Ben Fordham ignites Lawrence Mooney feud on-air: ‘Big, fat, rotten lies’

In a war of radio hosts, Ben Fordham has gone to great lengths to publicly expose rival Lawrence Mooney on-air this morning.

Ben Fordham has dug up receipts to prove Lawrence Mooney knew he was breaching Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s lockdown orders when he travelled to Byron Bay for a holiday at the end of last month.

2GB presenter Fordham accused Triple M host Mooney of telling “big, fat, rotten lies,” in his grovelling apology yesterday, during which Mooney claimed he wasn’t aware public health orders applied to him.

Mooney works in the Sydney CBD but lives in the Southern Highlands, which did not fall under the government’s ‘red zone’ at the time, and was busted holidaying in Byron days after Sydney workers were ordered into lockdown.

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Fordham wasn’t going to let Mooney get away with his perceived attempt at dodging lockdown. Picture: AAP Image.

“I know how serious this is and the impact lockdowns are having across the state and am very embarrassed by my misunderstanding and stuff up,” Mooney told Sydney Confidential after the publication caught him out via photos on his Instagram Story.

Calling the mishap an “honest mistake”, he added: “I feel like an absolute goose for not realising I wasn’t permitted to travel to Byron Bay during my break.”

Since his lockdown faux pas was made public, Mooney has cancelled his holiday and returned home.

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Lawrence Mooney posted from his holiday in Byron Bay, seemingly unaware of the backlash to come. Picture: Instagram.

Dredging up the saga again today, Fordham slammed the apology and aired damning snippets of Mooney reading the lockdown order live on his breakfast show, prefacing his findings by saying he knows Mooney is “not a bad person.”

“Lawrence is telling lies,” Fordham claimed.

“He did know he wasn’t allowed to travel to Byron Bay, and I’ll prove it right now, because on Wednesday June 23, his own radio show posted this on social media,” he said, citing the message which outlined that if you lived or worked in Sydney, you could not travel outside metro Sydney for non-essential reasons.

“You won’t believe what we found - the next day, Lawrence Mooney said it himself live on the air,” Fordham revealed, running audio from the show in question.

Lawrence is then clearly heard saying: “There’s a whole lot of local government areas that have been deemed red zones in Sydney, that include Canada Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Woollahra, Waverly, Randwick and Bayside. If you live or work in those areas then you can’t leave those areas, unless you are an essential worker in one of those areas, then you can leave in order to go home.”

After the pressing play on the recording, Fordham said: “So there you go, it came out of his own mouth on Thursday, June 24.”

“Lawrence, you knew you couldn’t go, you said it yourself … Busted. Lawrence Mooney, you can’t … be serious,” he added with an exaggerated pause before brutally concluding: “You’re telling big, fat, rotten lies and you know it.”

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Fordham shamed the comedian on-air for his ‘rotten lies’. Picture: Supplied.

This week, Ms Berejiklian asserted the only way Sydney can end its extended lockdown was if every single person does the right thing.

However, a number of high-profile Aussies have slammed the lockdown orders as “confusing” over the past two weeks, including The Project panel.

On Thursday night, Lisa Wilkinson ripped into the state government’s relaxed approach and lack of communication.

“I think everybody in Sydney is confused,” she said.

“Right from the beginning of this, Gladys Berejiklian was refusing to call it a lockdown and that was the most important moment of communication.

“We all knew, and still know, that the Delta variant is so much more transmissible and she never adopted a stance that made it look like she was taking this more seriously, but she had every reason to.”

Wilkinson noted NSW was even regarded as the ‘gold standard’.

“She had the Prime Minister at the same time saying, Gladys is the gold standard of how you do these sorts of lockdowns, and so Sydney has kind of been confused and it’s no surprise to anybody that the numbers are the way they are. The word I’m hearing a lot from my Sydney friends that they are ‘confused’.”

In a bleak sign for the state, NSW recorded 44 new COVID-19 cases today, the highest daily increase since the latest outbreak began after yesterday’s record of 38.

The Premier said restrictions would continue until cases of the Delta variant “get to zero or close to zero”.