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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

Alan Jones was at home at his luxury Circular Quay apartment yesterday morning when Child Abuse Squad detectives arrived to arrest him.

For nine months, police have been working on a top secret investigation. They’ve now charged Alan Jones with 24 offences, involving eight victims.

Among the charges are 11 of aggravated indecent assault where the victim was under the authority of the offender.

His arrest is the latest chapter in the downfall of one of Australia's most controversial figures, a man one of his alleged victims described as being “more powerful than the prime minister”.

Today, investigative reporter and author of Jonestown: the Power and Myth of Alan Jones, Chris Masters on the fall of one of Australia’s most powerful men, and what it tells us about the nature of power itself in this country.

It’s Tuesday, November 19.

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DANIEL:

Chris, thanks for speaking with me. Alan Jones has been arrested. Can you tell me why?

CHRIS:

I understand that he's been arrested on various charges of indecent assault.

I certainly have some knowledge of an inquiry that's been going on for some time. You know, the police came and interviewed me some time back. And, of course, there were witnesses from the book that I wrote, Jonestown, that was published back in 2006. And because I'm still in contact with them, I've heard that they've also been giving statements to the police. And in fact, one of them said to me last week, they thought that an arrest was imminent.

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 1:

“The police will allege these offences took place between 2001 and 2019, involving eight victims. The youngest of those victims was 17 year old when the time, at the time when the alleged offence took place.”

CHRIS:

And, of course, we're talking about allegations that nothing has yet been proved.

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 1:

“Those offences include 11 charges of aggravated indecent assault where the victim was under the authority of the offender. Nine charges related to assault with active indecency. Two charges of common assault. Two charges of sexual touching.”

CHRIS:

But, you know, there's been speculation about Jones, abuse of power and predatory behaviour that go back well before I wrote that book 20 years ago.

DANIEL:

Chris, you've reported extensively on things like the military on war crimes, most recently, Ben Roberts-Smith. But you also developed a long running interest in Alan Jones too. What first drew you to him as a subject?

CHRIS:

Yeah. My interest began in the early 2000. I've been reporting a lot on police corruption and I was quite surprised when I came to recognise that Jones had some power in law enforcement when he engaged in kind of a long running combat with the reformist Police Commissioner, Peter Ryan. It was brought in from the UK because there were lots of concerns about institutional corruption in the New South Wales police force. And Jones seemed to have a lot of allies that were anti Peter Ryan and Andy for the reform process. And I wondered about that and I worried about that. And I went and saw Alan Jones and we had a bit of a discussion. He didn't want to do an interview with me, but it was all very polite.

But essentially I came to the view that if my job was confronting abuse of power and I was seeing it in my own industry, then, at Four Corners in those days, you take a deep breath and the story you least want to do is the one you probably should do. I wouldn't have thought that when I began that in about 2002. I'd still be talking about it over 20 years later.

DANIEL:

So you ended up taking a deep dive into Alan Jones’ life. What can you tell us about his upbringing and how he became such a significant public figure in Australian life?

CHRIS:

He came from fairly humble circumstances. He was the son of a south east Queensland farmer, had a very small, impoverished block, really. His mother was a special person, she insisted that the children go to private schools, which must have been a stretch for them. And so Alan has this kind of cross-cultural background where on the one hand, they aligned himself with the working poor. But on the other hand, he also sort of felt comfortable with the elites, which had something to do with that Toowoomba Grammar School upbringing, I think.

He always was thought of as something of a boy genius, had youthful looks and he became tertiary educated. You know, he got a teacher's qualification. He taught at Ironside Primary. He then went on to teach at Brisbane Grammar. And that's where a lot of the problems began.

Jones seemed to be unduly interested in the young men. You heard stories about allegations of grooming, of Jones spending undue time with students, of Jones after athletics, massaging students, you know, having them shower, etc. in front of him, that sort of thing. He couldn't get away with it today. You know, you couldn't have a master in the car with the students until 2:00 in the morning, which is something that happened with Alan quite a bit.

In many respects, it was invaluable to the school because he was prepared to coach all of the sporting teams and to do the choir and drama and work late at night while other teachers with families were going home.

So he became invaluable, and I think that became a bit of a trick over the years, wherever he worked in politics, in broadcasting, or as an educator, he made himself kind of invaluable and in a way, untouchable.

DANIEL:

In the process of writing that book, he witnessed Jones's influence firsthand as the ABC decided not to publish the book at the last minute. What are your recollections from that time?

CHRIS:

Yeah, that was a really shocking experience for me. I'm still a bit shaken by it actually, because very proud of the ABC and I always thought the ABC was the place to go that would do the stories that others wouldn't do. I'd been through the Queensland police corruption experience, you know, where I was sued for something like 13 years. And I thought that the ABC was absolutely fearless. It didn't turn out to be the case.

