Alan talks to the Tax Commissioner about the state and future of the tax system
For decades, power protected Alan Jones. Now he’s facing his own reckoning
Once The Man Who Ran Sydney, Jones’ grip loosened as society changed, and he refused to change with it. By Jordan Baker
NOVEMBER 23, 2024
Back when he lived in Newtown, Alan Jones had a wall covered in photographs of himself with the Pick and Stick crew. There were football players, political allies, celebrities and billionaires; the “Moses of the airwaves” had cultivated a powerful fellowship over his first 20-odd years on air, and still had half his radio career to run. Yet even then, some in his orbit had misgivings about getting too close to Jones. “The last place you wanted to end up was on his wall,” said one.
Being close to Jones was, as one former staffer put it, “an exhausting thing”. It was like being smiled upon by a capricious emperor. The anointed ones, who ranged from sports stars to musicians to prime ministers and premiers, were graced with favours and largesse. But they had to pay homage or risk it all. Jones’ warning that a failure to respond to a request would “be the end of our friendship”, was ominous indeed.
This patronage was one of myriad ways Jones transformed himself from an everyday shock jock into The Man Who Ran Sydney. In the era when talkback was king and he had a 20 per cent audience share, he used his intellect, charisma and money to exploit the platform like no one else. “His power isn’t explained by the size of his audience,” says Chris Masters, author of Jonestown. “It’s explained more by how he used it as leverage to advocate for his own interests and the interests of his powerful mates.”
For decades, power protected Jones. He bullied his staff, bulldozed elected officials, and was perceived to favour handsome young men. Few were game to challenge him. Those who did paid the price. Jones was a man “drunk on power”, said one former staffer, and he “did not know when to stop”. But his grip loosened as society changed and Jones refused to change with it, as advertisers became reluctant to align themselves with his increasingly fringe views, and as movements such as #MeToo put the anatomy of power under the microscope.
Power protected Alan Jones, seen here departing after giving evidence during the inquiry into Cash for Comment.
Last year, Jones faced his own reckoning. The Herald’s chief investigative reporter Kate McClymont revealed allegations that he had used his power for sexual gratification, by groping and indecently assaulting young men, including one of his producers, without their consent. One of the men, who has since died, alleged that he “forces himself on young men and uses his power in a predatory way”.
Another man, an employee, says he was groped by Jones. “He knew I wasn’t gay so it was about power dynamics,” he said. Police investigated. This week, Jones was charged with 26 offences involving nine alleged victims. He says he is innocent. The charges are before the courts.
When one family contacted police a few years ago to raise allegations that Jones had indecently touched a relative, the officers were blunt. It would be the word of a social colossus against that of an ordinary person. Jones was not, the family recalled one of them saying, “Joe Blow from Bunnings”.
Talkback radio used to be the only way ordinary people could speak directly to politicians, even if the microphone was controlled by the host. It was a win-win; listeners on so-called Struggle Street could get their problems addressed, politicians could talk directly to the people, and broadcasters were the powerbroker in the middle. “Forget the press gallery,” prime minister Paul Keating once said. “If you educate [broadcaster] John Laws, you educate Australia.”
Articulate, relentless, merciless Jones outclassed all his rivals when he first fired up on air in 1985. He was an unlikely success story; a cross between a priest and a schoolmaster, who would sermonise and patronise in a voice so grating he was nicknamed The Parrot. Yet listeners loved it. “He played all the tabloid tricks,” says Masters. “Flatter your public, tell them ‘my listeners are my best researchers’. He ended up generating a kind of cultist following.”
He slept three hours a day and seemed to devote the remaining 21 to work. He’d insist that his office reply to every letter. He’d often dictate them himself to his typist. In 1999, he wrote 3000 letters to government in eight months, the Herald learnt under freedom of information laws. Almost 140 of those were to the prime minister, premier, and a handful of ministers. He expected recipients to reply promptly. Failure to do so risked an on-air dressing down.
Premiers and prime ministers would put a staff member in charge of responding within 24 hours. They were dubbed the Minister for Alan Jones.
Alan Jones was a prolific correspondent with prime ministers, premiers and government ministers.
The line between policy and personal blurred. Once, he was pulled over by NSW Police highway patrol on a trip to Canberra and didn’t realise he was crossing two lanes of the Hume to get to the kerb. He was almost hit by a truck. The next day, he wrote to then-police minister Paul Whelan, attempting to get the “cowboy” officer sacked. “I’m sick and tired of defending the police force when it’s peopled by yahoos like this,” he wrote.
