Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / JUST JOSH: "Me and Mr Jones"
Transcript
- 0:00Okay. Well, I have been postponing doing this podcast and finding every excuse not to get
- 0:09around to it. I'm in New York City, which is fabulous. I flew in from Los Angeles yesterday
- 0:15and you would be impressed. You would be truly impressed by the number of irrelevant things
- 0:19that I managed to convince myself were really important for me to do there so that I didn't
- 0:24have to sit down and have this conversation. I've been dreading this podcast for days since
- 0:31the arrest on Monday of one of the most influential Australians of his generation at the age
- 0:36of 83 on allegations of sexual assault of young men who mostly worked on his radio show.
- 0:45But to be honest, I've also sort of been dreading it for years, really, because I've never
- 0:52spoken publicly about the nature of Alan Jones' relationship with me when I was a producer
- 0:58on his radio show in my early twenties. But now the man who infuriated the left and had
- 1:06prime ministers on speed dial faces the prospect of dying behind bars and much of the public
- 1:12and the media establishment have responded to this news with a kind of breathless,
- 1:19prurient glee, like a sort of salacious shard and fruiter at the come-upence of such a
- 1:26divisive figure. I would normally read some of the tweets to give you an impression of the
- 1:32tenor of the conversation in Australia at the moment. But I mean, they're so bad that I'm afraid
- 1:37they would be defamatory or prejudicial to the court case. So I won't. But, you know, comparisons
- 1:44to the worst people alive, to Harvey Weinstein, to Jimmy Savile, the British entertainer who
- 1:50after his death turned out to be a serial child rapist, you know, rotten hell, all that kind of stuff.
- 1:57And meanwhile, Alan Jones' allies have nothing much to say that's particularly intelligible.
- 2:04They're either tight-lipped or they're railing into the void about it being a witch hunt
- 2:09without actually addressing the moral gravity of what's going on.
- 2:14And I understand that this is one of those situations where conversations kind of break down,
- 2:19like it's very hard to discuss this thoughtfully and delicately and courageously,
- 2:26without sounding like you're either prejudging a court case or defaming someone or disputing
- 2:31the victim's pain. So everyone seems to have picked their side, or either this is about bloody
- 2:37time or it's all a beat up. But for me, this raises all kinds of questions about power and sexuality,
- 2:50about retributive justice, consent, and the role that the media should play in helping us to
- 2:56evaluate all those things. And the media is doing a pretty lousy job, I think. So it falls to me
- 3:03to do so. That is after all the point of this show. Let me emphasize upfront that I don't know
- 3:09anything about the credibility of these allegations against Alan Jones. Nothing I say here should be
- 3:13construed as implying that they're true or false. Alan Jones is innocent until proven guilty.
- 3:19And if the allegations are true, then I feel terribly for the victims. There would be no excuse
- 3:30for the kind of behaviour that's being alleged. I'm not making specific claims about the specifics
- 3:34of this case. What I can be specific about is my experience as a way to open these issues up.
- 3:43Which brings us, I suppose, to the bombshell. I might as well lead with the lead here and reveal
- 3:48many of the claims that I've read about Alan's alleged behaviour are familiar to me because I
- 3:54experienced them too. I didn't experience them as a victimization. I haven't coded it that way.
- 4:02I never thought of it that way. And I'll elaborate a little bit in just a moment on what exactly
- 4:07I'm talking about. But I want to make a request of all the Australians listening right now.
- 4:13If you think Alan Jones was a despicable and corrupt force of right-wing evil,
- 4:20can you just park that for a moment? And conversely, if you think he was an inspiring champion
- 4:26of the Aussie battle, can you just park that for a moment? We're talking about prison here.
- 4:34And we're talking about our character as people, as commenters, as journalists, as citizens,
- 4:42as humans. Character that transcends partisan differences.
- 4:48Whether he was a good or bad guy for the country is kind of irrelevant.
- 4:53So for American listeners, who is it that I'm talking about? Alan Jones was a originally a
- 5:00school teacher. Then he became a rugby coach and was arguably the most successful Australian rugby
- 5:06coach of all time. He gave Australia its first blood as low cup victory in almost 40 years,
- 5:11a grand slam victory over England, Ireland and Scotland. When he was coaching the Australian rugby
- 5:16side, they were victorious in 23 tests out of 30. Then he went into broadcasting and became
- 5:24the number one radio host on the number one slot in the number one market for decades.
