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