He would text politicians at all hours, furiously criticising their decisions and offering unsolicited advice about how those decisions would end in disaster. Once, he flamed a senior NSW minister for what he described as unforgivable ignorance. “Who the f--- do you think you are?” the radio broadcaster told the elected member of parliament.
A response that pleased him could lead to benevolence. Another letter, obtained by The Guardian under a similar FOI request 20 years later, involved a back-and-forth with then-Coalition sports minister Stuart Ayres about a sailing issue. Jones approved of Ayres’ actions. “That’s why you are a very good minister,” he wrote. “Is everything OK in the electorate? Yell out if I can help. With best wishes, Alan.”
Many argue Jones, himself a failed political candidate for the Liberal Party, was only able to hold so much power because politicians surrendered it to him. Yet those who resisted grovelling found themselves in a bind. “It wasn’t that the ministers lacked courage,” said one former senior NSW Coalition minister. “It’s that you couldn’t convince a cabinet or party room to stand up to him too.” Taking on Jones about one thing meant the broadcaster would attack everything else that minister tried to do. “It subverted your ability to do other things,” he said. “It wasn’t worth the fight.”
When Coalition premier Mike Baird backflipped on his plan to shut down greyhound racing after a sustained campaign by Jones, he was photographed arriving at Jones’ apartment at Circular Quay for a dinner of humble pie to win back support. Jones told his listeners the next day that the government would receive “full marks” from him if it reversed the ban.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott with broadcaster Alan Jones after he addressed a rally in Canberra.
Jones would frequently shower praise on his long-time friend Tony Abbott: the broadcaster was one of two speakers at an event last year marking 10 years since Abbott became prime minister. When Abbott was in the top job, Jones would send him a weekly missive with about 30 dot points, offering advice, warnings, and tips on who was white-anting him, said one person close to him. Staff heard him dictate a sign-off: “Go for the jugular, Tony.” Abbott denies the story. “Mr Abbott ran his own political strategy and famously wrote his own speeches and personally signed off his own media releases,” said a spokesman.
Politicians found their own ways of managing him. “There were certain techniques that worked with Alan, like going into the studio in person,” the former minister said. “It was harder for him to be mean to you if you were right in front of him. Colleagues used to say they would take a young male staffer with them [to put Jones in a good mood], like a burnt offering. Writing him a handwritten note; he’d write to you, and what I learnt was that you had to write back yourself, and give him answers to keep him [from speaking about the issue on radio].”
The aim was to keep their issue off-air, said the politician. Being lauded could be as dangerous as being rubbished. “If you got praised by him, it was probably because you leaked to him, so your colleagues would be suspicious – and generally rightly so. Alan never did anything without a reason.”
Jones might have left politicians so intimidated that they couldn’t sleep before an interview, but no one was more attuned to the vagaries of his mood than those who worked for him. The former teacher and rugby union coach was an exacting boss. One producer remembers sitting in the car park before work in the wee hours of the morning, wondering if he could face it all again that day. “I don’t think he ever said hello to me in all the years I worked for him,” he said. “Every day started with incredible tension.”
For their first six months, Jones would put a new producer to a kind of loyalty test involving verbal abuse and the rubbishing of their work. “It was routine humiliation,” said one. Once, when Jones was dissatisfied with the performance of his staff, he made them write to the finance department to say they didn’t deserve to be paid for their day’s work. Another time, Jones found some faxes that had not been replied to, and made staff cancel leave to write back.
Alan Jones was a money spinner who called the shots at the stations that employed him.
“The way he blew up at people was a craft,” said another former producer, who – like many people interviewed for this story – spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still feared Jones’ impact on his career. “He never swore, but it was an articulate spray that was like being lashed by lightning. It was personal, it was cruel, it was demeaning. But it wasn’t someone losing control. The sprays were directed at staff, at salespeople, at CEOs. There was no one at 2GB that Jones felt he couldn’t stand over.”
Jones was the station’s money-spinner. “What he wanted, he got,” says Mike Carlton, who worked with Jones at 2UE before the breakfast presenter jumped ship to 2GB. “He would just send in his manager, ‘Alan wants this, Alan wants this done’, and management would cave because they were desperate to keep him on side.”
