37 Facts About Andrew Bolt

Andrew Bolt was born on 26 September 1959 and is an Australian conservative social and political commentator.

Andrew Bolt has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times for many years, for both The Herald and its successor, the Herald Sun.

Andrew Bolt was born in Adelaide, his parents being newly-arrived Dutch immigrants.

Andrew Bolt spent his childhood in remote rural areas, including Tarcoola, South Australia, while his father worked as a school teacher and principal.

Andrew Bolt worked for the Hawke government on two election campaigns.

Andrew Bolt has had various roles on numerous TV networks, radio stations and in the print media.

In May 2005, Andrew Bolt established a web-only forum in which readers could offer comments, feedback and questions in response to his columns.

Andrew Bolt posted some of these comments on the Herald Sun website.

Andrew Bolt appeared weekly on radio station 2GB in Sydney for The Clash with union leader Paul Howes and as of 2016 is a regular guest four nights a week on Nights with Steve Price, which is broadcast on 2GB and Melbournes 3AW, 4BC Brisbane and network stations across Australia.

Andrew Bolt left Insiders in May 2011 to host his own weekly program, The Andrew Bolt Report, on Network Ten.

The Andrew Bolt Report ended on Ten in 2015 and, in 2016, Andrew Bolt became a contributor to Sky News Live.

Andrew Bolt has frequently clashed with Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University, about the Stolen Generation.

Andrew Bolt has said that there were no large-scale removals of children "for purely racist reasons".

Andrew Bolt has questioned the very existence of the Stolen Generation.

Andrew Bolt stated that it is a "preposterous and obscene" myth and that there was actually no policy in any state or territory at any time for the systematic removal of "half-caste" Aboriginal children.

Robert Manne responded that Andrew Bolt did not address the documentary evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generations and that this is a clear case of historical denialism.

Andrew Bolt then challenged Manne to produce ten cases in which the evidence justified the claim that children were "stolen" as opposed to having been removed for reasons such as neglect, abuse, abandonment, etc.

Andrew Bolt argued that Manne did not respond and that this was an indication of unreliability of the claim that there was policy of systematic removal.

Andrew Bolt stated that, prior to a debate, Manne provided him with a list of 12 names that he was able to show during the debate was "a list of people abandoned, saved from abuse or voluntarily given up by their parents"; and that during the actual debate, Manne produced a list of 250 names without any details or documentation as to their circumstances.

Andrew Bolt stated that he was able to identify and ascertain the history of some of those on the list and was unable to find a case where there was evidence to justify the term "stolen".

Andrew Bolt stated that one of the names on the list of allegedly stolen children was 13-year-old Dolly, taken into state care after being "found seven months pregnant and penniless, working for nothing on a station".

The jury found that what Andrew Bolt wrote was untrue, unfair and inaccurate, but cleared him of malice.

Andrew Bolt emerged from the Supreme Court of Victoria after the jury verdict, stating that his column had been accurate and that the mixed verdict was a victory for free speech.

On 28 September 2011, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found Andrew Bolt to have contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

On 6 June 2017, Andrew Bolt was assaulted in Lygon Street, Melbourne by two masked men, while a third apparently filmed the attack.

Andrew Bolt has spoken out against the changing racial demographics of Australia.

Andrew Bolt has spoken approvingly of Jean Raspail's book The Camp of the Saints, a novel depicting Europe being swamped by Asian immigrants.

Andrew Bolt reiterated his support for Pell when the appeal against Pell's conviction was dismissed in Victoria's Court of Appeal.

On 14 April 2020, Andrew Bolt interviewed George Pell on Sky News Australia following his acquittal by the High Court.

In July 2019, Andrew Bolt made comments about Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in which he questioned the legitimacy of her views on climate breakdown due to Thunberg's autism.

Andrew Bolt went on to question why such leaders "treat a young and strange girl with such awe and even rapture".

Later in the article, Andrew Bolt went on to describe Thunberg's younger sister as displaying "a spectacular range of mental issues".

Andrew Bolt objected to this apparent change in Pascoe's heritage following the success of Dark Emu, a book written by Pascoe in 2014 that reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building construction by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In early 2020, the feud escalated when Andrew Bolt published a letter provided to him by Josephine Cashman, which resulted in Cashman being dismissed from the Federal Government's Indigenous voice to government's Senior Advisory Group.

In 2021, Andrew Bolt opposed the News Corp campaign to publicise the effects of climate change as 'rubbish'.

Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive, Kelly O'Shanassy, commented that Andrew Bolt has "no credibility" on climate change.

Andrew Bolt is married to Sally Morrell, a fellow columnist at the Herald Sun.