I took on Alan Jones. I survived, but the backlash terrified me

There’s a moment, when you take on Godzilla, you fear you’ll be crushed underfoot. That was me, in 2012, when a bunch of us – wrangled by Sally McManus, now ACTU secretary – took on Alan Jones and his then-radio station 2GB.

It wasn’t just that Jones was the most powerful man in Australian media. It was how he wielded that power. Everything Donald Trump told Bob Woodward in 2018 was exactly how it was with Jones.

Alan Jones at 2GB in 2007.Credit: Bryan O’Brien

“Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word ... ‘fear’,” Trump said. Yes. Exactly how it was with Jones.

Jones faces 26 charges involving nine alleged victims spanning two decades. On Monday, he was arrested at his luxury Circular Quay apartment over allegations he indecently assaulted, groped or inappropriately touched multiple young men. He was granted bail. Police say they expect more complainants to come forward. He denies the allegations.

I was so familiar with the location of that apartment. In 2012, Jones was at the height of his powers, winning survey after survey as the top breakfast broadcaster. He had gone to town on Julia Gillard, then prime minister. He accused her and others of destroying the joint. A hot minute later, he was in front of a Liberal Party fundraiser, telling them Gillard’s father had died of shame. John Gillard had died just three weeks before.

It’s hard to believe anyone could be so cruel, but it looks to me as if Jones’ brand of arrogance inures you to normal human emotion.

So I’d planned a sit-in outside his apartment. Insane. I can look back on that moment, now relieved I’d not done anything so unlikely to achieve change. Fortunately, McManus had serious campaigning experience. A bunch of us gathered around her. We got to work. Our boycott, ringing advertisers and suggesting they take their custom elsewhere, cost 2GB and Jones millions of dollars.

It was not the first time Jones had been in big trouble. But it turns out that when you wield power, you weaponise fear. That was always the Jones method. It was not just the disgraceful way he badgered politicians and the endless personal slurs – it was also what those of us who wanted to take him on feared he would do to us.

He had form and he wielded fear. Start small, with a veiled threat. By the time his career was over, Jones had threatened premiers and prime ministers (and not just our own). Supporting violence. Think Cronulla riots, think Jacinda Ardern.

Time and time again, convictions would crumble under the attacks. Blithering apologies.

Author Jenna Price took on Alan Jones and his then radio station 2GB in 2012.Credit: Louise Kennerley, Dean Sewell

I’m reminded of the wise words of Imre Salusinszky, a former media director for Mike Baird and a past Sun-Herald columnist, who told me in 2018: “Members of the Coalition party rooms have to grow up and stop being manipulated by Jones and [Ray] Hadley – and must stop using Jones and Hadley, who play off the atrocious lack of discipline within NSW and now manifesting federally. Fundamentally you need Coalition MPs to harden the f--- up. They need to lock and load behind their leader.”

Never happened.

But one man never broke. Julian Burnside, senior counsel assisting the “cash for comment” inquiry, despised Jones and everything he stood for. The inquiry found Jones breached the code nine times. Jones barely flinched. “But I felt vindicated. We won and he didn’t,” Burnside reflects.

Now 75, and ill with the degenerative disease progressive supranuclear palsy, Burnside speaks in a whisper but was keen to whisper loudly on this. He says Jones used power to enrich himself.

“He’s an unpleasant man, and he made a point of criticising me as much as he could,” says Burnside from his hospital bed.

I asked him this: If what’s alleged of Jones is true, how does someone get away with criminal behaviour over such a long period of time?

“They use and abuse their power and that power multiplies. Their power hides an ability to use and abuse people.”

Burnside mentions Trump. Luckily for Australia and Australians, Jones failed to get elected to any parliament. Those with inside knowledge could see how Jones wielded power and not even the Liberal Party could tolerate that behaviour.

How did Jones accumulate such power?

Private power. The late tech entrepreneur Alex Hartman, who died in 2019, said Jones 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 claimed Jones “forces himself on young men and uses his power in a predatory way”.

Public power. Each and every time Jones came under attack from any direction, his supporters got to work. These days we have failed Liberal Party powerbroker Teena McQueen leaping to the defence of Jones in a humiliating exchange on WhatsApp. In those days, Jones’ supporters rang my employers at the University of Technology Sydney demanding I be sacked. The poor bloody women on reception copped it hard. My phone messages copped a couple of death threats and other abuse. Then there was the threat to rape my daughters. The threat named my daughters. Letters arrived with the most horrific descriptions of what the senders wanted to do to the receiver. Of course, none of this was at Jones’ instigation – but it shows the mindset of his supporters. So it wasn’t just fear of what Jones himself would say or do. It was fear of his supporters.

A couple in management went all weak-kneed, insisting I stand aside. Two of the most senior people at the university stood strong. But I feel no shame in saying I was afraid, afraid for my family, afraid for my job. Just afraid. Yet I was lucky. I never felt alone.

Jones and his minions loved to call for their targets to be sacked. I was small fry. Six years later, it was Louise Herron’s turn. Herron, Sydney Opera House CEO since 2012, came under fire for refusing to advertise hideous horse races on our magnificent white sails. (She’s still CEO but on a sabbatical in Greece until February when I hope she will come back and run Tourism Australia or similar. Fingers crossed).

Herron stood strong despite intense pressure from Jones, who called for then-premier Gladys Berejiklian to have her sacked. Sure, he later apologised, but what was that worth? Berejiklian gave in to Jones’ demands to compel Herron to run the ads and the rest is a tawdry use of one of the most beautiful – and should be most pristine – buildings in the country.

Monday was a strange day. People I hadn’t spoken to in a decade asked me how I was feeling.

Could this have happened when Jones was at the height of his powers? Unlikely. But it’s a fortunate reminder that time passes. Time and power pass.

Others asked why news media covered up allegations about his behaviour, drawing a link between Jones’ arrest for outraging public decency and committing an indecent act in a London toilet and these recent charges.

It always surprises me how little people understand defamation laws in Australia, and how little compassion is shown for those forced to have sex in toilets. What Jones did (or didn’t do) in London is irrelevant, and the charges were dismissed. Being gay, wanting closeness despite a time when that was frowned on, is not a crime. Indecent assault is. Let’s see what the courts say.

Jenna Price is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and a regular columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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