Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 3: the nineteenth of November.
Speaker 1: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 3: Yesterday morning news broke that well known broadcaster Alan Jones
Speaker 3: had been arrested at his home in Sydney over alleged
Speaker 3: indecent assaults. Later in the day, police announced that he'd
Speaker 3: been charged with twenty four offenses. Now, this was a
Speaker 3: really big story because of who Alan Jones is and
Speaker 3: the power he's held in both media and political spheres
Speaker 3: in Australia for the past few decades.
Speaker 1: I think the identity of Alan Jones and the power
Speaker 1: that he holds is really at the heart of this
Speaker 1: story and why he's been such a permanent fixture in
Speaker 1: Australian media and political circles for so long. For anyone
Speaker 1: who is a quite across it, can you give me
Speaker 1: a sense of who Alan Jones is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I sat down to write this podcast,
Speaker 3: I thought I knew a lot about Alan Jones's career.
Speaker 3: You know, you're told these stories when you enter the
Speaker 3: industry about someone that had been there for years in
Speaker 3: years and years, but it turns out that he's had
Speaker 3: quite a unique career trajectory. So he's not someone that
Speaker 3: entered journalism straight out of university and then stayed there
Speaker 3: his whole career. Alan Jones, who right now is in
Speaker 3: his early eighties, he actually started his career as an
Speaker 3: English teacher and a rugby teacher at King's so the
Speaker 3: King's School in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Which is a really prestigious private school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And then in the mid seventies he moved
Speaker 3: into the political realm. He worked as a speech writer
Speaker 3: and then ran for pre selection in the seat of Damnero,
Speaker 3: which he subsequently lost, but that didn't deter him, and
Speaker 3: Alan Jones later ran for two different seats for the
Speaker 3: Liberal Party. He lost both of those as well, but
Speaker 3: he stayed in those it's kind of political spheres and
Speaker 3: later became a speechwriter for the then Liberal Prime Minister
Speaker 3: Malcolm Fraser. Then there was a bit of a switch
Speaker 3: up in his career and Alan Jones went back into
Speaker 3: the sporting world where he became the coach of the
Speaker 3: Wallabies in nineteen eighty three. But then he moved into
Speaker 3: broadcasting and it's there that Alan Jones's profile really began
Speaker 3: to grow, so he became a radio host on Sydney
Speaker 3: talkback radio stations to YUI and later two GB, and
Speaker 3: for decades he hosted those shows. He also regularly wrote
Speaker 3: opinion columns for news corps many newspapers and had a
Speaker 3: dedicated show on Sky News up until twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: And those shows that he was involved with, whether it
Speaker 1: be on radio, television or his working print, it did
Speaker 1: incredibly well. He was a very popular host. And yeah,
Speaker 1: some of those radio numbers were huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he held that number one spot for
Speaker 3: so so long, and so many politicians had their run,
Speaker 3: you know, facing off against Alan Jones on TWOGB. It
Speaker 3: was almost this rite of passage, I guess.
Speaker 1: But then I think the reason why a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners might be familiar with the name Alan Jones
Speaker 1: is not necessarily because of his media career. But when
Speaker 1: he's in the media.
Speaker 3: Himself, he certainly made and continues to make a lot
Speaker 3: of headlines himself. There are a number of controversies that
Speaker 3: Alan Jones himself was embroiled in, and he was a
Speaker 3: shock jock for decades, so you know, it was almost
Speaker 3: his trade to say shocking things. But I do want
Speaker 3: to just zero in, I guess on two of the
Speaker 3: more better known attacks that really defined the latter part
Speaker 3: of Alan Jones's media career. So the first was an
Speaker 3: attack he made against Australia's first and only female Prime Minister,
Speaker 3: Julia Gillard. So back in twenty twelve, he claimed Gillard
Speaker 3: should be put in a chaff bag and dumped at sea.
Speaker 3: He also suggested that her father, who at that time
Speaker 3: had recently passed, that he had died of shame. He
Speaker 3: later publicly apologized for those comments. But now, when people
Speaker 3: retrospectively look back on the Gillard prime ministership, those comments
Speaker 3: do feature very prominently and a lot of the kind
Speaker 3: of discourse around gender that emerged during that.