My sense was that they decided that they were going to kill it by saying that it was just unpublishable, that the lawyer said that I couldn't back it up. But that wasn't the case. I kept providing their lawyers with the evidence that proved that what I'd written was defensible. In the end, I just gave up and said, sorry, we're not going to go ahead with this. And as it turned out, I went to a commercial publisher, Allen & Unwin, and they published the book.

Certainly he had friends in high places. Yes, a lot of influence was brought to bear.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break - how Alan Jones cultivated powerful friends and got what he wanted out of them.

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DANIEL:

How did Alan Jones cultivate these powerful friends? What does that look like in practice based on the research and reporting you did?

CHRIS:

I think it was, it was more that people feared him than respected him. The politicians would go on his show and if he didn't play ball, he beat them up. The people who kowtowed to Jones. And honestly, they told me this up close plenty of times. You know, “I'm not doing it, Chris, because I respect him. I'm doing it because I fear him. He can go on air and belt me up every day till the cows come home.” And and that's pretty much what he would do.

Audio Excerpt - Alan Jones:

“She's a clown, Jacinda Ardern. A complete clown. I just wonder whether Scott Morrison's going to be fully briefed to shove a sock down the throat. I mean, she is a joke, this woman, and an absolute and utter lightweight.”

Audio Excerpt - Alan Jones:

“Go away, Julia. We don't want to see you. We don't want to hear you climb into a chaff bag.”

CHRIS:

A lot of broadcasters, journalists. He was supposed to stay in our lane and most of them pretty much stick to the line. But not Alan. Alan pretty much saw himself as a prime minister in front of the microphone. He would tell prime ministers and premiers what to do unhesitantly all the time. And I suppose he got away with it because they let him.

But Every now and then, in a battle of wits, a lot of them could easily take him on. Malcolm Turnbull did it famously on one occasion.

Audio Excerpt - Alan Jones:

“If you could say after me this as a senior member of the Abbott government, I want to say here I am totally supportive of the Abbott Hockey strategy for budget repair.”

Audio Excerpt - Malcolm Turnbull:

“Alan, I am not going to take dictation from you. I am a cabinet minister.”

CHRIS:

But at the time, even though he might have bested Alan in front of the microphone, there was no upside in opposing him. You came off worse off at the end of the day because to Jones's audience, you know, you were the enemy.

It made me think that, you know, in one respect, he retained his omnipotence because of that microphone. One of the chapters in my book, Jonestown, was called Dictators and Tigers. And and I speculated way back then that Jones was riding a tiger. And as soon as he got off that tiger, it threatened to devour him. And of course, that's pretty much the way it's panned out.

DANIEL:

One of the men who spoke about his experiences said he did so because he doesn’t want Alan Jones to get away with it, that if people don’t know about this, Jones is likely to get the state funeral. He’ll get the Prime Minister at his funeral. What do you think Alan Jones’ legacy will be?

CHRIS:

I think there's a book in that, yeah. I think it's a really sad story, actually at the end of the day. I think he was a very, very lonely man.

I think it was awful for him to go back to that expensive apartment night after night and be essentially alone. I'm not sure that he had a lot of friends, but I think the worst thing about him is, his formula for success, the shock jock formula for success, which was to be strident, never sit on the fence, he'd say, because it only gives you splinters. The reverse index of certainty is how I explained it.

Alan Jones would be absolutely certain about issues where very little research was involved. And of course that was important. It was important if you were on air to be angry and forthright day in and day out. And that's an unfortunate formula for democracy and for our business. If we really believe in facts and if we believe it's about the pursuit of truth, then you don't follow the Jones formula. But sadly, I think a great many people have.

DANIEL:

Chris Masters, thank you so much for your time.

CHRIS:

Thank you.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today,

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe says she’ll use a paper copy of a censure motion against her ‘for kindling’.

The senator ripped up the motion passed by the Senate in response to Thorpe’s protest during King Charles’ visit. Thorpe claimed she’s not concerned about the motion, which passed without her in the room, and that when it came to protesting the king she would ‘do it again’.

Also censured was Senator Ralph Babet whose post celebrating Trump’s election victory contained a number of racist and offensive terms.

And, three million Australians are at risk of homelessness, a stark 63% increase compared to just eight years ago in 2016.

The finding was published in a new report which also found a nearly 10% increase in people who receive an income being forced to sleep in tents or cars due to the cost and availability of private rentals.

The report highlighted the ongoing crisis in youth, domestic and family crisis refuges, many too under resourced to answer phones or emails, with some even closing their doors during opening hours in order to deal with the growing demand.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.

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