Working for Jones was intense. Yet Jones kept staff loyal, partly with occasional explosions of generosity. A Christmas card with $500 inside. Tickets to Wimbledon. A lavish dinner. There was also the sense that, beyond the bullying, the program was doing some good. “A lot of the stuff he pointed out related to stupid government policy, and a lot of it ended up benefiting people who deserved a result,” said a former producer. “That’s where it gets a little bit tricky; without an aggressive champion, they would never have got the result they deserved.”
Many wondered what drove him so relentlessly. It wasn’t money for its own sake; those close to him estimate he has given away millions over the years. He would pay friends’ children’s school fees, give them money to buy their first property, cover their health bills. He still pays for the reunions of school football teams he coached in the 1960s. “He’d give it to people who were broke, who needed money for legal fees,” said one person who worked with Jones.
He would also allow people to stay in his opulent homes, in Sydney, the Southern Highlands, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The guest list raised eyebrows; one former producer recalls dropping some briefs over and meeting the “procession of [male] athletes who would stay there”, he says. “Many of them were emotionally needy; quite a few had come from broken homes, and didn’t have supportive family relationships. There was a bit of a theme going through that. Part of it was he didn’t want to be alone.”
Jones’ sexuality was scuttlebutt for decades, raised publicly only in double entendre. Jones never commented, not even after being arrested in a London public toilet – that was also a gay beat – for “outraging public decency” (he was cleared). He once told this masthead’s David Leser that he didn’t “believe people should be asked to [comment] in relation to their private lives”.
But many, like Masters, believe Jones’ sexuality may be key to understanding his accumulation of power. He grew up in Queensland when homosexuality was illegal, and moved in worlds in which it was spurned, such as schoolboys’ boarding houses when he was a teacher, and rugby union when he was a coach. “There were good reasons for him to don the mask,” says Masters. “We’ve seen this in other powerful men from that era, the power base was built around them as a protective screen. It’s the manipulations – where to go, who you know, who can pull strings – that keeps you safe.”
As his power grew, Jones became complacent. His staff and his acolytes were afraid to challenge him. He didn’t verify information he’d been given before presenting it on air, and got things wrong. The end began with his 2012 attacks on Julia Gillard – who stood opposite his good friend Abbott in the parliamentary chamber – when he said she should be tied in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. Within a week of The Sunday Telegraph reporting Jones’ comments to a Young Liberal dinner that Gillard’s father, who had passed away not long before, had “died of shame”, around 70 advertisers backed away from his show and Mercedes-Benz confiscated Jones’ $250,000 sponsored car.
Jones apologising for his remarks about Julia Gillard's father dying of shame in 2012.
The editor who published The Sunday Telegraph’s story, Neil Breen – who is now a television reporter for Nine, owner of this masthead – paid the price for challenging Jones. “From that day on, it always had an effect on my career,” he said. It angered some of Jones’ supporters at News Limited. It prompted Jones to run interference when Breen worked in radio. It disrupted relationships that still haven’t recovered. “You were just up against forces,” he said. “He was a significant foe.”
Jones’ final, self-inflicted blow came in 2019, when he told then-prime minister Scott Morrison to “shove a sock” down the throat of New Zealand’s then-prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. The condemnation was swift and significant, and advertisers – whose business covered his $4 million salary – fled. Jones was already on thin ice due to his alliances with fringe politicians such as then-MP Craig Kelly, and a mammoth defamation payout for blaming a family for the deadly Grantham floods. He resigned from 2GB in 2021. Without his platform, Jones’ power rapidly dwindled.
Even if he had stayed on air, his influence may not have protected him from the indecent assault allegations. Over the past decade, abuse of power accusations have all but ended the careers of other once-untouchable men even if they are eventually cleared, like the late cardinal George Pell. The world has changed. Power is a less effective cocoon. While speaking up still requires enormous courage, victims are no longer stigmatised. Where allegations of predatory behaviour were once stifled, police now take so-called silent crimes seriously. Where stars were once allowed to behave as they wanted as long as they brought in money, companies must now actively protect their workers.
“There’s been a very important shift in how we operate as a society,” says academic and former journalist Catharine Lumby, who once had a piece critiquing Jones pulled when she wrote for The Bulletin, which was owned by Jones’ good friend Kerry Packer. “The avenues of survivors of assault and harassment are more educated; there’s been a sea change in attitudes.”
