Alan Jones’ Motto Might be drawn from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who said: ‘What does not destroy me makes me stronger’. Jones’ ability to survive a range of near-death experiences might have led him to suspect he was indestructible and, perhaps, beyond sanction.
Over the next decade Jones’ power accelerated as he grew in a medium that was itself developing. Bob Carr was fascinated with talk radio, referring to it as an ‘electronic democracy’.1 John Howard would also favour the medium, explaining, ‘I think you get more out of this type of exchange than just about any other kind of media contact between a member of parliament and a journalist’.2
At its best, talk radio can have premiers and prime ministers answering directly to the electorate, giving ordinary Australians an improved sense of participation and belonging. Alan Jones believed politicians should listen to the people and saw his program as an ideal medium. A favourite form of praise he directs at politicians is that he or she is a ‘good listener’. ‘Radio has become the pulse of the city and if you want to understand the public you have to go to talkback radio’.3
An admirable feature of Alan Jones’ approach to radio is his attitude that he is there to do more than earn squillions. He uses his skills and influence as a social and political weapon. His power is wielded on behalf of wealthy mates, but also the weak. Alan Jones goes further than anyone I know in the media to help people with serious problems, as well as those whose storm water drains are blocked or who are struggling with their wheelie bin.
While other announcers adapted to the existing formula, Alan Jones adapted talk radio to himself. As such, although it has been tried, the Alan Jones Show is impossible to copy. He dislikes comparisons, loathing the ‘shock-jock’ pejorative, and even the milder description of ‘breakfast announcer’. Alan Jones does more than play music and read traffic reports. He also sees ‘talkback’ as an unfair term, as until 2005 the microphone was shared with listeners for less than a quarter of his time on air. Alan has been critical of commentators whose only qualification for public debate is a microphone. He was right in seeing himself as better qualified than many of his peers. Having coached the Wallabies and written speeches for a prime minister, Alan Jones’ breadth and intellect meant that in substance he towered over rivals.
‘I don’t tell people what to think. I ask them what they think.’4 He is not the only dogmatic radio host. The medium favours lively opinion. The audience relies on commentators to interpret as well as impart the news. Alan Jones was happy to service this need and be forthright with it. As a member of Jones’ team, Ross Geddes, put it, ‘He does people’s thinking for them’.5
‘When I started on radio I was told nobody would understand what you are talking about and I would say that’s why I’m talking about it.’6 While competitors took care to avoid the abstract and the boring, Alan took on any subject, confident of his ability to make sense and keep people listening.
2UE General Manager Nigel Milan was one of many colleagues to respect the pedagogue, seeing Alan Jones’ teaching background as important: ‘I mean we live in times of great change, particularly a lot of the older population are quite nervous about what they see happening around them. I think Jones has taken the big issues—things like globalisation—and broken it down to bite-sized pieces and I think that role as an educator has taken him into the confidence of the heart of Sydney.’7
Although he had some tutoring from experienced broadcasters such as John Brennan, Alan’s was never the mellifluous voice born to the turntable and microphone. Unlike other less successful broadcasters, Alan Jones has never acquired an exquisite sense of timing, which melds the components of a program in the way a conductor leads an orchestra. But after five years, his technical clumsiness and shrill delivery mattered more to work colleagues than to an audience increasingly impressed by his communication skills. So confident was he of his powers of persuasion, Alan Jones was happy to push a contrary and sometimes unpopular view. A 2UE colleague observed: ‘He’s become really good at being able to deny things, or believe in whatever he is telling himself’.
These communication skills had been grafted on to radio and journalism rather than crafted in. Alan Jones has never had a journalist’s grounding in identifying fact and essaying balance. He has never come with a reverse gear. The absence of neutral, as well, seemed less of a concern in a medium that favours certainty. While this was a more critical weakness, again his audience rarely complained. Alan Jones compensates to a degree through his reliance on village voice feedback. Another favourite saying is ‘my listeners are my best researchers’. While he breaks many rules journalists are trained to observe, he also breaks a lot of stories experienced journalists miss.
Just as there were many positive features to the Alan–talk radio alliance, there were also negatives. Radio has its own structural weaknesses, the pressure of immediacy settling awkwardly on a poor research base. There are not the resources to undertake extensive inquiries, let alone check the provenance of every caller. There is a kind of reverse index of certainty that anchors firm opinion to fragile evidence. As was seen in the Greiner campaign of 1988, the formula can easily be manipulated.
Although his team would expand, in 1989 Alan Jones had three people to help with a busy program. The amount of information covered meant they were forever scrambling. The combination of hard opinion and soft research would land Jones and 2UE in a lot of trouble. As a 2UE colleague observed, ‘His worst quality is his lack of judgement. If he has four people in the room and has to pick one he always picks the worst one. He is very easily influenced by pressure groups. He gets four letters and says it is a torrent. He goes on air on the flimsiest of evidence.’