- 5:31So if you imagine kind of a cross between Bill Belichick, Rush Limbaugh,
- 5:38Jiminy Glick and Steve Bannon, that would probably take you halfway to Alan Jones.
- 5:46To give you a sense of how powerful he was, which really has no comparison in the United States,
- 5:51I don't think on his final radio show just a few years ago, the former Prime Minister Tony
- 5:57Abbott walked into the studio with a bottle of champagne flanked by the former opposition leader,
- 6:02Mark Latham, and then the actual Prime Minister of the day walked in like it's that level.
- 6:09Then he lost that radio show because he was becoming increasingly controversial and provocative
- 6:15and advertisers were getting anxious and it was time for a new generation at the radio station.
- 6:21So he was quite shockingly dismissed and then he lost his Sky News television show and he lost
- 6:27his column. He had to sell his most beloved property. He had some health concerns and now he's
- 6:34basically been out of the limelight for a few years, which is probably what raises the eyebrows of
- 6:40some of his allies as if this is finally the moment when people were able to smell blood in the
- 6:46water and have a go at him because last December there was a huge front page piece in the newspaper
- 6:56which had been researched for years investigating every complaint against him and compiling a
- 7:04forensic mosaic of really awful behaviour, focusing of course on the most salacious and sexy bits.
- 7:16And that became the basis for the police investigation, which led to the events of this past
- 7:22Monday on Monday morning. There was a knock at the door of his luxury apartment which is next to
- 7:27the opera house, panoramic views of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney Harbour. It's an apartment I've
- 7:32been to many times and it was detectives from the child abuse squad who arrested him, loaded
- 7:40him into an unmarked police car, took him to the police station, over 26 alleged incidents
- 7:48against eight or nine alleged victims between 2001 and 2019. Here is how the journalist who wrote
- 7:58the cover story and devoted years to investigating it and who's reporting largely brought about this
- 8:04prosecution characterises the charges. Over those years there have been allegations of misbehavior
- 8:13by Alan Jones ranging from groping to indecent assaults and indecent assault can attract a maximum
- 8:21penalty of five years. We are talking these are serious charges that he is facing.
- 8:29Now one reason why the charges are especially serious is because they involve a minor
- 8:36and because the child's sex abuse squad was conducting the investigation.
- 8:41Now the reason for that is that almost all these victims are in their early twenties
- 8:46except it seems one who is 17. It may be more than one but the police have said that the
- 8:52youngest of the cases is 17. Hence because it's under 18 child sex abuse but most of the alleged
- 9:01victims are in their early twenties and I only make this point because this case is being talked
- 9:08about in the same context as people like Jimmy Savile and Harvey Weinstein. So the allegations
- 9:14that were swirling around Alan Jones in the pieces of journalism which I've read I've read the
- 9:19book about Alan. I've read the profiles of Alan and all the allegations that have been leveled
- 9:24against him and I can't speak to the allegations that the police are sitting on because they haven't
- 9:28released them so I'm not speaking about the specific case but in the media reporting the allegations
- 9:35all involve for example Alan Jones hiring an early twenties handsome guy to be his driver to drive
- 9:42his fancy car from the studio to his apartment and while they're driving he would allegedly reach
- 9:48over and put his hand on the driver's crotch or he would allegedly try to kiss a young male
- 9:54staffer in the elevator. That's basically the extent of the allegations it has to do with
- 9:59with groping unwanted touching and those kinds of advances. Unless the police have something that
- 10:05has never before been reported on and wasn't found in the years of investigative journalism that
- 10:10was done into Alan Jones none of the allegations back then had to do with him raping somebody,
- 10:17him forcing himself on somebody even after they said no, him locking a door and then having his
- 10:22way with somebody to my knowledge and if I'm wrong they're like completely retract this but to my
- 10:29knowledge what we know at the moment there's none of that. So you know Harvey Weinstein was locking
- 10:35the door of hotel rooms and raping women. Jimmy Savile was raping kindergarteners.
