Latest / The Front / Police seize ‘loan book’ of alleged sex offender Alan Jones

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Police seize ‘loan book’ of alleged sex offender Alan Jones · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Monday, July twenty eight, twenty twenty five. Anthony Albanizi
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: says he'll stand firm on banning social media for under sixteens.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: That s as Google threatens to sue the federal government
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: if they don't exclude YouTube from the ban. The only
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: recorded police interview with the estranged husband of missing woman
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Bromwyn Winfield could be inadmissible in any future criminal proceeding.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: That's because John Winfield wasn't properly cautioned. That's a revelation
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: in a new episode of our blockbuster true crime investigation
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Bromwyn John Winfield denies any wrongdoing. You can hear it
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: now at bromwinpodcast dot com. Broadcaster Alan Jones had immense
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: wealth and cultivated a network of prom and athletes, celebrities
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and journalists, and now police investigating alleged offending by Jones
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  Speaker 1: have seized his secret loan book featuring many of those names.
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  Speaker 1: Jones denies any wrongdoing. Today The Australian's Steve Jackson on
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: breaking the story. Alan Jones once rode the airwaves like
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a king sailing into battle every day the breakfast radio
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: host was at war with someone.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: The woman's off her tree and quite frankly, they should
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: shove her and Bob Brown in a chaff back and
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: take them as far out to see as they can.
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  Speaker 3: She's a clown, just Indrida in a complete clown. I
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: just wonder whether Scott Morrison's going to be fully brief
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: to shove a sock down the throat.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: What about this brain dead Sarah Hansoon young wear with
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: dope clover or New Zealand Prime.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Minister Justina dern is challenging Scott Morrison over climate change. Now,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I hope Scott Morrison gets tough here with a few backhanders.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: He had another mode too, sharing warm exchanges with his
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: talkback callers, rhapsodizing about music or heaping praise on the politicians,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: business people or athletes he liked.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Who could forget the young man born in Perth, John Stephenson.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: He won silver to two thousand and four Olympics in
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: League twin Great Ian Thorpe Ian Good morning, good morning,
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  Speaker 3: how are you Allen? Lovely lovely to talk to you, Grant,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: congratulations all you've done and you're an inspiration to every
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: young person. That's Alex Wilkinson, the captain of Sydney FC.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: They've broken every football record in the book. Thanks Haman,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: and I appreciate it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Jones was connected like nobody else from his earliest days
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  Speaker 1: as a school teacher, then a coach at elite boys' schools.
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  Speaker 1: He rose to become coach of the Wallabies and made
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: numerous unsuccessful attempts to stand for politics with the Liberal
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and Country Party. He owned shares in race horses and businesses.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Jones was wealthy not just from his multimillion dollar radio salary,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: but from the deals with corporate sponsors that in nineteen
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: ninety nine were found by the broadcasting regulator to have
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: misled listeners. It was a huge scandal in radio. Jones
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and fellow two UI broadcaster John Laws had individual deals
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: with sponsors like Optus and Quantus, in return for which
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the pair plugged the businesses on air. Jones was publicly humiliated,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and although he never admitted wrongdoing, he later claimed he'd
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: stopped taking personal endorsements. But it was money in the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: end that pulled Jones off the radio waves. Those comments
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you heard about shoving a sock down the throat of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda r Dern in twenty nineteen
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: resulted in sponsors pulling their money from his two GB
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: breakfast show. Many never returned, and by twenty twenty Jones's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: radio career was over. And now money's back at the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: center of a big story about Alan Jones, this time
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in a very different context.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Today we're revealing that police have sees to secret dossier
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  Speaker 4: from Alan jones multimillion dollar harborside house.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson is the Australian's media diarist and he's breaking
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a big story in his column today.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: The document in question details all the personal financial dealings
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  Speaker 4: he had with a whole range of people. We're talking
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  Speaker 4: the biggest names across sport, media, business, racing in the country.
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  Speaker 4: These are people who were personal friends of Alan Jones
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  Speaker 4: or trusted acquaintances, and he often gave them interest free
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: loans to help them out in their time of need.
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  Speaker 4: While they were interest free loans, they weren't free money.
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  Speaker 4: So what he's done is he has kept meticulous, detailed
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  Speaker 4: records of every transaction he's ever made. So you've received
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: a check from Alan Jones at any point in your life,
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  Speaker 4: you're on this list, your name, your details, how much
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  Speaker 4: he lent you, and whether you ever repaid him.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: In November twenty twenty four, Jones was charged with dozens
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  Speaker 1: of offenses, including aggravated indecent assault, assault with active indecency,
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  Speaker 1: sexual touching, and common assault. Additional charges were aid earlier
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  Speaker 1: this year, and there are now ten alleged victims, including
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: one aged seventeen at the time of the alleged defending Jones,
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  Speaker 1: who denies all the allegations, is now eighty four. What
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  Speaker 1: do we know about who these people are that Alan
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Jones was allegedly lending money to.
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  Speaker 4: Look I've been provided with a list of names of
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  Speaker 4: people who are allegedly on the list. At this stage,
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  Speaker 4: I've kept a lot of those details confidential because at
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: the moment this is a document that I understand is
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  Speaker 4: being treated as a serious piece of potential evidence by
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: the authorities. But one of the names we do know
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  Speaker 4: that features on it is Carl Stefanovic, who's long been
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: a friend of Allan Jones. Jones welcomed him to Sydney
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: and was a very strong influence on him in his
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: early years and gave him a six figure interest free
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: loan so he could afford to put a deposit on
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  Speaker 4: his first home in Sydney when he arrived here from
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Queensan more than two decades ago. So that's one of
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  Speaker 4: the names that we can reveal is definitely on the list.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Do you think it was clear to all the recipients
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: of this money that Alan Jones thought that these were loans?