While newspapers are content with one or two editorials, Alan Jones’ opinion threads through the entire program like one long editorial. The format, established in 1987, has largely stayed its course. Alan Jones would come on air at 5.30 am and deliver a daily news summary prepared by one of his producers. After the hourly news bulletins he presented a more formal editorial, which was either written for him, prepared in sketch form or was his own work. He had an early talkback segment, a prerecorded segment called ‘It Happened Today’, a report from a UK correspondent and a sports report. During one of the news broadcasts he would prerecord editorials for broadcast on some of the stations syndicated to 2UE.
Sydney listeners could tune their morning to it. At 2GB, as at 2UE, he does his main editorial after the 7 am news. The feature interview is scheduled for the slot when the biggest audience is listening, approximately 7.15 am. There are more news and traffic bulletins, more interviews and a finance report. Between 8 and 8.30 am he has his more entertainment-based interviews and the US report. All through the morning there is a sprinkling of jokes and community bulletin board announcements. The last half-hour before 9 am has more talkback. A half-hour version of the program’s highlights was later packaged for broadcast the following morning between 5 and 5.30 am. In 2005 his 2GB program extended to 10 am, doubling the talkback component.
While journalists might spend days on a single story, Alan Jones deals with dozens of stories in a single day. Having to cover so much territory, with so little opportunity to filter the facts, has not impaired his confidence and righteousness. There are very few corrections and apologies. Over the years, Alan Jones on his own has occupied more space on the defamation list of the New South Wales Supreme Court than entire broadcasting and publishing organisations.
From the beginning of his radio career he was critical of Australia’s defamation laws, seeing them as ‘intimidating and inhibiting’.8 He also accepted that an impulsive medium allowed him to ‘go over the top’ sometimes. When asked whether he had ever regretted saying something on air, Alan Jones told Maggie Tabberer: ‘Oh well, I suppose the lawyers would think I should have … the answer to that is yes. I think you should avoid being personal … you are there and you are saying things all the time and you don’t have time to have a committee meeting … sometimes I am sure I have said things that might have hurt people or were inaccurate.’9
In this respect Alan Jones was a nightmare for bosses and production staff. ‘Ah the defamation half-hour. That’s the first half-hour of the show,’ one colleague explained: ‘… the producers provide him with a list of all the events of the last 24 hours and he adlibs around them. The amount he adlibs is dictated by how tired he is. When he didn’t get much sleep the night before, that’s when he would say whatever came into his head. He never ever took the opportunity to consult with our inhouse lawyers on any possible dangerous legal matter. There’s a cowboy element to it. He’s convinced himself he’s doing the right thing so he just goes ahead and says it.’
A frustrated executive went further: ‘He just cannot admit he has made a mistake. To manage him you would have to work out how to provide him with a door, the theory being that no matter what the problem is, Jones has a way of walking out on the problem. He would defame people … And the station would have to pick up the tab for those defamation payouts. It is not that he doesn’t think the law applies to him. He honestly believes in what he is saying at the time. I think it stems from the “closet” attitude.’
Alan Jones has a contract, standard for many broadcasters, indemnifying him against ‘all loss, cost, damage and expense’ suffered as a result of litigation. This covered his first major action, heard in 1989, which flowed from an October 1986 interview with NRMA President James Milner. During the interview, one of Milner’s fellow candidates for re-election, David Parker, was defamed. It was alleged in court that Jones said Parker was ‘disastrously unsuitable’ and would waste NRMA money if elected. Parker led evidence to show that before the broadcast, directors of the NRMA gave Jones a transcript of a mock interview, which Jones closely followed, doing most of the talking. The court noted that Jones’ words ‘formed 174 out of the 244 lines of the transcript’.10
Alan Jones’ interviewing style evolved in keeping with his approach to dialogue. Journalists are taught to avoid asking questions that attract a yes/no response. Jones takes the opposite approach, stating a proposition and inviting a single-word reply. He is happy to take over the discussion if the interviewee is not up to the pace. Alan Jones is not so much at home in the witness box, in that the witness can’t control the dialogue. The answers matter and so does logic. David Parker was awarded damages in excess of $70 000. 2UE appealed, secured a retrial, and such is the agonisingly slow timetable of the defamation system, almost two decades later, in 2003, the matter was still unresolved when David Parker died.
