Ian Henschke is Chief Advocate for National Seniors Australia. He has been in this position since January 2017. In October 2019 he took up the additional role of Spokesperson for the Alliance for a Fairer Retirement System. This was after Professor Deborah Ralston vacated that position when she was appointed to the federal government’s three person Retirement Income Review panel. He is a former South Australian television journalist and radio presenter. He reported for 7.30 Report in the 1980s and 1990s and in the late 1990s worked for ABCTV Countrywide. He reported for 4 Corners in 1999 making Emission Impossible, a documentary about global warming that won the Jury Prize at the 2000 Grenoble International Film Fextival. He hosted the ABCTV programme Stateline from 2001 to 2010, the South Australian ABC radio 891 programme Mornings from 2011 to 2015, and the ABC radio 891 programme Drive in 2016. He retired from the ABC in December 2016. He is a regular columnist for The Advertisers Saturday supplement, SA Weekend. For broadcasting services to Australian society, he was given the Centenary of Federation Medal in 2003. He was twice named "TV Broadcaster of the Year" in the SA Media Awards, in 2004 and 2009. He was named "Radio Broadcaster of the Year" in the 2015 SA Media Awards.
Career at ABC
Henschke joined the ABC in 1983 and has worked on a diverse range of programs from shows for children to Four Corners. He worked for ABC radio, Radio National, in TV production and online. He is a graduate of the Murray-Darling Leadership Program and has served on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Sustainable Systems and Technology at the University of South Australia. While acting as a Staff-elected Director of the ABC from 2000–2002 he worked to obtain $70 million extra funding from the coalition government. He made efforts to secure The Australia Network for the ABC and saw that Radio Australia's signal was boosted. During his time on the board the managing director Jonathan Shier was replaced by Russell Balding. He has referred to his two years on the board as "the most important years of my life and some of the most important for the ABC". In 2013 he stood for a position as Staff Elected Director of the ABC again, but was unsuccessful. Veteran Sydney-based current affairs journalist Matt Peacock won the position.