Speaker 1: Time, including her own analysis of how media treated her
Speaker 1: during that period.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, But that wasn't the only female leader of
Speaker 3: a country that Alan Jones targeted. More recently, he suggested
Speaker 3: that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison should have shoved
Speaker 3: a sock down the throat of former New Zealand Prime
Speaker 3: Minister Jasindra Dern. So that was in twenty nineteen. At
Speaker 3: the time, he also said that he hoped Scott Morrison
Speaker 3: quote gets tough here with a few backhanders, and that
Speaker 3: he goes for the throat. The Australian Media Regulator AKMA
Speaker 3: eventually found that Alan Jones had breached broadcasting rules when
Speaker 3: he said those things, and there was this real mass
Speaker 3: exodus of advertising partners from two GB in response to
Speaker 3: the comments he had made about Justindra Durn. Perhaps you
Speaker 3: know there. It's a really interesting analysis of how much
Speaker 3: had changed, I guess since twenty twelve when those comments
Speaker 3: were made about Julia Gillard to twenty nineteen when they
Speaker 3: were made about Jacindra Adern. Alan Jones eventually wrote an
Speaker 3: apology letter to Jasindra Adern and said on air that
Speaker 3: he had made a mistake.
Speaker 1: I think many would agree that the other big change
Speaker 1: from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen was the fact that
Speaker 1: advertisers started to pull their support from Alan Jones's program.
Speaker 1: That happened in twenty nineteen. A year later, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Alan Jones stepped down from hosting his show onto GB.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said at the time that that was due
Speaker 3: to doctors' orders. But the Citney Morning Herald, who you know,
Speaker 3: we'll get into it a little bit has written quite
Speaker 3: a lot about Alan Jones. In an article, they said
Speaker 3: that there was a commercial imperative for Alan Jones to
Speaker 3: get off air because advertisers had continued to boycott his
Speaker 3: show after the Arderne comments, and that it was becoming
Speaker 3: commercially basically unviable for him to remain on air with
Speaker 3: so many advertisers pulling away.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with the d dive after this quick message.
Speaker 1: So just to go back and recap, we have somebody
Speaker 1: involved in the school system who then enters politics, and
Speaker 1: then enters rugby, and then enters the media, makes controversial
Speaker 1: comments part of his personality, and then steps down in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. What's happened since then?
Speaker 3: After retiring from radio, as he put it, Alan Jones
Speaker 3: ended up joining a streaming news channel. It's called adh
Speaker 3: TV and it essentially just hosts a range of conservative
Speaker 3: political commentators, of which he was one of. His last
Speaker 3: show on that channel, though, was in November of last year,
Speaker 3: and that's an important date because a month later, in
Speaker 3: December of last year, the City Morning Herald published its
Speaker 3: first investigation into Alan Jones. Before we go on, though,
Speaker 3: I do want to just say how interesting this is,
Speaker 3: just as an aside about the Australian media market. Two GB,
Speaker 3: which is of course the station Alan Jones hosted a
Speaker 3: show on for so long, and the Cydny Morning Herald,
Speaker 3: who ran this investigation into Alan Jones, are owned by
Speaker 3: the same companies. So nine owns both two GB and
Speaker 3: the Sydney Morning Herald, alongside of course a whole host
Speaker 3: of different publications. But I thought that that's just an
Speaker 3: interesting quirk to keep in mind. So in that investigation
Speaker 3: that was first published in December twenty twenty three by
Speaker 3: The Sydney Morning Herald, journalist Kate McClymont alleged that Alan
Speaker 3: Jones quote used his position of power to prey on
Speaker 3: a number of young men indecently assaulting them, groping or
Speaker 3: inappropriately touching them without consent. So that's a direct quote
Speaker 3: from the article that went live almost a year ago.
Speaker 3: The article went on to detail a whole host of
Speaker 3: allegations made by a number of different men across a
Speaker 3: really kind of long period of time. When McClymont actually
Speaker 3: published that article, it did include a statement from Alan
Speaker 3: Jones's legal team who said at the time, our client
Speaker 3: denies ever having indecently assaulted the persons referred to in
Speaker 3: your letter, and your suggestion that he has is scandalous,
Speaker 3: grossly offensive and seriously defamatory of him.