- 10:42Now I understand there is a taboo around trying to say that there are some better forms of
- 10:52terrible things and some worse forms of terrible things because even in saying this I'll get
- 10:58attacked for saying Josh Josh is saying that some kinds of child abuse are okay Josh think
- 11:03some kind of child abuse are okay I don't I don't I'm just reacting to the reaction essentially
- 11:11to these allegations and to these charges and noting that yes I understand that since the me
- 11:20two movement we're not supposed to say that some forms of abuse are better and some are worse
- 11:26but deep down if we're honest with ourselves like if you were given the option of two terrible
- 11:34outcomes one of which that your child was going to be raped at the age of five and the other of
- 11:40which was that your child was going to have an unwanted hand placed on his crotch at the age of
- 11:4417 it's just not true that you would throw your hands in the air and say well it's impossible to
- 11:50decide there are there are no degrees of abuse abuse is abuse and we have to have a zero tolerance
- 11:55to everything all child abuse is equally wrong we might as well toss a coin of course you
- 12:00wouldn't say that we've imbibed this talking point that measuring degrees of abuse disrespect the
- 12:06victims but one might also think it disrespects Jimmy Savile's victims to compare them to a physically
- 12:14mature man on the wrong end of an improper pass but there you go as I say these are all still
- 12:23allegations nothing I'm saying here is meant to suggest that any of them are true
- 12:30Alan's innocent unless he's proven otherwise I think it's worth noting that there are few
- 12:37things I think that are being conflated in our reactions to this and not just this case but
- 12:45many similar cases and I'd like to separate them firstly there's a question of whether Alan
- 12:52Jones was a force for good or evil in Australian public life because I think a lot of people are
- 12:58allowing their reaction to this to be contaminated by their prior judgment of the man secondly there's
- 13:05the question of what investigative resources and what retributive harshness should we apply
- 13:13to specific cases in other words like is this sort of a witch hunt the third question
- 13:21is would it have been appropriate if these allegations were allegations of verbally hitting on
- 13:31younger male staffers without the touching like can we is it possible for us to tease a part
- 13:39how much of this is a yuck factor at the claim that an old powerful person used his position of
- 13:48privilege in order to try to coerce a young handsome person to sleep with him supposedly
- 13:58fourthly does it matter why he did what he's alleged to have done would that make a difference
- 14:04and fifthly should allegations like these define the totality of someone's character
- 14:11and how much glee should we take in someone's downfall on the first couple of questions whether he's
- 14:19a force for good or evil and how we should allocate resources and retribution the claims of
- 14:28it being a witch hunt are frequently responded to by Alan Jones's opponents saying what are you
- 14:36talking about he has been a suspected sexual misbehavior for years and you know this is
- 14:46finally the house of cards falling and him getting what was coming to him to which I would say well
- 14:56that doesn't that make it smell a little bit witch-hunting like if it's true that 20 years ago
- 15:03everyone knew about this but that he enjoyed the protection of the establishment
- 15:10that smells a bit off doesn't it I mean of course if you do the crime you should do the time
- 15:16the question is which behaviors reach the threshold of crimes worthy of devoting tremendous
- 15:21journalistic resources to investigating and worthy of police investigators spending months or
- 15:27years on like when is harm being avoided and when is an example being made of someone you don't
- 15:36need to call it a witch hunt but I also wouldn't regard it as like a triumph of justice if it were
- 15:44the case that elites had allowed someone to behave openly in certain ways for years as long as
- 15:51he had influence and then the moment he's of no use to politicians and high profile journalists
- 15:56they insist that what they'd previously tolerated is now worth sending into jail for
- 16:02I should shout out here that the only person with actual cajonus in the anti-alongon
- 16:09saga was Chris Masters and four corners an ABC show and Alan and I'm one a book publisher
- 16:16who dared to level some of these allegations 20 years ago when Alon Jones did in fact have
- 16:22real power now 20 odd years ago I got a job working for Alan Jones and I was a precocious
- 16:32intelligent not bad looking guy in my early 20s trying to get noticed by powerful people in
- 16:37broadcasting to get a job as a producer of the Alan Jones show was the greatest opportunity
- 16:44in the industry I mean it was not just the most listened to radio show in the country's number one
- 16:49market but as I've said he was a titan of culture and politics he was reviled and adored in equal
- 16:57measure there was probably no one in the country who was more valuable to have on your side than
