'I don’t apologise for that': Jon Faine leaves ABC with no regrets

ABC broadcaster Jon Faine is renowned for criticising his own bosses. But on the eve of his retirement, the veteran radio presenter has revealed he hasn't always gotten away with it.

“I’ve been hauled over the coals quite a few times," the 63-year-old says. “I’ve been sat down and told, what do you think you’re doing? And I always argue, well, I’m doing what you employed me to do. Which is to say what I think on the audience’s behalf and to give them an authentic experience. We should not be so glass-jawed and thin-skinned that we can’t ask ourselves the same questions we ask of everybody else.”

Broadcaster Jon Faine is retiring from ABC Radio Melbourne after decades hosting the popular mornings program. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

The most famous example of Faine lashing his own bosses came last year, when the Melbourne-based broadcaster described Michelle Guthrie's stint as the ABC's managing director as an “astonishing fail”.

“The emperor had no clothes and I was prepared to say so. I don’t apologise for that. All I ever said to Michelle Guthrie – and to her face, not behind her back – was, 'Can you do your job better, please? You are the leader of the most important cultural institution in the country and you are invisible and that’s not good enough.' How you can get into trouble for doing that, I don’t know.”

Strangely, this isn't the first time Faine is preparing to hang up his headphones. In 1994, the broadcaster's afternoon program on 3LO (as ABC Radio Melbourne was then known) was given the chop. But ABC management asked him to come back two years later.

“Back then, it was very much the practice of ABC Radio to turn presenters over every couple of years,” he says. “No one lasted long. And so the idea that someone has been in the job like this for 23 years is, quite frankly, hilarious.”

On Friday, Faine will farewell listeners after more than two decades hosting his popular mornings timeslot – a much longer period of time than the “decent” four or five year stint he asked for when returning to ABC Radio in 1997. This farewell, of course, will be different – the veteran broadcaster hasn't been sacked. Instead, he is passing on the baton to respected television host Virginia Trioli.

“I won’t miss the 4.15am alarm clock and the accumulated sleep deficit,” Faine says. “I won’t miss that for one blink of an eye. It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle.

“It’s going to be really hard. Every day I get this incredible adrenaline hit. It’s also not just the adrenaline of performing but that sense of being in the thick of things - knowing what’s happening around town, around the country, around the world and knowing what’s coming next. It’s addictive.

“On the other hand, I've chosen to do this. Most people in my kind of job don’t get to do that. I was determined not to be one of those people who gets a tap on the shoulder like the footballer who does one season too many.”

Over the years, Faine has kept listeners up-to-date on some of the biggest news of the day: from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to Jill Meagher's murder. But despite covering some of the most grim local and international stories, the broadcaster still describes himself as an optimist.

“I’m a great believer in the swing of the pendulum,” he says. “At the moment we’ve gone into this weird zone where you’ve got oligarchs and autocrats and tyrants left, right and centre. And you’ve got the village idiot and the court jester, depending on which country you’re looking at. I’m pretty confident it’ll come back. I think it’ll be the power of citizens - people will roll up their sleeves and they’ll say, this is not right.”

Faine's notoriety has, to some degree, been powered by some of the most fiery and headline-grabbing political interviews in radio. In 1999, then-Victorian premier Jeff Kennett refused to answer the ABC host's questions, remarking: “I'll just sit here and drink my tea.” Kennett declined a recent invitation to appear at Faine's final show, to be broadcast to a live audience at Melbourne's Town Hall this Friday.

“It's a pity,” Faine says. “I have great respect for him. At the same time, he was occasionally very rude to me. But I don’t bear a grudge and wasn’t looking out to settle up or anything like that – we just wanted to get [all the premiers] in the same place at the same time.”

Then, in 2014, former prime minister Tony Abbott made international headlines after being caught on camera winking at Faine after a 67-year-old woman called into the program to say she had to find work on a phone sex line in order to support herself.

So who is the politician to have earned Faine's respect over the years?

“John Howard is remarkable,” the broadcaster says. “I've changed my view about him. He started out in politics and everyone thought he was this avuncular funny old uncle. At times I thought he was doing terrible things. But he did gun [reform], the GST, the intervention in Timor-Leste.

“I called him out on a few things, particularly the Iraq War. He got really cross with me but I’d like to say we’d say hello to each other if we walked past each other at the cricket or something.”

Jon Faine on...

His favourite interviewee
"I cannot believe that I've been able to sit and chew the fat with John Cleese. I grew up as a Monty Python fan."
What makes good radio
"Holding yourself to the same standards you require of other people, I think, is part of the authenticity of the role. If the public ... are going to bother to listen to you, you've got to give them that level of honesty."
How the media has changed in the past 30 years
"Those of us that are in a position to keep the powerful to account, we've got to work twice as hard."

Faine's last show will be broadcast live from Melbourne Town Hall on Friday, October 11.