Alan Jones’ regular appearances before the defamation court do not seem to have deterred him. It may be that he believes in standing up for his stories and subjects or, as one colleague thought, it may be that he does not care. ‘He’s not interested in abiding by the law, contempt, defamation, etc … If he thinks that it will make him look good in the eyes of the audience he will go ahead regardless. He knows that the radio station will pay up.’
It is true that the station mostly covers the bill, but the costs of attenuated litigation are not measured in monetary terms alone. The process can be wearing and Alan Jones can find the experiences stressful. One month after the David Parker case Alan Jones was in hospital after chest pains forced upon him an unusual break. He was taken to the cardiac unit of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where it was found he was suffering from a virus rather than a heart ailment. Doctors advised rest and he was off work for two days. Ian Wallace, the station manager, said the pains were a result of ‘overwork and a lot of stress. The guy works 20 hours out of 24, seven days a week. He’s a workaholic.’11
While the campaigns he undertook carried a cost there was also a benefit. The Alan Jones Show needed forward momentum. Argument and controversy are the meat and drink of such a show, which turn into a feast if the issue is ongoing. Midway through 1989, Alan Jones picked up the Andrew Kalajzich case. Its elements—wealth, murder and intrigue—came with a human-interest guarantee. Since the murder of Megan Kalajzich in 1986, Alan Jones had paid little attention to the prosecution of her husband Andrew. His on air commentary had thus far condemned the multimillionaire ‘King of Manly’, who in 1988 was found guilty of commissioning the murder of his wife.
In May 1989 Andrew Kalajzich’s appeal to the Supreme Court failed. Retaining a fighting fund in the order of $100 million, Kalajzich employed his former hotel manager, Merrill Barker, to work full time on a campaign to overturn the conviction. Merrill Barker’s team wanted maximum media exposure and discussed approaching Harry Miller. Barker worked from the city office of Kalajzich’s accountant, John Thomas, who also managed some of Alan Jones’ financial affairs.
In June 1989, partly in response to Jones’ criticism, Andrew Kalajzich wrote a letter pleading his innocence and complaining that his own lawyers had let him down. He told Alan Jones: ‘Due to legal advice I did not speak with the media and I have paid the penalty’. Kalajzich also pointed out their mutual friend in John Thomas.
According to Merrill Barker, midway through 1989, Barker, Jones, Thomas and Andrew’s brother Tony Kalajzich met and discussed the case. Alan Jones made a suggestion. He recommended they employ a young man, Tim Barton, who had done research for Jones.12 Like Alan Jones before him, Tim Barton was a slim, artistic youth from a bush background who built himself into a competitive athlete. Alan Jones had known him since the early 1970s when he coached Barton in athletics at The King’s School. After leaving King’s, Barton studied law, qualified as a solicitor in 1986 and was looking for a home for his skills beyond the occasionally oppressive cloisters of the legal industry.
Alan Jones advised Merrill Barker that Tim Barton’s research could have the mutual benefit of assisting Kalajzich and informing Jones. When Jones and Kalajzich later met at Parklea Gaol, Tim Barton came along. In July 1989, the Kalajzich team accepted Alan Jones’ suggestion and put Tim Barton on the payroll. Barton was to receive approximately $50 000 per annum plus expenses.
In that same month Alan Jones swung to Kalajzich’s support. Although I did not know it at the time, our paths had crossed over the Andrew Kalajzich case. Similarly intrigued and harbouring some doubts about the conviction, I had also made my way to Parklea Gaol. It always was a puzzling murder. The triggerman, Bill Vandenberg, inept and faint-hearted, seemed an unlikely assassin. His suicide in gaol in May 1989 raised more questions about why a multimillionaire who had everything but an apparent motive would arrange so clumsily to have his wife murdered. But you need more than suspicion to take on a serious investigation. Without fresh evidence, only the vain and foolhardy think they know better than the courts. When such evidence proved unforthcoming, I set the Kalajzich file aside, at the very time Alan Jones ploughed ahead. In doing so, I am unaware of any single clue, objective fact or chain of logic that led him to reverse his former opinion and move to the view that Kalajzich was a worthy cause.
Alan Jones might also have been motivated by a desire to prosecute, on air, a big case that would demonstrate his capacity to extend the talk radio horizon and prove that he was more than a shock jock. He began to cite cases such as Lindy Chamberlain’s as evidence of the fallibility of the justice system. Perhaps hidden, Morse code-like, was a signal that his own London experience had parallels.
The appointment of Tim Barton to the Kalajzich team marked the beginning of a five-year on air campaign to clear the convicted murderer. Only the faintest of Chinese walls separated Alan Jones from a conflict of interest, and to his partiality there was no partition. Tim Barton would now supply Jones with information paid for by Kalajzich in order to help Kalajzich. Jones did not disclose to his listeners that the information he relied upon was funded by Kalajzich. Nor did his employer know of the arrangement. The hours of prime time radio devoted to clearing Kalajzich would be worth a fortune.
