The Gillies Report is an Australian topical satirical sketch comedy television series that was broadcast on the ABC between 1984 and 1985. The program was best known for sending up politicians and media personalities of the day such as Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock. Cast The series starred Max Gillies, with a supporting cast that included John Clarke, Wendy Harmer, Phillip Scott, Tracy Harvey, Patrick Cook, Marcus Eyre, Geoff Kelso and Peter Moon. The primary writers were Cook, Clarke, Scott and Don Watson, with extra material by Harmer and Harvey. The on-screen troupe combined a wide range of skills, honed in many areas of arts and entertainment: Max Gillies originally trained as a teacher in the late 1960s but soon became immersed in Melbourne's flourishing alternative theatre scene; he quit teaching in 1970 and became a founding member of the Australian Performing Group (APG), where he worked closely with Graeme Blundell, Helen Garner, David Williamson and others on a wide range of theatrical and comedic projects, many of which had a strong political edge; John Clarke was already a TV and radio veteran, famous in his home country of New Zealand, where he created the popular comedic Kiwi farmer character Fred Dagg, which he successfully continued after he moved to Australia; Wendy Harmer was a rising star of the burgeoning Australian standup comedy circuit; Phillip Scott, an accomplished professional musician, had a background in musical cabaret, and wrote/co-wrote many of the shows's satirical musical numbers; Tracy Harvey came from a background in performance and comedy in Melbourne, including successful stints with popular Melbourne radio sports satire team Punter to Punter - which also launched the career of Greig Pickhaver, aka "HG Nelson" -, and its spin-off satirical country music group The Whittle Family; Geoff Kelso was well-established in radio comedy and was (with the late Lance Curtis) a central member of the team that created the popular Double J radio sci-fi parody Doctor Poo; Patrick Cook was already well known in Australia for his incisive satirical cartoons, and in particular for his notorious legal clash with Modernist architect Harry Seidler. In 1982 Cook published a mordant satirical cartoon that lampooned Seidler's work, depicting the "Harry Seidler Retirement Home" in which pensioners were confined in blank, tower-like enclosures, pierced by slots, through which the occupants were fed and their waste removed with shovels. Enraged by this perceived