Those who knew Jones say he would have stayed in front of a microphone until he died if he could have, holding on to the power that kept him safe and the busyness that kept him from introspection. The haunted, brilliant, flawed man “was scared of what came next”, says a former staffer. “He didn’t want any time to look in the mirror. He wanted to fill every day so there was no time for self-reflection.”
McClymont deserves all plaudits over Jones probe
Congratulations to Kate McClymont for the seminal role her thorough, principled investigations played in the apprehending of Alan Jones (“Police lay two additional assault charges against Alan Jones”, smh.com.au, November 19). Not for nothing was Sydney labelled “Jonestown” for the long period during which Jones exercised a largely malignant influence on major issues. Now, at last, let justice prevail.
Ron Sinclair, Windradyne
Police lay two additional assault charges against Alan Jones / Kate McClymont
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The former 2GB star looked shell-shocked as his legal team ushered him away from Day Street Police Station at 5.10pm. It is understood Jones declined to be interviewed, citing legal advice. Wearing a forest green designer tracksuit, he made no comment as the media scrum peppered him with questions including, “Are you a sexual predator?” and “Did you do it?” Photographers and camera operators swarmed a waiting car as Jones sat expressionless inside.
Alan Jones leaves police station after charges laid
The 83-year-old was met with a media scrum as he left Day Street Police Station. Jones knew some of his alleged victims personally, some professionally, and in some circumstances, the alleged abuse took place the first time they met Jones. One was aged 17 when an offence against him allegedly occurred.
Detective Superintendent Linda Howlett said Jones was “quite calm” when officers armed with a search warrant arrived at his luxury apartment on the sixth floor of the Bennelong Apartments, overlooking the Sydney Opera House, at 7.45am on Monday. After being arrested and calling for legal assistance, Jones watched on as police spent hours searching his house. A number of his electronic devices were seized. At 11.30am, he was whisked away by police in a small white Hyundai and taken for questioning at Day Street station, where he was met by criminal lawyers Chris Murphy and Bryan Wrench.
“Nothing has been tested. Nothing has been proven. Alan Jones will assert his innocence appropriately in the courtroom,” Murphy said.
He said Jones “denies any misconduct”. Jones’ bail conditions include surrendering his passport and not approaching points of departure from Australia. He was also ordered not to “stalk, harass or intimidate any prosecution witness or complainant” or to identify any of the alleged victims to anyone except his lawyers.
At an afternoon press conference, Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald from State Crime Command thanked his investigators for their “tenacity and hard work” since the strike force was formed in March.
“These are serious charges,” Fitzgerald said before commending the alleged victims for “their bravery in coming forward”. He also said the victims had co-operated with the police knowing – as did investigators – “that the hard work is just beginning”.
Asked about the creation of the strike force earlier this year, Fitzgerald said reporting by the Herald and The Age was the catalyst for the probe.
The reports, denied by Jones at the time, included that he had indecently assaulted, groped or inappropriately touched a number of young men.
“The reports in the Herald and The Age did result in victims coming forward and the creation of Strike Force Bonnefin, but … a number of witnesses have also been assisting police over the years,” he said. Fitzgerald said the “energy that was generated out of those newspaper articles” encouraged people to speak to the police. “We believe we will have more people coming forward,” he said.
More alleged victims have contacted the Herald and The Age since Jones’ arrest. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said the arrest came after a “very long, thorough, protracted investigation”, and she also expected more people might come forward with allegations.
“I did visit the strike force some weeks and months ago to look at the work that they have been doing. It is very complex and protracted, and I know those officers have been working tirelessly to lead today’s operation,” 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.”
Premier Chris Minns said he understood the public interest in the case, but he said he would not offer running commentary. During his 35 years as the most successful and feared broadcaster of his generation, Jones is also alleged to have indecently assaulted several young men.
One former 2GB employee has alleged he was repeatedly indecently assaulted by Jones. Brad Webster (not his real name) told the Herald and The Age last year: “If I went to the police, Jones could be charged. What he did to me was a criminal offence. He cannot die without people knowing what he’s done.” Jones was 65 when Webster was hired at age 20 to do menial jobs, including driving the radio star from the station’s Pyrmont studios to his apartment in the Circular Quay building, dubbed The Toaster. “During those 10 minutes, it would be wandering hands, and then it just gradually became him grabbing my dick … you’re driving, you’re absolutely trapped … he’d go the grope, he’d rub my penis,” Webster said.