Unusually free of sporting commitments in this period, Alan Jones had more time for radio. He seemed to wish it otherwise, but hopes of returning to the Wallabies further diminished when, in 1989, Ross Turnbull’s long run as chairman of the New South Wales Rugby Union came to an end. Under Turnbull’s watch the disastrous Concord Oval scheme left debts of around $20 million. As Peter FitzSimons wrote: ‘Even though Turnbull had loaned the Union a million dollars of his own money to see the NSWRU out of the muck, it had not saved his reputation when it came to rugby administration’.13
The new administration was no more impressed with Ross Turnbull than with Alan Jones, who now abandoned his 1988 pledge to keep a dignified silence about the performance of successor Bob Dwyer. In June, Dwyer’s Wallabies narrowly lost a home Test against the British Isles and were again beaten by New Zealand. An Alan Jones’ Sun Herald column listed Bob Dwyer’s errors, conspicuous among them a failure to select Brian Smith. At this stage Brian Smith was still at Oxford. Unable to crack a spot in the Australian team, he achieved a rare honour of becoming a dual international. In 1989, Brian Smith was made an honorary Irishman when he was controversially selected into the Irish national team.
At different ends of the earth, at 2UE and Oxford, witnesses observed Alan Jones exercising a measure of remote control, the fax machine working overtime. A broadcasting studio is one of those places where it pays to hold your tongue as well as your temper, as there are live microphones about. Recordings of many a temper tantrum live on. ‘We still can’t send a bloody fax at 2UE. It’s unbelievable. Every other bastard in Sydney can send a fax except 2UE. Christ, it’s unreal. Anyone would think sending a fax machine was like putting a man on the moon. Jesus Christ I mean there are 11 year olds sending faxes around the country but two days in a row we can’t get a fax right … Mate, I send faxes every day to Oxford and London and I have schoolkids send them back to me.’14 A long-suffering 2UE colleague noticed that Alan Jones’ informal coaching extended to informal tutoring of his protégé. ‘He would fax his assignments to Alan and Jones would fill them out and fax them back and Brian would rewrite them.’
In 1989 Brian Smith was elected captain of the Oxford rugby team. This was good news for Alan Jones’ coaching aspirations, as it as much as guaranteed no repetition of the 1988 dumping. An Australian bloc of support for Alan Jones had expanded. As well as international Troy Coker, Morgan Jones, a handy front rower and brother Bob’s son, was also now at Oxford, thanks to Uncle Alan. Queensland fly half Kent Bray and former Warringah second rower and Rothmans Medal winner James Fewtrell were further benefactors.
James Fewtrell and others refer to the funding organised by Alan Jones as the Britcorp Scholarship. Britcorp Finance was the company established by accountant John Thomas and used for the offshore arbitrage trading of his major client, Andrew Kalajzich. Alan Jones, another of Thomas’s high profile clients, also had access to the trustee entity. Jones evidently instructed the accountant to make the payments through Britcorp. When asked in gaol whether he had also contributed to the Britcorp scholarships, Andrew Kalajzich said he had no knowledge of the scheme.
The brash behaviour of some of the Australians and the long shadow of Alan Jones had further cooled relations at Oxford. Foreign takeovers of sports like rugby and rowing long strained goodwill at the university, sometimes making even the foreigners uncomfortable. New Zealander David Kirk, conscious of the sensitivities, had yielded the captaincy to an Englishman in the preceding year. Now he wrote to Brian Smith cautioning him about the need for diplomacy. Smith told Kirk to take his ‘nose out from where it wasn’t wanted’.15
Towards the end of 1989, the prospect of Alan Jones returning to coaching further improved. Beyond the Oxford gig, Alan was reported to be in negotiations with the North Sydney Bears. It would have been a big step; switching codes would cut off all possibility of a return to Rugby Union, the Bears being a Rugby League team.
Meanwhile, the potential for a vacancy at the Wallabies also improved. Alan Jones’ nemesis, Bob Dwyer, was struggling. In November the Wallabies played two Tests in France, winning one and losing one. On air Jones described Dwyer’s record as ‘abysmal’. He was reported as claiming that Bob Dwyer was squandering talent and performing even worse than he had done in his first term as coach.16
In the same month, the researcher recommended by Jones, Tim Barton, and a former police officer turned private detective, Duncan McNab, took off on a world trip in search of evidence to help Kalajzich. The witnesses they approached included a Canadian ballistics expert and a New York fortune-teller. Alan Jones was in touch with Andrew Kalajzich at the time, warning him of the importance of keeping an independent eye on the legal team and their fees. The new team had wanted to release Barton, but Jones successfully implored Kalajzich to keep him on.