- 17:01Alan Jones and no one more fearsome as an opponent so the stakes were high now here I disagree
- 17:10and disagreed about almost everything politically so this isn't a question of like you know finding
- 17:16someone's political soulmate or something but nonetheless we did hit it off on my first day actually
- 17:23one of his most senior producers looked at me and said oh he's gonna like you and he did I think
- 17:30that was partly just because I was his type who was partly I don't know an intellectual thing I
- 17:36think he's a sucker for smart creative people and I ended up being invited back to his apartment
- 17:42an afternoon to finish up work because it was a breakfast radio show the the offer stay would end
- 17:47late morning he flew me to Melbourne business class with him to help get on top of his correspondence
- 17:54we spent a weekend at his retreat in the countryside he let me stay in the spare room at his place
- 17:59in surface paradise in fact he even let me crash that pad with a few friends when he wasn't there
- 18:05he was very generous and passionate and kind I've never met anyone who when you're having a
- 18:13conversation with them is three steps ahead of you I mean he's he's playing through dimensional
- 18:16chess constantly his knee always tapping you know his mind always sparkling his eyes always twinkling
- 18:24he he was sort of a I mean in a strange way it was like he was a man from another era he was like
- 18:30it was a 19th century dandy kind of plucked down into the 21st century and incredibly
- 18:38motivational which is probably which probably explains a lot of his success as a rugby coach
- 18:42now he's able to foster an incredible camaraderie amongst people and it was clear that he had a
- 18:49crush on me and he hit on me many times and in that context hitting on me meant making a physical move
- 18:58not a verbal one he tried to put his hand on my dick he tried to kiss me tried to rub my chest
- 19:06and I would just slap him off and he would laugh and we'd move on he he's a fiery poetic
- 19:14operatic whirlwind of a man so in a weird way it just seemed to me kind of less strange that he
- 19:23would try to affirm our bond with a clumsy physical path then by doing what inviting me to tea with
- 19:32the prime minister like taking me to an opening night and being sneered at by the cultural elite
- 19:38inviting me as his date to a luncheon with a bunch of homophobic old business titans no you
- 19:45know every time he was rebuffed which was every time because I had no interest in that he backed off
- 19:51and usually laughed it off it it wasn't for me anything sinister it wasn't for me anything threatening
- 19:59it was playful excessively romantic I sort of I just coded it as part of this weird idiosyncratic
- 20:08human being who you couldn't fit in a box now this is not intended to say that everyone should
- 20:15experience things the same way like everyone is entitled to interpret their experiences how
- 20:20they want I'm not here to question the trauma that people claim to feel I'm not in their skin
- 20:27everyone's feelings are valid all I can say is it was a completely undramatic part of my life
- 20:36whenever I would go through a personal crisis of some kind Alan would be the first person
- 20:42I would call I was very supportive and I guess I what I understood it as at the time even though I
- 20:49sort of knew it was inappropriate like maybe I'm just emotionally inert or you know insufficiently
- 20:55outrageable but I sort of understood it just as a way of flirting like I look a physical overture
- 21:03is not an uncommon tactic for loveless frustrated closeted gaze you know like that is just a
- 21:12reality then this does not in any way mean that the allegations that are being leveled against him
- 21:18would be appropriate behavior if they are true it's simply to report on the way that I thought
- 21:25about it at the time I just thought like you know if you've never had love and affection and
- 21:31closeness and he hasn't to my knowledge he's never had a partner then maybe you're a you know
- 21:39maybe you don't have the memo about how things are supposed to work again I'm not saying that
- 21:44if any of this stuff happened it didn't feel serious to the people who were involved
- 21:49if the allegations turn out to be true they're completely unacceptable it's totally
- 21:55inappropriate behavior I'm just saying that in my experience I was not a victim of sexual assault
- 22:05I guess I also want to take ownership of my agency in this in some way like you know we all
- 22:11play the cards we're dealt this happens in entertainment all the time again it's become taboo
- 22:18since the me two movement to acknowledge the agency of people who are involved in this because
- 22:24of course it sounds but like a terrible way of blaming the victim if you imply that you know
- 22:29the the victimized person somehow had it coming or something this is not what I'm implying at all
- 22:34but the casting couch is a casting couch for a reason if you have looks and youth on your side
- 22:41then you play those cards if you don't have looks and youth on your side but you do have status
- 22:46and influence and money you play those cards you fly the guy to Melbourne business class
