The extraordinary influence of Sydney radio host Alan Jones holds over politicians

IT TOOK a visit to a man with extraordinary influence to convince Mike Baird to reverse his greyhound ban policy.

Mike Baird visited broadcaster Alan Jones in his Sydney harbourside apartment complex on Monday evening.

LIKE so many leaders before him, NSW Premier Mike Baird made the equivalent of the political walk of shame on Monday night.

To a residence with sweeping harbour views. It wasn’t Admiralty House, where the governor-general can be found, or Malcolm Turnbull’s home as Prime Minister next door.

He had an appointment to have a private chit chat with a radio host about his imminent decision to overturn the impending ban on the NSW greyhound industry.

Mr Baird smiled at the waiting photographers, who had been tipped off at his arrival, but his Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard gave the game away.

It’s not unheard of for politicians to seek the advice of media commentators. Perhaps a discreet phone call or maybe an invite for a brew and a barney in parliament.

But Mr Hazzard’s startled look revealed he knew it was not the best image for a Premier and senior minister to be seen trudging down Macquarie St, cap in hand, to 2GB radio host Alan Jones’ luxury harbourside apartment.

This morning on his top rating Sydney breakfast show, Jones suggested other leaders would be wise to follow his advice rather than those pesky bureaucrats cluttering up the corridors of power.

Jones’ influence is such, it’s not the first time an Australian leader has sought his advice — and blessing.

Like the Oracle from the film The Matrix, once you’ve dropped by Jones’ pad, listened to some sage advice and maybe had a cookie, you feel much better.

Jones admitted that the trio had a “meeting at my place” but said Mr Baird had not given him advance notice of his plan to backflip on his commitments, just three months young, to ban the greyhound racing industry following widespread evidence of animal cruelty.

“I do not operate that way,” said Jones. “But I did make the point that if he didn’t (overturn the greyhound racing ban) he and the government would be dead in the water.”

Mr Baird had dropped by because of his prodigious mail bag, Jones explained.

“The Premier came to see me because he knows I answer more correspondence every day than anybody in the country.

“He wants to know what people we’re saying (so) I told him the brutal truth, it wasn’t good news.”

“You can’t treat good people like this, putting them out of business or onto suicide watch when they’re completely innocent,” he said. “(Mr Baird) understood this.”

If only he’d dropped by sooner and asked for his two cents worth, opined Jones.

“He was consulting me.

“I told him he needed to …. not consult bureaucrats; they are invariably wrong. They’re the mob in Canberra who have got us in the debt we’re in.”

Now Mr Baird had done the decent thing and done a total backflip, the guy should be left alone.

“Having criticised the government for the ridiculous decision to impose the ban, surely now we can’t criticise the government for taking sensible step to overturn it?” Jones said.

2GB rules the radio roost in Sydney with a 12 per cent audience share, while Jones’ breakfast show is even bigger reaching 15 per cent of the city’s radio audience during breakfast time. His show is also simulcast to Brisbane’s top rating 4CC radio station.

That still means lots of people aren’t listening to Jones. But it’s where the listeners are that gives him such influence.

Much of his most loyal audience members are in the suburbs of Sydney and Brisbane where elections are won and lost.

Jones’ biographer, Chris Masters, said his influence outweighed his audience size.

“His evangelical following is small but big in radio terms. They won’t be upset by what he has to say,” reported Crikey in 2012.

“They are true believers. The fact this man has been lead news across the nation would delight them.”

He’s also a hard worker regularly turning up to rallies to talk against his pet causes, which in Mr Baird’s case could be just about every policy the premier advocates from council mergers to lockout laws.

Not that Jones hasn’t had his slip ups. A grovelling apology followed when he was caught telling an audience of Young Liberals that former prime minister Julia Gillard’s father probably “died of shame” due to his daughter’s political performance.

But he’s bounced back.

The broadcaster’s modus operandi appears to be to harangue ministers until they finally submit and then humbly congratulate them on coming round to his way of thinking.

Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman did not submit. He’s no longer a premier.

A noted critic of coal seam gas, in 2014 Jones wrote to the NSW energy minister Anthony Roberts where he pleaded the case of farmers close to a coal project.

“I’ll tell you something Anthony,” Jones wrote. “This will end badly unless the NSW government gets off its backside and delivers on some fundamental rights for the landowners,” reported the Daily Telegraph.

Two months later, Jones was congratulating the Minister and saying he had “guts” after Mr Roberts’ department ordered an environmental impact process on the project.

Last year, Mr Roberts confirmed that Jones’ representations had an effect saying the host was “incredibly well connected”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would no doubt agree.

Weeks before the Federal Election, Mr Turnbull had failed to turn up on Jones’ show, much to the host’s umbrage.

In June 2014, the two spectacularly fell out when Jones asked the then-communications minister to repeat after him that he supported the Abbot-Hockey leadership team.

“Alan, I’m not going to take dictation from you,” Mr Turnbull snapped back.

“You’ve no hope of being the leader — you’ve got to get that into your head,” replied Jones.

Labor leader Bill Shorten had no such qualms about chatting to Jones and it was, perhaps, the soft grilling he got that finally spurred Mr Turnbull into resolving the impasse.

In May, a civil lunch between the pair in a Sydney skyscraper saw bygones be bygones and within days Mr Turnbull was back on chatting with Jones just days later.

The rule seems to be, don’t fall foul of the radio giant.

But nonetheless, Mr Baird and co might want to consider if being seen slipping into the court of Jones was the most elegant way to re-establish relations.

It sends a message that the real power lies not at parliament but at the other end of Macquarie Street.