When the radio year ended in December, Alan Jones also headed for the northern hemisphere, arriving in London to continue his coaching of Oxford in person. Some of the players wondered why this should be necessary. Brian Smith already had substantial coaching support in, among others, a later World Cup winning coach, Clive Woodward. But the Oxford captain is all-powerful and Smith wanted Jones.
After his arrival, one of the players remembers a series of ‘ponderous speeches’. They did not do the trick. On 12 December Oxford failed to find its rhythm. As The Times of London reported: ‘They [Oxford] had trailed throughout yet, at 13–18, stood poised to seize the initiative with a scrum on the Cambridge line when Jones, their Australian prop [and Alan’s nephew] went in with boot raised at a ruck which had ended. He was penalized.’17 Cambridge went on to score and win the match. Oxford’s controversial and unexpected loss drew more negative attention to the Aussies.
A subsequent episode was even more damaging to Alan Jones’ relationship with his favourite university as well as any reputation he might have had for selfless conduct. A week after the game, the team began the process of selecting their captain for the following season. Considerable prestige is attached to the role. There are sponsored international tours and the captain selects the coach.
Alan Jones wanted Troy Coker, and with a strong voting bloc of seven sponsored players (five Australians and two members of the United States Eagles rugby team), he looked like getting his way. He might have too, but for a dilemma facing one scholarship holder, James Fewtrell. The lofty young Australian, grateful to Alan Jones for a life-changing experience, was enjoying his time at Oxford. He understood the Britcorp Scholarship came with no strings attached. He further understood the other scholarship holders were pushing for Troy Coker.
James Fewtrell’s problem was that he saw Irish flanker Mark Egan as a better candidate. When Jones telephoned, telling him to vote for Coker, Fewtrell explained his position. He recalls being told to vote for Coker or his scholarship would be withdrawn. The other scholarship holders applied further pressure, claiming their allowances were also at risk. Seeking advice from his father, Fewtrell was told to vote for the best man.
Despite the Alan Jones’ voting bloc, Mark Egan was comfortably elected. When James Fewtrell next checked at an ATM, he found Alan Jones apparently true to his word. His allowance had not come through. When he explained what had happened to the Dean of St Anne’s College, there was a firm telephone call put through to Alan Jones. Fewtrell’s scholarship was restored and Jones’ term as guest coach at Oxford came to an end. Within the tight-knit rugby world those who doubted the strength of Jones’ altruism exchanged knowing glances. The affair supported suspicion of self-interest among those who wondered whether Alan’s idea of strength of character meant obedience to Alan’s will.
Alan Jones often talks in glowing terms of the fine young men he has helped develop into good and decent Australians. Although Fewtrell did not please, his stand qualifies him for higher praise. When James Fewtrell, now a communications manager at Canon Australia, told his story he insisted upon acknowledging his gratitude for Jones’ help with his Oxford education.18
In 1990 Alan Jones’ credit in the rugby world slipped a further notch. Not that he saw it that way. When he was asked to contribute to an official program for the 1990 French Tests, a series of exchanges between the publisher and Jones’ solicitors followed. The sticking point was how Jones would be introduced. Alan’s counsel argued for ‘Australia’s most successful coach’. No agreement was reached and the article was scrapped.19
Away from his football family, Alan Jones was incomplete. At the dinner table, friends had their ears bashed about the failings of the incumbent coach. So relentless and remorseless was the Jones rant, one diner remembers getting up to take Panadol. An Ita profile was more sympathetic: ‘… when he talks about football you can hear the frustration in his voice. You know he believes that he could do better. And he probably could. But like so many successful Australians he has his fair share of knockers; and the mediocre who control so much of our country cannot understand or appreciate such an entrepreneurial thinker.’20
Bob Dwyer, on notice with the selectors, was reappointed Wallabies’ coach. The two-year contract meant Alan Jones had no hope of recontesting the following year’s Rugby World Cup. Speculation that he might switch codes intensified. While the North Sydney Bears’ vacancy had closed, a new one with the Balmain Tigers was about to open. Sydney Morning Herald reporter Roy Masters asked: ‘Would you consider the Balmain coaching position if offered it?’ Alan Jones replied: ‘My philosophy in life is that you don’t close doors on anything and if one is asked something it is always churlish not to give an appropriate consideration. It’s very hypothetical. I haven’t been asked.’21
The appointment had a lot of appeal to Alan Jones’ biggest fan at 2UE, program director John Brennan, who was also one of Balmain’s biggest fans. An extra benefit was the connection of Jones to the common man’s code, Rugby League. The additional exposure had the potential to extend an audience that was already growing. So too were station profits and Alan’s income.