- 22:51you let him use your apartment in surface paradise you give him attention and inspiration and
- 22:56praise and you hope that that gets you across the line when you need to make a move like when I
- 23:02worked for him he promoted me to be a senior producer implausibly fast would he have done that
- 23:09if I wasn't a decent looking guy in my early twenties probably not did I know that on some level
- 23:17at the time yeah did I refuse the opportunities he gave me on the basis of my principled objection
- 23:26to them possibly being motivated by him having a crush on me of course I didn't
- 23:32nor does anyone in the real world refrain from taking the advantages that come with the hand they
- 23:36were dealt like this is all just sort of a way of addressing the third issue that I teased out
- 23:42at the top which is how would we feel about all this if the allegations were merely that he had
- 23:49hit on much younger male staffers but without touching them because what should be appalling about
- 23:57these allegations is not so much the dynamic itself but the fact that the alleged moves were not
- 24:03respectful and verbal but were instead tactile and disrespectful now if you go to any gay club
- 24:11any night of the week you'll see that grabbing someone's crotch is in some circumstances an
- 24:15acceptable form of courtship but definitely not in the workplace so it's just worth carving out
- 24:22psychologically for ourselves how much of our objections how much of our gloating our glee our
- 24:27sort of outrage relates to there being something deeply unseemly about the claim that an elderly
- 24:37closeted powerful man was making moves on people who are I suppose in a position of less power but
- 24:45this comes back to the question of of playing the cards you're dealt there is a certain power in
- 24:48being young and attractive and how much of it has to do with the actual you know the claims of
- 24:55physical overreach so to speak which brings us to the fourth issue which is would it matter
- 25:03why Alan Jones did what he is alleged to have done because in some cases it strikes me that we're quite
- 25:15uncomfortable defining people by the worst thing they've ever done but in other cases we're quite
- 25:24comfortable defining people by the worst thing they've ever done like there is a logic in the social
- 25:31justice movement with its concerns about the over incarceration of young indigenous people and
- 25:37the over policing of communities of color which is that we ought to temper our righteous fury against
- 25:44the perpetrators of crimes with a recognition that they are in part products of their environment
- 25:53one of the reasons why they behave they do is because they come from a particular place in a
- 25:58particular time a particular culture when an indigenous man drinks too much and mistreats his
- 26:04kids we don't relish publicizing it we don't take glee in pouring over the gory details we don't
- 26:12feel righteous about throwing the book at him we try to understand what's going on we have a
- 26:20certain level of empathy and sorrowful emotional restrained that is completely absent in this case
- 26:29I'm not saying you don't prosecute crimes but that you do so mindful of the context of the person's
- 26:35entire life and their impediments you don't do it as a triumphalist prudent gleeful fixation
- 26:44now I suppose this is partly complicated by the fact that Alan himself believed in being tough
- 26:49on crime but just because your enemy promoted foul beliefs doesn't mean you should descend to them
- 26:55you either believe in your principles or not either we cut people some slack for being
- 26:59products of their environment or we don't a ghardest might believe in beheading infidel but we
- 27:05don't behead him for it you know we treat him with an understanding that he is a product of a
- 27:12certain culture a certain time and a certain place and you can hate Alan Jones as much as you want
- 27:20you can differ from him politically as much as you want you can think that he's a corrosive
- 27:24force in Australian public life as much as you want but the reality is that the time and place
- 27:31that he came from was rural queens land in the 1950s now again I don't know whether any of these
- 27:38allegations are true or false I'm not commenting on this court case so let's speak in general terms
- 27:43about what it might be like to grow up in a very homophobic country in the 1950s and in a
- 27:49particularly regressive part of that country there's something that I think you should understand
- 27:56if you're straight about the closet and I only got a glimpse of this in the moments before I was
- 28:02coming out but I suspect that this is a state in which closeted people of Alan Jones's era
- 28:11have had to spend their entire lives it may help to begin by contrasting it with the situation
- 28:18today so today now that gay is normalized in big progressive cities like the one that you probably
- 28:26live in today if you feel lust or romantic affection for someone of the same sex you have a
- 28:32context for it your gay or bisexual or whatever you have an identity it fits into a box in culture