Speaker 1: So the article comes out and Alan Jones and his
Speaker 1: legal team strongly deny claims in maintain his innocence. At
Speaker 1: that point, there's no kind of follow on from law
Speaker 1: enforcement or anything. But that's why we're talking about this today.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, exactly. So yesterday morning we found out that
Speaker 3: Alan Jones had been arrested at his home in Sydney
Speaker 3: over allegations that he had indecently assaulted young men. Now,
Speaker 3: a statement from police said that the state's Child Abuse
Speaker 3: Squad had established a strike force earlier this year in
Speaker 3: March to investigate a number of alleged indecent assaults and
Speaker 3: sexual touching incidents between two thousand and one and twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: That's a direct quote from the New South Wales Police's
Speaker 3: media release. The statement said that following extensive inquiries, an
Speaker 3: eighty three year old man had been arrested, who we
Speaker 3: now of course know is Alan Jones. New South Wales
Speaker 3: Police Commissioner Karen Webb said in a press comes that
Speaker 3: the arrest had followed what she called a very complex investigation.
Speaker 3: Here's a bit more of what she said.
Speaker 2: I can't speculate in this particular case, but what is
Speaker 2: often the case is when it is known the full
Speaker 2: circumstances and those parties involved, other people may come forward.
Speaker 2: And we are anticipating that other people may come forward.
Speaker 1: And Zara, do we know what Jones was actually charged with?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: So later yesterday New South Wales Police did get up
Speaker 3: and do another full press conference in the afternoon and
Speaker 3: they revealed that Alan Jones had been charged with twenty
Speaker 3: four offenses against eight victims between twenty and one and
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. So these are crimes that allegedly occurred over
Speaker 3: two decades. Police also revealed that the youngest of the
Speaker 3: victims was seventeen when the alleged crime took place. The
Speaker 3: charges include eleven counts of aggravated indecent assault where the
Speaker 3: alleged victim was under the authority of the offender, nine
Speaker 3: charges related to assault with active indecency, two charges of
Speaker 3: common assault, and two charges of sexual touching.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to one phrase you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: under the authority. What does that mean exactly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so police explain this, and essentially what they said
Speaker 3: was that by authority they were referring to the employment
Speaker 3: of contracts, so in a professional workplace setting, this wasn't
Speaker 3: something they had alleged had happened in all cases, but
Speaker 3: in some Police said that Jones knew some of the
Speaker 3: alleged victims personally, some of them professionally, and police said
Speaker 3: there were also some people who met Jones for the
Speaker 3: first time when the alleged assault occurred, but that reference
Speaker 3: to under the authority just means under contract.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what happens now, Well.
Speaker 3: Jones has been given conditional bail and he's due next
Speaker 3: to appear before court on December eighteenth this year, so
Speaker 3: in a couple of weeks. The conditions around the bail
Speaker 3: include requirements that he's not allowed to contact or harass
Speaker 3: the alleged victims, and there are also some travel restrictions
Speaker 3: on him. Interestinglyth Wales Police also said that that strikeforce
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier is still ongoing and that they're still
Speaker 3: talking to people and as we heard before, they are
Speaker 3: expecting more people to now potentially come forward. Police also
Speaker 3: said that they had seized a number of electronic devices
Speaker 3: at Alan Jones's apartment yesterday, So who knows where this
Speaker 3: could go.
Speaker 1: And have we heard from Jones or his lawyers since
Speaker 1: he was arrested.
Speaker 3: Yes So yesterday afternoon we did hear from Alan Jones's lawyers,
Speaker 3: and they've essentially said that he is denying all of
Speaker 3: the allegations and that he will assert his innocence. I
Speaker 3: read a direct quote here from a lawyer who said,
Speaker 3: allegations have been made, nothing has been tested, nothing has
Speaker 3: been proven. Alan Jones will assert his innocence appropriately in
Speaker 3: the courtroom, so as he did back when those allegations
Speaker 3: were first published by the Sidney Morning Herald. Jones will
Speaker 3: maintain his innocence.
Speaker 1: So the next big milestone in this story is that
Speaker 1: December eighteen date that you're referring to. Zara will keep
Speaker 1: everybody in the loop when that comes around. And thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us on the Daily OS this morning.
Speaker 1: If this story has raised anything for you, there's always
Speaker 1: one eight hundred respects to reach out to. They are
Speaker 1: available on one eight hundred seven three seven seven three
Speaker 1: to two. That's all we've got time for this morning,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back this afternoon with some headlines. Have
Speaker 1: a great day. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm
Speaker 1: a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkottin woman from Gadighl country. The
Speaker 1: Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the
Speaker 1: lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all
Speaker 1: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our
Speaker 1: respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past
Speaker 1: and present.