Former ABC broadcaster Jon Faine’s article on Sydney’s Covid outbreak has caused fury

An opinion piece in a Melbourne paper from a prominent media figure, delighting in the NSW Covid outbreak, has sparked fury.

Sydneysiders have not taken kindly to prominent Melbourne media identity Jon Faine’s “awful” musings on the city’s Covid outbreak and lockdown.

In response to Gladys Berejiklian plunging Sydney into a two-week lockdown, the former ABC Radio star wrote in a “Good Jon -v- Bad Jon” opinion piece in The Age: “I sincerely hope no one gets sick and no one dies, but gee their two-week lockdown, as opposed to the stay-at-home rules, will prick their self-righteous balloon and put an end to the partisan, condescending and patronising nonsense that has been raining down on Victorians for months.”

Faine was the popular long-time host of ABC Radio Melbourne’s morning program. His column today in the Nine-owned Melbourne newspaper shocked many on social media.

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ABC Melbourne radio host Jon Faine.

Gladys Berejiklian announced a two-week lockdown. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

Journalist Bridie Jabour led the pack, tweeting: “I truly thought Melbourne people wishing Covid on Sydney was just an insane thing relegated to hyper-partisan corners of Twitter in bizarre parasocial relationships with the premier.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 910 Australians and nearly four million people worldwide have died from coronavirus.

Faine’s article sparked outrage and one labelled the popular figure a “lunatic”, while others blasted his words as “contemptible”.

Rather than expressing sympathy, the broadcaster appeared to revel in Sydney’s lockdown, claiming, “It will do Sydney some good to be knocked off their high perch.”

He also wrote that Melbourne has previously been treated unfairly by the press pack noting that during Gladys Berejiklian’s press conferences, the media, Faine said, “showed respect, listened carefully and interrupted rarely.”

Whereas, Melbourne copped a very different experience during their 15-week lockdown last year.

Faine said the press were “weaponised by the Murdoch tabloids and Sky News, ripped into Dan Andrews and Brett Sutton every bloody day for weeks on end, repeated the same questions a gazillion times hoping to trip them up, shouted at them, harangued and argued, stopped asking legitimate questions and instead made unfounded assertions and then demanded that mere rumours be proven untrue.”

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Rubbish. We are in a sick position when people in different states want people in other states to get infected to justify their own ideology. The state v state stuff is pathetic and frankly unAustralian.

— Alex Hart (@alexhart7) June 27, 2021

Yes. This is such an awful article. Terrible editorial decision at @theage

— Marc Stears (@mds49) June 26, 2021

What sort of lunatic not only desires a lockdown on a whole city but actually commits those mean spirited thoughts to print? Save your projections for your therapist I suggest

— DaveLeys (@dave_leys) June 26, 2021

Wow. Thankfully, NSW never wanted Victoria to fail. Unfortunately, the reverse doesn’t seem to be true.

— DarceyHound - disheartened optimist. (@DarceyHound) June 26, 2021

This is not the time for interstate rivalry but for collaboration. #Covid is a shared enemy in more ways than one.

— Julia the Irwinator (@JuliaIrwinator) June 27, 2021

People need to stop buying in to this Victoria against NSW and vice versa. Politicians have done this, not ordinary people

— á—·á–‡IGᕼTY (@Ms_Brighty) June 27, 2021

I just want to make something *very* clear.

Mock and criticise the governments and leaders. Go hard. I will be.

But to say that our fellow Australians in NSW 'deserve' this, or that it 'serves them right' is contemptible.#covidsydney

— Tim Byrne (@TByrne75) June 26, 2021

Faine doesn’t hold back in his disdain when suggesting how the federal government has been “taking sides” when it comes to both New South Wales and Victoria’s health response, sharing that the government is so “Sydney-centric and so partisan in its unquestioning support for Gladys”.

Though he admitted feeling “torn” about Sydney’s lockdown, Faine called Sydney “smug and self-important”, noting that “too many people regarded Covid as a Melbourne thing; now they have to accept it is more than that”.

He also hoped that Sydney’s “decent cluster” would force Prime Minister Scott Morrison to fast-track mass vaccination.