- 28:41and society that did not exist in the 1950s what you were was a pervert you were a disgrace
- 28:51you were filthy and you certainly weren't going to be allowed into polite society and as a result
- 28:57many people never properly processed their sexuality and many of them stayed in the closet
- 29:02forever I have a hunch when it's just a hunch but see if it rings true for you that people in that
- 29:09situation might find themselves trapped in a kind of adolescent phase of sexual development
- 29:19like it's not at all implausible to me that if you were raised to believe that you're a dysfunctional
- 29:24pervert that you code the sort of fluttery sunny camaraderie of blossoming male friendship
- 29:33as a kind of playful adolescent fooling around and that the way in which straight people are able
- 29:42to grow out of puberty and into a mature relationship hopefully between their sexuality their workplace
- 29:49environment and their friendships in which those things have different norms and different
- 29:53categories in which they feel sort of comfortable in their own skin in the performative roles of
- 29:58each of those forms of human existence may just not develop properly that that does not mean
- 30:06that any of this would be okay to act on and it does not mean that Alan Jones did act on it because
- 30:12I don't know whether he's guilty because we haven't had a court case yet but it does mean
- 30:17that if you grow up in the 1950s in rural Queensland you probably don't see any alternative
- 30:24except to live a loveless life if you're gay if you are a self-hating homosexual of a bygone era
- 30:32you might not think that the passions of your heart and your loins deserve to be expressed in the
- 30:39stuffy conventional heteronormative manner of going on dates and politely asking people out
- 30:45and conforming to a set of romantic norms that were always the exclusive domain of straight people
- 30:51not of dysfunctional perverts like you you were never invited into that club
- 30:57you were never allowed to join the world of the family and the marriage and the white
- 31:01picket fence and grownups pooing over how adorable you are for bringing a date home in your teens
- 31:08as they nudge nudge wink wink ignore the thought of what you might get up to in the back seat of
- 31:13your car at the drive-in movie theatre in rural Queensland because when you're a straight teenager
- 31:21what you might get up to in the back seat of a car is cute to grownups when you're a filthy
- 31:28faggot it's not cute you do not belong and you do not understand your emotional life as fitting
- 31:34into the norms of polite society nowadays the world has changed and thank god for it
- 31:40I have the white picket fence I have the husband I have the normality because I was just lucky
- 31:48to be born at the moment in history when this all became okay but excuse me it is a bit
- 31:57fucking rich for society to spend centuries demonizing a group of people telling them they're not
- 32:05worthy of belonging to the institutions of normal society telling them they can't have marriage
- 32:11and that their love is depraved and then acting morally self-righteous when those people express
- 32:19their love in depraved ways when those people express their love or their affection or they're
- 32:24you know just wanting to get their rocks off when they express their urges in ways that don't conform
- 32:31to the polite society that they spent their whole life being excluded from and now that kind of
- 32:37dysfunction is prosecuted criminally with the full force of the law three seconds after the
- 32:44Alan Joneses of the world were accepted into the club the same police force that arrested Alan
- 32:50Jones this week is the police force that would have arrested him for being gay when he was my age
- 32:57let that sink in the police who arrested Alan Jones this week would have arrested him for being
- 33:07gay when he was my age cops were beating fags in the street for no reason when Alan Jones was a
- 33:14middle-aged man and now we have the balls to pontificate about what an evil man he is for allegedly
- 33:25not expressing his sexuality respectfully and conventionally according to the proper norms
- 33:30of the club that we spent his entire life excluding him from now do you know what I'm not saying
- 33:36here what I'm not saying is that the things that he is alleged to have done are in any way acceptable
- 33:44if they happened and again they are only allegations the man is innocent unless proven guilty
- 33:50but if they happened then they would be wrong and illegal what I'm saying is that as you celebrate
- 33:58the downfall of a man you always wanted to bring down somehow note what it does to your soul
- 34:05to caricature him as an evil cartoon villain instead of as a human being
- 34:12now I can imagine some listeners thinking well it was probably not as bad for Josh because
- 34:23you know Josh is gay anyway I have thought about that and I've concluded that that claim is
- 34:32actually homophobic or at least it condones the homophobia that it implies in the alleged victims'
- 34:40minds an unwanted pass is an unwanted pass if you don't want to roll in the hay with someone you
- 34:45don't want to roll in the hay with them their overtures are going to get them nowhere so their gender
