Ray Hadley celebrates his 40-year radio career — with no plans to retire

In October 1981, young taxi driver and auctioneer Ray Hadley walked into the 2UE offices for his first intern shift. Forty years on and he rules the airwaves.

Ray Hadley concedes he has mellowed with age — but don’t be fooled, the 67-year-old still has plenty of bite when needed.

“In relation to my behaviour — and I guess we are referring to both on and off air — I am 67, and as you will appreciate as you get older, you do change,” Hadley told The Daily Telegraph.

Ray Hadley at home in Dural. Shots please of him on the sofa with his partner, if she agrees - she is undecided - plus in his home studio where he has been broadcasting from.

“When I started in radio in the 1980s, it was second nature to get screamed at, yelled at and abused daily by your peers. That is the way life … the way the culture was in media.

“I have mellowed but that is part of getting older that you mellow and you have more life experience.

“The anti-vaxxers, as you can appreciate, do get my hackles up and will continue to do so because we are trying to emerge from a really difficult period economically, mentally and in terms of a nation, and the anti-vaxxers are proving to be a roadblock to any recovery we have.

“I am still very savage on them and will continue to be because I think they are an impediment to getting out of this mess.”

Hadley this month celebrates his unofficial 40th anniversary in radio broadcasting.

It was in October 1981 that as a young taxi driver and auctioneer he walked into the then-2UE offices for his first intern shift. A few months prior, he had met talk presenter Mark Collier when he picked him up in his cab.

The Radio 2UE Talking League team: Peter Frilingos (l to r), Steve Roach, Bob Fulton, Greg Alexander and Hadley in 2000. Picture: Brett Costello

For his first shift, Hadley was sent up in a chopper to provide traffic updates. He did “three months of freebie work” and, after working casual shifts, scored his first 12-month contract 18 months later, when in 1983 he was put on the payroll with an annual salary of $19,500, which was substantially lower than the $30,000 he was earning calling auctions.

“It taught me a valuable lesson that you had to show you were willing to work and turn up without much reward if you wanted an opportunity, and in the end it paid some dividends,” Hadley said.

“The main thing was that contract was really important to me because it meant for the first time, I actually had surety of money, even though it was only a small amount of money.

“My ambitions were just to have full-time employment, not dreaming that I would ever get into talkback in the sense of what I did eventually. That came about in 1992.”

2GB program director John Brennan with Hadley in 2007. Picture: Frank Violi

Hadley was a star on the rise, and learnt early on that being controversial and opinionated was a plus in talkback radio.

The late John Brennan, a respected program director, guided Hadley through those early years.

Brennan appointed Hadley as lead rugby league caller for 2UE in 1987, which was the start of the hugely successful Continuous Call Team.

Five years later, when calling football in the UK, Hadley got a call up from Brennan to stand in for John Laws over the Christmas break.

“I thought, ‘oh well, a lot of blokes play out their career filling in for other people’,” Hadley said.

He went on to fill in for Laws regularly until 2001 when he was, by his own admission, sacked and told by 2UE executive Tony Bell, “you are a competent sports broadcaster but nothing else”.

Adman John Singleton had been eyeing Hadley for some time and immediately pounced, offering him a job at 2GB, where Brennan by then also worked.

Hadley’s first shift at 2GB was Christmas Eve in 2001 — and he has pretty much topped the radio ratings ever since.

John Stanley, Hadley, Alan Jones and John Laws with John Brennan (seated) in 1993.

Hadley was happy to take a pay cut for his start in radio.

“(Brennan) said, ‘it is time to piss or get off the pot because you have now got your own program and you have got to put your own stamp on it, you are no longer a fill-in,” Hadley explained.

“I am perceived as a right-wing shock jock, which I am by description. But I have enduring friendships with people from the left of politics.

“When I need to I will give them a kick up the arse and I have had clashes with Scott Morrison and other right-wing politicians from time to time because mostly I call it as I see it.”

One of Hadley’s closest mates, with whom he plays golf regularly, is a “rusted-on Labor supporter”.

“I call him the world’s richest communist. He goes to every memorial service known to man for the Labor Party. He calls me comrade, that is his nickname for me.”

“It is funny how people who don’t know us and our relationship, when he calls me comrade they do a double take,” Hadley laughed.

Hadley makes himself at home at 2GB in 2001. Picture: Kristi Miller

Hadley has over the years been criticised for his strong leadership style and for holding others to the same standards of perfection that he expects of himself.

“One thing I have always been protective of in the workplace is women and that is just part of my upbringing,” he said. “While I might be critical of female politicians, I try to be respectful of them. When it comes to blokes, I suppose I can be a bit harder on them.”

Hadley’s third wife, Sophie, has worked with him for nearly two decades. She was critical of her husband’s stance on now former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian’s relationship with disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

“Since we became partners, she is a very gentle and mellow person and to a certain extent is a calming influence on me,” Hadley said. “Sometimes she says to me, ‘I think you were a bit tough’.

“She gave me the rounds of the kitchen last year about Gladys. She said I was too tough, she fell in love with the wrong person and all the rest of it. Well, I could see what she was talking about, it didn’t slow me down … but it made me stop and think a bit more about the position she found herself in.

“Now, I wouldn’t say it to Sophie, but I think I may have been right and she may have been wrong — but it is not prudent to disagree with your wife on such issues.”

Almost forty years of talking into the microphone has not dimmed Hadley’s love for the job. Picture: Jonathan Ng

As for the future, Hadley will take life as it comes. He and Sophie are in the midst of downsizing from a 28ha property in Dural to a smaller townhouse nearby.

And he’s keen to continue mentoring young staff through the ranks.

“I try to surround myself with young people who are ambitious and keen but also understand that they have got to serve some sort of apprenticeship before they get elevated,” he said.

“The plan is to keep going. I have 2½ years left on my contract. I haven’t decided what I am going to do at the end of the 2½ years, I might fold up the tent and move on. I don’t know, I might call some football or do something else.

“I don’t know what I am going to do because I am happy doing what I am doing at the moment.”