as a foil (about outing Kennedy) at the funeral yesterday they all laughed.

Hypocrites. Real hypocrites. Out there. And in here. Let’s move on.

Wednesday, June 1 , 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005