- 34:52is irrelevant unless maybe there's a threat of physical violence which has never been alleged
- 34:58against Alan and by that logic anyway his being a man should have made him more threatening to me
- 35:03not less although as a strapping 20 year old I would not have come out poorly in any scuffle with
- 35:10him and nor presumably would any of the alleged victims but anyway put it put it this way if it
- 35:16had been a powerful old female boss who tried to touch my junk would I be more traumatized as a
- 35:21gay man no to say that I would have been traumatized by my experience if I was straight is to say
- 35:30that straight people ought to be more repulsed by gayness that you know unwanted gay canoodling
- 35:39is somehow intrinsically more grotesque than unwanted straight canoodling it's just it's not
- 35:44it's it's all just unwanted canoodling and I defy any other podcaster to use the word canoodling
- 35:51three times so quickly I just one I just found out by the way I just I'm the winner of the
- 35:572024 Australian podcast awards which is fabulous for which thank you judging panel
- 36:05and now you know why is because I use words like canoodling a lot I also don't want to be misunderstood
- 36:13here to be suggesting that my experience should be everybody's I said this at the start but you
- 36:18know it would bid bears reiterating if the alleged victims say they didn't have as polianne or
- 36:24an experience with Alan as I did if they didn't experience the alleged incidents as something faintly
- 36:31ludicrous as I did then my heart goes out to them if the claim to the true then I am deeply deeply
- 36:39sorry I'm also not saying that gay people are more likely to commit sexual assault by the way
- 36:46or that being in the closet makes it okay for you to behave however you want I hope that's obvious
- 36:51just covering bases for the record to wrap us up here let me loop back to the idea
- 36:59that we all play the cards we're dealt that I played the cards I had when I was an ambitious kid
- 37:07and being in Alan's orbit was a benefit that he played the cards he had on me that everyone
- 37:14else in that office was playing their cards that everyone in the wider world who supposedly knew
- 37:21something was off but ignored it was playing their cards and that now the establishment of
- 37:30center left journalists academics activists and policy folks who have always detested Alan Jones
- 37:40are now playing their cards too Alan used to have a better hand than they did
- 37:46he had a hotline to the prime minister he had millions of listeners he had the loyalty of business
- 37:51leaders now the balance has shifted and their hand looks pretty good what are the cards held by
- 38:00people pruriently transfixed on bringing him down and reporting on it with such glee well
- 38:06they've got investigative power they've got time and money to invest in generating salacious
- 38:11clickbait about someone who is much reviled by their click they have the influence of the press
- 38:19and now they get to play those cards spend that capital on things that benefit them
- 38:25like an aura of moral righteousness the back slapping kudos of their peers at Christmas cocktail
- 38:32parties maybe even a journalism award for just how deep they sunk their arms into the pit of
- 38:37an old man's sexual peckadillos i'm not immune to this like i'm playing my cards here too
- 38:45right i'm the independent contrarian broadcaster who tells it like it is i'll cop to that
- 38:52but which position is the more consistent the more ethical the more courageous
- 39:02what takes actual courage is standing up to powerful people who aren't already out cold on the mat
- 39:11what takes actual courage is upholding your principles consistently such that you grant the same
- 39:18empathy to an allegedly handsy broadcaster that you do to a Sudanese Australian gang member what
- 39:26takes actual courage is taking the unpopular position you might even say producing a podcast
- 39:33like this one that contravenes the comfortable moral consensus about Alan and that will no
- 39:38doubt lead to me being mischaracterized as a defender of the indefensible
- 39:44Alan is a complicated man he was raised in rural Queensland in the 1950s
- 39:52and knew no way to find human connection except through his work that was my experience of him
- 40:01and the allegation is that he unwisely mixed work with pleasure in unacceptable ways
- 40:08he was a fiery provocative deranging right wing force in Australian life
- 40:16he is also hugely charitable loyal dedicated and was an inspiration to countless people
- 40:28how will those two sides of him balance out like you know at the pearly gates after your tally
- 40:33all the good and the bad i don't know what the great cosmic ledger will have to say about Alan's
- 40:40net impact on society but you know what the people who are rejoicing in his downfall don't know either
- 40:50i don't want to be defined by the worst things i've ever done
- 40:54you're entitled to define Alan Jones by the worst things he may have done
- 41:00but i hope that when people do the same thing to you they don't take such bloody glee in doing it
- 41:06i'll be back next week take care