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  Speaker 4: My understanding is that Jones certainly thought they were loans.
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  Speaker 4: He got the more documented registered with his accountant. A
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  Speaker 4: lot of the people, though it turns out, who featured
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  Speaker 4: on the list, didn't seem to think it was such
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: a hard and fast loan, whether they thought that Allan
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: had plenty of money or for whatever reason, many of
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  Speaker 4: these loans were not repaid to him.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Alan Jones talked a lot over the years about his
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: own journey from relative poverty growing up on a dairy
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: farm in country Queensland to being a very wealthy man.
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  Speaker 1: He had an apartment in the toaster, he had a butler,
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  Speaker 1: famously had a chauffeur, and he never made a secret
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  Speaker 1: of his wealth. He expressed the view that he was
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: incumbent on people who had been successful in life to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: share their fortune literally and figuratively, and in his case
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that meant literally. He often helped out people by talking
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: about their charities on the radio. He did spend a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: lot of time donating his time to charitable functions.
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  Speaker 3: I came from Struggle Street. You see, democracy is a
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: great idea, but it doesn't always work. I mean, people
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: basically feel that they're only ever wanted a week before
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: the election and they're asked to vote, and then they're
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: completely ignored.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Were you surprised by the extent of his alleged financial
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: connections with Australia's elite.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Not really, because we've heard about how generous he is
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: and how gregarious he is. Jones is someone who has
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: quite a solitary lifestyle. He was earning millions of dollars
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  Speaker 4: at his peak, and let's be honest, he didn't have
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  Speaker 4: anyone to share it with except for his friends, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: he liked to look after them. My sources of Tommy.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: He's also a little bit of a sucker for a
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: hard luck story, so when he heard someone was in
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: need or in trouble, he liked to help out where
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: he could. There's no suggestion at all that there are
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: any sinister strings attached to this money. That's definitely not
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: the case. But he was a big private lander, probably
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: one of the most personal ones. If you're in his camp,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: if you'd liked you on, you're on inside. He's more
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  Speaker 4: than happy to help out with a loan. The operative
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: word being alone, expecting it would be repaid at some point.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: A network of the kind that Alan Jones has is
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: for the purpose of him handing out his own patronage,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but presumably he also would have expected something in return.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: You're right, claid, because we've seen through a number of
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: controversies that he expected that the people that he drew
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: into his circle that it would be a mutual loyalty
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  Speaker 4: offered between both of them.
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  Speaker 3: That's the lesson to learn share, be out there to
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  Speaker 3: give something back, and it's a privilege if you can.
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  Speaker 3: Most people would feel that they'd like to be able
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  Speaker 3: to do that. They can't, and I think the obligation
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  Speaker 3: is if you have that capacity, you're obligated, in my view,
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  Speaker 3: to do it give something back.
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  Speaker 4: Jones. For much of his career, his well known motto
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: was pick and stick. And one of the things I've
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: heard about this document is that he now feels that
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  Speaker 4: a lot of the people that he helped out in
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: their darkest hour, in their time of need have deserted him.
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  Speaker 4: So whether or not he now feels the temptation to
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: call in those debts, only time will tell.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Coming up, will we ever see another Alan Jones again?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Jacko Alan Jones disappeared from the radio airwaves in twenty twenty.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: He had a short lived time on Sky News that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: didn't last. Why did his career end so sort of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a ruptly and how has radio and broadcast reshaped itself
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in his absence?
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  Speaker 4: It's funny that you ares that, Claire, because I initially
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: got the details about Jones effectively being kicked off to
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: GB in an era of social media. Some of the
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: more extreme comments he was making weren't well received and
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: there were ramifications for that, and advertisers were fleeing amidst
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: a backlash, and the word was out he was going
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: to lose his job. At the time, nine Radio vehemently
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: denied that was the case. It played out that that
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: was in fact the reason that he left, and he's
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: ensuing moves after that just showed that he had a
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: smaller and smaller niche as he got more extreme or
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: more fervent in some of his more extreme beliefs. Since then,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: he's had his venture with the Strand Digital Holdings, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: really he's retreated into his house. He's only been seen
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: out a couple of times since he was arrested and
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: put on bail last November. And we've seen in the
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: wake of Jones' in media and radio in particular, a
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: sort of reckoning where a lot of the behavior and actions,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: particularly of big name stars that were questionable and covered
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: up because they were your money makers, because they were
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: the people that attracted audiences. It was covered over. It
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: wasn't talked about the old days of yelling that people
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: are over it, and just something that doesn't wash in
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: newsrooms these days.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: We could argue about whether Alan Jones ever shifted any votes,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: but he was certainly someone who politicians felt that they
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had to court. You know, you had to go on
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Alan Jones if he invited you. Is there anyone like
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that in media now, maybe, apart from Kyle and Jackie
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Oh Well.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: I think when you're looking at the height of Alan
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: jones power, we're looking at the mirror really in the
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: infancy of the Internet, where people did turn to the radio,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: particularly for their life breaking news, and he was a
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: guy who was on there for three hours every day
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: telling you what he thought and people listened, and I
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: think in that era he did make a big difference.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: These days, there's so many options, as you know, you
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: can read The Australian twenty four to seven online, the
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Latest News and other mass heads as well. It's not
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: just radio that has that. There's no monopoly on having
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: a voice because social media means everyone can have their
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: say and have people hear what they think can respond.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: But in his time he was truly powerful. Whether or
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: not anyone has that sort of power now, I'd severely
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: doubt it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson edits The Media Diary in The Australian every Monday.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: You can check it out at the Australian dot com
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: dot au