By now Harry Miller had negotiated a cut of advertising revenue. The bigger the audience, the more sponsors were prepared to pay Alan Jones to boost their products. Like other announcers, Alan got a percentage of the ‘live’ reads, which advertisers often feel worth the additional standard 20 per cent premium because of the implied endorsement. In 1990 Alan received $50 per read. When 2UE sent him his fortnightly cheque of around $30 000, 20 per cent had already been deducted for Miller.
The advertising deals exposed another structural weakness. Alan Jones did not have time to do the due diligence on every product he promoted. He would tell his staff how much it annoyed him to advertise untruths, which is exactly what occurred. In the early months of 1990, the investment company Estate Mortgages was quietly going broke. In order to lure further investors, the company embarked on a noisy $6 million advertising campaign. The Alan Jones Show, with its high proportion of self-funded retirees, delivered a valuable target audience. Estate Mortgages ran advertisements promising guaranteed returns of 18 per cent.
Alan Jones plugged Estate Mortgages investments almost to the day the Victorian Corporate Affairs Commission declared a moratorium, freezing investments.22 The company was found to owe banks around $170 million. Jones’ listeners were among those caught. Alan Jones, who claimed he too had been stung, was embarrassed. ‘I investigated it. I even minuted all the details I was told. I was constantly assured there was nothing wrong. There’s a limit to what you can find out.’ At least one listener was angry, telling Alan on air: ‘The power you have on radio, myself and my friends have invested in Estate Mortgages. We accepted your credibility and we are going to go down the tube.’23 The Estate Mortgages saga would be repeated 17 years later with the collapse of Fincorp, which Alan Jones also endorsed, describing it as ‘a great Australian company’. Returns of 11.75 per cent were spruiked. Seven thousand eight hundred mostly retired investors lost over $200 million. This time Alan Jones blamed the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, dismissing the corporate regulator as ‘not worth two bob’.
The same weakness in professional discipline proved a problem in relation to legal as well as financial matters. In his program on 9 July Alan Jones spoke of an ex police officer, John Killen, being tried on a charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The next day he also interviewed a former member of the drug squad, Paul Kenny, about matters to be canvassed during the trial. The following day, because of potential prejudice to the case, the jury was discharged and the trial aborted. When contempt charges against Alan Jones and 2UE were eventually heard, the court found: ‘At the time of committing the contempts, 2UE had no systematic procedures in operation designed to minimise the risk of contempts being committed by either their own employees in the course of the broadcasts or persons being interviewed during such broadcasts’.24
Despite his claims of thoroughness, Alan Jones could be extremely sloppy. One of the most famous examples of cavalier negligence emerged in a newspaper column in August 1990. Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Alan Jones wrote of the world running out of oil, quoting an alleged US report: ‘The American response to cheap oil has been increased demand, higher crude and product imports and shrinking domestic production. Even if America started now with a crash program, massive investment and big scale federal incentives, it would take 10 years to rebuild the human skill pool, remanufacture or mobilise the machinery and execute the work to bring our now total reliance on the Middle East back to manageable proportions.’25
There is irony in the story of how he was caught. A Manly dentist, Alan Marel, had learned to read Alan Jones with a critical eye. Marel, having been taught English by Jones at The King’s School, was one of the circle of doubters who knew the story of Jones castigating a boy for following crib notes that Jones was also supposed to have used.
You might say it was karma when Marel pondered over a phrase in Jones’ column: ‘gas-guzzling inefficiency’. It did not sound like Australian terminology, and he thought he had read it before. He walked to a shelf and pulled out a book, The Negotiator, by Frederick Forsyth. On page 15 he found the same ‘gas-guzzling’ reference, and soon after an account of the US report. The lines he read were identical to those in the Sun Herald. A primary sin of journalism is to fudge a source. The offence is aggravated when the source turns out to be drawn from a work of fiction.
Alan Marel, no fan of Alan Jones but no hater either, wrote a letter to the Sun Herald. When, weeks later, there was still no reply, Marel informed the ABC TV program Media Watch. On 27 August Stuart Littlemore’s lead segment was the crib from Frederick Forsyth. Littlemore began speaking of the classic problem of the ‘quasi journalist, who works in the medium but is not bound by the disciplines and collegiate standards’. As he would do on later occasions in court, the lawyer and media critic comprehensively unstitched Alan Jones.
