“I was at Kerry Packer’s big polo ranch in Scone to do a debate, ‘That polo is better than sex’. It was around the time Andrew Denton and I were doing the Great Debates on ABC TV. So I was sitting up with him late at night and he said,

‘The difference between you and Andrew, and your comedy, is that with Andrew you don’t laugh, and then you think about it after and think it was really funny. With you, you laugh about it, then you realise that wasn’t very funny, and wonder why you’re laughing?’

I honestly don’t know who comes out the best in that critique. Andrew says that I come out better, and I say he does. Who knows?” – Wendy Harmer

While on air one day on classic hits radio station 2CA in Canberra we were running a competition where the starting question was always dead simple. This day we asked the caller for the first name of any of The Beatles.

She had absolutely no idea. I couldn’t fathom it.

Prior to speaking to Wendy Harmer, I was astonishingly nervous. She was so much a part of my formulative years that even though it’s been 30 years since she joined 2Day FM Morning Crew she is as vividly etched in my memory as the Fab Four (and their first names).

I think Packer was on to something. Part of Harmer’s brilliance is her incisivity, which the Merriam Webster Dictionary describes as “penetrating trenchancy”. The ability to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”.

Muhammad Ali would have no idea his boxing prowess would also aptly describe this comedian, radio presenter and writer.

Launching her new memoir, Lies My Mirror Told Me, Harmer popped into see 2GB’s Ben Fordham for an interview. Fordham, like me, grew up on The Morning Crew. He told the story of how Harmer had been one of the first to call him to tell him he’d be a dingbat if he didn’t seize the opportunity to take over breakfast from Alan Jones, despite it meaning that he and Wendy would become Sydney radio ratings rivals.

Wendy reminded him that she and her ABC Radio Sydney breakfast co-host Robbie Buck had been nipping at his heels in their final survey before the duo retired into the sunset.

Then, as he is increasingly wont to do, Ray Hadley strolled into Ben’s studio.

“Wendy Harmer. She’s probably the most formidable woman that has been in broadcasting, ever,” he said.

My nerves were that this “most formidable woman of radio” might eviscerate me if I asked stupid, ill researched, uninformed questions. In the days following our conversation I realised that I should take that fear (and prep, of course) into any I conduct, Wendy Harmer or not.

Wendy reflected on radio, TV, comedy and media industries where everything, and nothing, has changed.

There are very few new ideas, and those that are become regurgitated ad nauseum, like The Morning Crew’s Two Strangers and a Wedding, becoming TV shows like MAFS (Wendy apologises for that).

Wendy took on the 2Day FM role at the behest of Brad March. March saw a gap in the market. That gap was, wait for it, women. He was right. Women would call in to the show because they were finally being represented on air. March would go on to manage Jackie O‘s career too.

Even at the height of their FM success in Sydney, The Morning Crew team of Harmer, Paul “Holmsey” Holmes and Peter “Moonie” Moon never planned for the future because you were only “three bad ratings away from the chopping block”. That sense of always being present in the moment served them well across the years until they were unexpectedly axed almost exactly 20 years ago.

At the time no one listening realised that Moonie broadcast from his home and not the 2Day studios for the best part of his stint on the show. Wendy said it made her so much better as an inclusive presenter, and in preparation for the pandemic.

But the pandemic was hard. Harmer and Buck couldn’t feed off each other’s energy and Wendy works best with company. Ultimately covid fatigue was a key reason why, despite a deep love for the radio medium, they retired at the end of 2021. This time on their terms. Breakfast hours in unprecedented times takes its toll.

Harmer fell in love, got married and had two babies in her early 40s all while maintaining 16-hour working days for 2Day FM. The breakdown of her day, typical for a metro breakfast radio presenter, even with producers and co-hosts, makes you realise why they get the big bucks.

We discussed money.

Harmer was totally unashamed of her million-dollar salary, which then made her then the highest paid woman on Australian radio, and the subject of tabloid fodder. It allowed her hubby Brendan to stay home with the babies, and bought them a nice home with the Alan Jones deck out back, named because it was Jones’s radio influence and salary that increased Harmer’s.

It was my questions about salaries (she never discussed hers with her colleagues) and the extraordinary graciousness demonstrated in the book when reflecting on her radio and media colleagues, that I thought she might bite back over.

Not at all.

She has no regrets and really, REALLY, didn’t want the book to be described as “no holds barred” when nothing and no one held her back.

She did though like being called formidable.

Shortly afterwards I wrapped up our chat.

Or so I thought.

As I breathed deeply with my bowels still intact Harmer did exactly what Prime Ministers, Kerry Packers and Ray Hadleys would be very afraid of in any live interaction with her.

“Jen now I have some questions for you. What advice would you give to a woman entering the radio industry today?”

My answer, in the attached audio, began with a gigantic stumbling silence, which I edited out.

Harmer had floated like a butterfly long enough.

Wendy wrapped up the chat shortly after and I stopped the recording.

Then she gave me a pep talk, like I imagine she gave Ben Fordham before he decided he could and would be a worthy Jones replacement. I’ll keep her words in my back pocket for a rainy day. I can’t recommend a Harmer hype up enough.

There’s one final thing Wendy said, off air, but on the record.

She documents everything. Yes, she cross references with other people who were there, but everything that happens to and around her is part of a story that can be used in a book, on the stage, in a debate, on air or even during the many conversations she has with people who stop her in the supermarket.

Writing is Wendy Harmer’s greatest love. It’s evident in every part of her career success. The attention to detail to makes you laugh up front and reflect on the message afterwards is her superpower.

Comedian, broadcaster and writer Wendy Harmer’s book, Lies My Mirror Told Me, is out now.