Jones is also alleged to have kissed him in the lift and exposed himself at his apartment.
Like many others, Webster knew he would be destroyed if he complained. Several men from the arts community have alleged that Jones assaulted them at his apartment.
One, a musician, said he didn’t say anything to anyone because Jones was immensely powerful, and no one wanted to risk getting the broadcaster offside. “You get on the wrong side, and he’ll ruin you,” he said.
In 2008, a waiter who was 22 at the time said he was working at a Kiama restaurant when an inebriated Jones grabbed and fondled his penis without consent. The late tech entrepreneur Alex Hartman, who died in 2019, told four journalists Jones had indecently assaulted him as a teenager. “I was his prey. I know I am not the only one, and this will come out somehow.” Hartman also said Jones “forces himself on young men and uses his power in a predatory way”.
In January 2017, a then-schoolboy told the Herald and The Age he was invited to spend a weekend at Jones’ Fitzroy Falls property in the NSW Southern Highlands. The broadcaster had taken an interest in the boy’s family following numerous difficulties, including the death of the boy’s sister.
The boy later gave a statement to police in which he alleged that he and Jones, who was 75 at the time, watched a movie before Jones passionately kissed him on the lips and placed his left hand on the boy’s buttocks. He pushed Jones away. Later, he told police he went to the bathroom “with my loofah and soap and began scrubbing my mouth, inside and out, as much as I could”. He later told his mother that someone with “power and money” had done “something to him which he shouldn’t have”.
Jones denied the allegations raised by the Herald and The Age in December 2023 and threatened to sue. A concerns notice sent to the mastheads at the time by lawyer Mark O’Brien demanded the articles be removed from online and the publication of a front-page apology. It also said Jones should be paid compensation in addition to his legal costs.
“The allegations are false and have no basis in fact,” O’Brien said. “Over many years, certain journalists employed by Nine (formerly Fairfax) newspapers have been resentful of our client’s prominence as a commentator on many political and cultural issues, and the malicious and concocted allegations giving rise to the imputations constitute a concerted attempt to destroy our client’s reputation.”
A concerns notice is the first step towards commencing defamation proceedings, but it does not institute proceedings. Jones is yet to commence legal action. With Jessica McSweeney, Perry Duffin and Daniel Lo Surdo
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Saveones will face Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on December 18 on charges that include 11 counts of aggravated indecent assault, nine counts of assault with an act of indecency, two counts of sexually touching another person without their consent and two counts of common assault. The charges span the two decades to 2019. The establishment of the strike force followed a major investigation last year by the Herald and The Age, which detailed allegations of indecent assault and inappropriate sexual touching involving a number of victims. Jones denied the claims at the time and threatened to sue. The former 2GB star looked shell-shocked as his legal team ushered him away from Day Street Police Station at 5.10pm. It is understood Jones declined to be interviewed, citing legal advice. Wearing a forest green designer tracksuit, he made no comment as the media scrum peppered him with questions including, “Are you a sexual predator?” and “Did you do it?” Photographers and camera operators swarmed a waiting car as Jones sat expressionless inside.
Alan Jones leaves police station after charges laid
The 83-year-old was met with a media scrum as he left Day Street Police Station. Jones knew some of his alleged victims personally, some professionally, and in some circumstances, the alleged abuse took place the first time they met Jones. One was aged 17 when an offence against him allegedly occurred.
Detective Superintendent Linda Howlett said Jones was “quite calm” when officers armed with a search warrant arrived at his luxury apartment on the sixth floor of the Bennelong Apartments, overlooking the Sydney Opera House, at 7.45am on Monday. After being arrested and calling for legal assistance, Jones watched on as police spent hours searching his house. A number of his electronic devices were seized. At 11.30am, he was whisked away by police in a small white Hyundai and taken for questioning at Day Street station, where he was met by criminal lawyers Chris Murphy and Bryan Wrench.
“Nothing has been tested. Nothing has been proven. Alan Jones will assert his innocence appropriately in the courtroom,” Murphy said.
He said Jones “denies any misconduct”. Jones’ bail conditions include surrendering his passport and not approaching points of departure from Australia. He was also ordered not to “stalk, harass or intimidate any prosecution witness or complainant” or to identify any of the alleged victims to anyone except his lawyers.