Alan Jones’ trade unionist father Charlie (centre) was a proud supporter during his son’s failed bid as Liberal candidate for the New South Wales seat of Earlwood in 1978. (ABC Document Archives)
Alan Jones’ judgement was found wanting when he dressed in Greek costume to woo voters. A senior Liberal heard ‘lead balloons landing all over the place’. (Newspix/Will Burgess)
‘You’ve worn the green and gold and that makes you special’, said Alan Jones. He was proud to wear his nation’s colours when appointed Wallabies coach in 1984. (Fairfaxphotos/Ian Cugley)
Alan Jones and the Wallabies undertook choir practise before the Grand Slam tour in 1984. Maybe it was the Welsh in him or his ambition to sing opera. (Newspix)
Without a script or notes at his audition behind the 2UE mircrophone in 1985, Alan Jones ‘blew them away’. (Newspix/Steve Brennan)
The 1986 Bledisloe Cup victory in New Zealand was a crowning achievement. Peter Grigg and a shirtless Nick Farr-Jones flank their coach. (Newspix)
But there were soon costs to team relations. By 1987, Alan Jones lost the support of star winger David Campese, among others, and by 1988 his prized coaching position. (Newspix/Philip Brown)
Worse was to follow. Jones’ arrest in a London public toilet in December 1988 was so shattering there was concern back at 2UE that he might commit suicide. He is seen here on his way to Marlborough Street Court. (Newspix/John Hartigan)
Friends rushed to his side. From left: Brendan Mullin, Brian Smith, Ross Turnbull, John Fordham and John Brennan. (Newspix)
What does not kill me makes me stronger. After all charges were dropped, Alan was on the front foot improving his fitness, building his audience and accepting a new coaching position with the Balmain Tigers. (Newspix/Iain Gillespie)
The Jones Midas touch was reversed in rugby league. Alan Jones had long treated his football teams as family, but at Balmain the ‘family’ became dysfunctional. (Newspix/Barry McKinnon)
Various attempts were made to settle a toxic rivalry between Alan Jones and radio colleague John Laws. All failed. Laws would chide Jones in writing: ‘…you are starting to give megalomania a bad name.’ (Newspix/Michael Perini)
In 1993, following a public debate about comments made by Alan Jones on aboriginal issues, this poster appeared on King Street Newtown (near his home), outside 2UE and along Oxford Street, Sydney’s gay beat. (Private collection)
Alan Jones’ radio success did not translate to television. Network Ten’s Alan Jones Live ran for 13 weeks. His first guest, Federal MP Bronwyn Bishop, was described by one critic as an ‘unforgivable choice‘. (Newspix/Bob Barker)
The next day Harry Miller was again in damage control mode, telling the media it was all ‘just a lot of gobbledegook’.26 Fairfax staff, probably unaware that the error had already been pointed out to management, began a petition to have Alan Jones dismissed. The Jones dictum ‘my listeners are my best researchers’ was looking a little ragged when he blamed a member of his audience he later determined to be ‘eccentric’, and read on air a prepared statement:27 ‘I’ll accept that I was deceived and was wrong’. He argued that plenty of journalists are similarly fooled, citing Murdoch Press’s publication of the fake Hitler diaries.
On 31 August, four days after the Media Watch report, the Sun Herald announced that the Alan Jones column would cease. The separation from the Sundays proved temporary. A few years later, another one-page column, ‘To the Point’, began to appear in the rival Sunday Telegraph.
2UE colleagues, impressed by Alan Jones’ intelligence, could not understand why he would plagiarise. Like his manager, Alan Jones was unrepentant, seeing any small measure of discredit overwhelmed by his many good deeds. ‘While someone was belittling me on television I at least can rest in the knowledge that along with John Singleton, the Prime Minister, Normie Rowe, Judy Stone and some of Australia’s greatest athletes, I was helping raise one million dollars for Special Olympians at Sydney’s Sheraton Hotel’.28 At the same time he was also assisting Nyngan flood victims. In the same month as the Media Watch flogging, the Variety Club thanked Alan Jones for helping raise $150 000.
With Jones the number one drawcard of Harry M Miller’s Speakers Bureau, the mail was full of invitations. Miller said that if Jones gave up all his other work there would be enough speaking engagements to keep his star busy seven days a week. On top of his 2UE income Alan received about $250 000 a year for the oratorical overtime.
There was occasional controversy about some engagements, such as his $45 000 fee to give a dozen motivational speeches to New South Wales prison officers. Having been arranged by Alan’s friend and Corrective Services Minister, Michael Yabsley, assurances were sought in parliament that Jones was not being bribed.29 But the charity and sporting events were undertaken for free, Alan sometimes covering his own travel expenses and making his own donations.
At the microphone Alan Jones was often at his best, rising to the occasion no matter how tired he might have been. Although audience reactions tended to be mixed, those who liked him were seriously impressed. Alan worked from minimal notes, appearing to extemporise most of what he said. When one enraptured listener asked for his secret, the speaker explained: ‘I have to tell you I had no idea what I was going to do … and I never think about what I’m going to say until I get there. That may be a good or bad thing. However, I usually seem to manage, somehow.’30
Alan Jones was becoming more comfortable addressing a large audience than speaking one on one. His drivers and minders were taught to shield him from unscheduled confrontations as the crowd assembled. He seemed to prefer a routine that delivered him a touch late. Up on his feet before the hush he was in his element, poised to deliver in the favoured James Joyce stream of consciousness style. Like many regular speakers, Alan’s addresses generally followed the same pattern, with adjustments made to suit the occasion. One journalist, describing him as a master of the art, requested a tip on how he did it: ‘… the generous Jones asked me if I thought Shirley Bassey changed her act every night because she didn’t want to bore people. As I was wondering what on earth he meant, Jones gave me a pearl of wisdom: “Change the audience, don’t change the act”.’31
While the applause was stimulating, and Alan Jones had the support of people to research and even write for him, the constant stream of requests amplified fatigue. ‘Even though it’s apparent that Alan is worn out, pressured and in need of rest, his mates ask him to coach football teams or speak at fund raising dinners. He sighs. The difficulty is that sometimes people whom you most expect to understand how complicated it is, are often the very ones who make it infinitely more difficult.’32 There was a similar lament in the Sunday Telegraph : ‘Yes I do get tired, he says, rubbing his eyes. It’s been a very difficult year in so many ways. I’ve chopped a lot back but I find it hard to say no to people. There are just so many good causes.’33
Jones felt the media was not just unappreciative but spiteful because he was not in the journalists’ ‘club’. ‘There is a lot of jealousy in all of this which is very sad. It’s sad that some people live their lives resenting the fact that others might have done well. You see the perception is that I’ve sort of got things in too much of a hurry. I mean I worked for a Prime Minister and I coached a First Grade Rugby Union side without ever having coached a second grade, third grade or fourth grade. We won a premiership in our first attempt and then I coached Australia and I had never coached any other representative side. And we won. Then I came into radio and I’d never been in radio before and I beat people that had been in radio forever.’34
At the end of 1990, Alan was walloped again by a story that did not make the news. He later recounted that in November, while driving across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, he had a premonition his 84-year-old dad was going to die. ‘Alan asked his secretary to book him on the next flight to Brisbane. At home, packing for an extended stay, he rang his father’s doctor. He won’t get a telegram from the Queen but he’s fine, the doctor told him. There’s no reason to hurry home. But Alan says, at 4 pm the nursing sister rang to say my father had just died.’35
As Charlie might have said himself, there was a ‘good turnout’ at the Redcliffe funeral. Friends such as Veronica Fordham flew up from Sydney. Cousin Les Thompson said when Alan spoke he excused himself, explaining that this important occasion would be one of the rare ones when he would refer to notes. Robert Jones, who had risen through the ranks as an educator, was matter-of-fact, just like his dad, going off in his suit afterwards to help organise a GPS athletics meet. His younger brother hopped back on a plane heading south, returning to the microphone, where he would keep the memory of Charlie alive for many years to come.
At least there was now a new football family to welcome him. Throughout the year negotiations had continued with the Balmain Rugby League Club, which was about to replace its coach. Alan Jones said that, as at Manly, the initiative for his move began with players, such as League international Steven (Steve) Roach and Rugby Union convert James Grant. A meeting then followed with club officials at Jones’ home, where Alan accepted the coaching appointment for no fee.
A range of pictures from the notably friendly coverage showed Alan looking happy. Photographed in a tracksuit on a walking machine, he said, ‘I think you should sweat every day. It’s fantastic. I used to go to the gym every day, but now I run on this machine at home. It measures things like calorie loss and it’s quite tough.’36 The move seemed a way of bringing his life back into balance, as well as extending his populist reach.
Alan was again quickly on the front foot. At the 1990 Rawards, the commercial radio industry voted Alan Jones ‘Australian Talk Personality of the Year’. The last surveys of 1990 showed the ratings had again improved, although Doug Mulray on 2MMM still had more listeners. But Alan Jones’ expanding demographic, the weakness of competition for his older audience, and his own unique abilities meant the gap was closing. The Forsyth saga and the Estate Mortgages debacle had inflicted no harm where it mattered. And Alan Jones was in credit with more than his own audience. His many acts of charity advanced goodwill, as well as a sense of indebtedness. Serious weaknesses in the medium and in Alan Jones were of little concern to devotees, and of considerable interest to those who could make use of a clever and amoral pamphleteer. Despite Alan’s now more conspicuous flaws, the steady rise of the demagogue was sustained.