At an afternoon press conference, Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald from State Crime Command thanked his investigators for their “tenacity and hard work” since the strike force was formed in March. “These are serious charges,” Fitzgerald said before commending the alleged victims for “their bravery in coming forward”. He also said the victims had co-operated with the police knowing – as did investigators – “that the hard work is just beginning”.
Asked about the creation of the strike force earlier this year, Fitzgerald said reporting by the Herald and The Age was the catalyst for the probe. The reports, denied by Jones at the time, included that he had indecently assaulted, groped or inappropriately touched a number of young men.
“The reports in the Herald and The Age did result in victims coming forward and the creation of Strike Force Bonnefin, but … a number of witnesses have also been assisting police over the years,” he said. Fitzgerald said the “energy that was generated out of those newspaper articles” encouraged people to speak to the police. “We believe we will have more people coming forward,” he said.
More alleged victims have contacted the Herald and The Age since Jones’ arrest. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said the arrest came after a “very long, thorough, protracted investigation”, and she also expected more people might come forward with allegations.
“I did visit the strike force some weeks and months ago to look at the work that they have been doing. It is very complex and protracted, and I know those officers have been working tirelessly to lead today’s operation,” 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.”
Premier Chris Minns said he understood the public interest in the case, but he said he would not offer running commentary. During his 35 years as the most successful and feared broadcaster of his generation, Jones is also alleged to have indecently assaulted several young men.
One former 2GB employee has alleged he was repeatedly indecently assaulted by Jones. Brad Webster (not his real name) told the Herald and The Age last year: “If I went to the police, Jones could be charged. What he did to me was a criminal offence. He cannot die without people knowing what he’s done.” Jones was 65 when Webster was hired at age 20 to do menial jobs, including driving the radio star from the station’s Pyrmont studios to his apartment in the Circular Quay building, dubbed The Toaster. “During those 10 minutes, it would be wandering hands, and then it just gradually became him grabbing my dick … you’re driving, you’re absolutely trapped … he’d go the grope, he’d rub my penis,” Webster said.
Jones is also alleged to have kissed him in the lift and exposed himself at his apartment.
Like many others, Webster knew he would be destroyed if he complained. Several men from the arts community have alleged that Jones assaulted them at his apartment.
One, a musician, said he didn’t say anything to anyone because Jones was immensely powerful, and no one wanted to risk getting the broadcaster offside. “You get on the wrong side, and he’ll ruin you,” he said.
In 2008, a waiter who was 22 at the time said he was working at a Kiama restaurant when an inebriated Jones grabbed and fondled his penis without consent. The late tech entrepreneur Alex Hartman, who died in 2019, told four journalists Jones had indecently assaulted him as a teenager. “I was his prey. I know I am not the only one, and this will come out somehow.” Hartman also said Jones “forces himself on young men and uses his power in a predatory way”.
In January 2017, a then-schoolboy told the Herald and The Age he was invited to spend a weekend at Jones’ Fitzroy Falls property in the NSW Southern Highlands. The broadcaster had taken an interest in the boy’s family following numerous difficulties, including the death of the boy’s sister.
The boy later gave a statement to police in which he alleged that he and Jones, who was 75 at the time, watched a movie before Jones passionately kissed him on the lips and placed his left hand on the boy’s buttocks. He pushed Jones away. Later, he told police he went to the bathroom “with my loofah and soap and began scrubbing my mouth, inside and out, as much as I could”. He later told his mother that someone with “power and money” had done “something to him which he shouldn’t have”.
Jones denied the allegations raised by the Herald and The Age in December 2023 and threatened to sue. A concerns notice sent to the mastheads at the time by lawyer Mark O’Brien demanded the articles be removed from online and the publication of a front-page apology. It also said Jones should be paid compensation in addition to his legal costs.
“The allegations are false and have no basis in fact,” O’Brien said. “Over many years, certain journalists employed by Nine (formerly Fairfax) newspapers have been resentful of our client’s prominence as a commentator on many political and cultural issues, and the malicious and concocted allegations giving rise to the imputations constitute a concerted attempt to destroy our client’s reputation.”
A concerns notice is the first step towards commencing defamation proceedings, but it does not institute proceedings. Jones is yet to commence legal action. With Jessica McSweeney, Perry Duffin and Daniel Lo Surdo
Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via Twitter or email. FROM OUR PARTNERS Share License this article Jones investigation Alan Jones Radio Police Courts Sydney Kate McClymont Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.