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Alan Jones leaves court in 2004.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Andrew Taylor<\/cite><\/p>\n Over three decades, Jones has been sued by a who\u2019s who of Sydney. Few people have been in the cross-hairs of a defamation dispute as often; his accusers have been politicians, police officers, sports chiefs, businessmen, barristers, and bureaucrats. Some cases were settled, some lost, some dropped. One dragged on so long, Jones outlived his accuser.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just defamation; Jones has also been fined for contempt. And it\u2019s not just courts; he\u2019s been hauled before tribunals for vilification and inciting violence.<\/p>\n But he has been the instigator too, launching legal action of his own when he felt his reputation had been damaged by other media outlets. This week he signalled his intention to do so again over the series of stories by Gold Walkley-winning reporter Kate McClymont.<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 rich interaction with Australia\u2019s courts, tribunals and watchdogs reads as a potted history of the major political themes that ran through his 30-year domination of breakfast radio, from the time he was plucked from politics and sport and put before a microphone by late 2UE kingmaker John Brennan in 1985, to his retirement in 2020.<\/p>\n In the 1990s, back when the city was fascinated with the machinations of the NRMA board, two people linked to the motoring association sued him. One of the cases was discontinued, but the other ran for almost two decades and only finished when the plaintiff died.<\/p>\n As a former rugby union and league coach, who at times sat on the board of the Australian Sports Commission and the NSW Institute of Sport, he regularly took sports bosses to task. In the late 1990s, Rugby Union chief John O\u2019Neill sued and settled with Jones and his station after being described as a \u201cfailed banker\u201d.<\/p>\n Famed rugby league referee Bill Harrigan also took on Jones, pocketing $90,000 after the broadcaster implied he was biased and favoured Brisbane and other ex-Super League teams.<\/p>\n One of his bigger payouts related to an Olympic rowing scandal in which a member of the women\u2019s eight, Sally Robbins, stopped rowing and lay back before the finish line at the 2004 games in Athens (the scandal became known as Lay Down Sally).<\/p>\n John Coates won his defamation case against Alan Jones.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Dallas Kilponen<\/cite><\/p>\n It caused a furore at home, and Jones was found to have implied over the airwaves of 2GB that Australian Olympic Committee boss John Coates bullied the rowers into saying what he wanted at a press conference a few days later, and had handled the matter incompetently. Coates was awarded $310,000, plus costs.<\/p>\n Law and order was also a dominant theme of the 1990 and 2000s, and Jones \u2013 who by the turn of the millennium had developed not only a 20 per cent audience share, but also an unrivalled influence over the state\u2019s politicians \u2013 ran hard on pet issues, such as his belief in the innocence of Andrew Kalajzich, who was convicted of murdering his wife (his coverage led to an inquiry, which reiterated Kalajzich\u2019s guilt).<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 outspoken views prompted lawsuits from several police officers, beginning with Clive Small, the detective-turned-assistant commissioner who led the team that arrested Ivan Milat. A jury found Jones implied during a 2004 broadcast on the Today<\/em> Show (owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead) that Small was responsible for bloodshed that included shootings, kidnappings, drug dealing and carjacking in south-west Sydney after failing to act on a 1999 police report on Lebanese gangs. The matter settled for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n Senior police officer Deborah Wallace, who went from leading the crackdown on heroin in Cabramatta to heading the bikie-busting Raptor Squad, also took Jones and his employer to court, successfully claiming he imputed she\u2019d lied, changed records and acted criminally. That, too, settled out of court.<\/p>\n Deborah Wallace sued Jones in 2002.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Ben Rushton<\/cite><\/p>\n Indigenous politics and land rights were another theme. Indigenous leader Pat Dodson settled a case in 1998 after Jones said he\u2019d wasted taxpayers\u2019 money. The Western Aboriginal Legal Service alleged he breached racial vilification laws in a 1995 broadcast that a tribunal found simulated \u201cscorn, disgrace, contemptuous laughter and derision\u201d (the decision in favour of the legal service was set aside on appeal).<\/p>\n Jones was also ordered to apologise to a woman for suggesting she\u2019d acted fraudulently in a native title claim, although his lawyers apologised on his behalf because he was at Wimbledon watching the tennis.<\/p>\n There was also a long-running battle with Muslim leader Keysar Trad, about whether reading a letter on air in the days before the Cronulla riots describing Lebanese men as vermin and mongrels constituted racial vilification. The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal eventually ordered the broadcaster to pay Trad $10,000.<\/p>\n In 2007, the Australian Communications and Media Authority also found that Jones\u2019 commentary before the riot was likely to have encouraged violence and vilified people.<\/p>\n A court awarded Queensland\u2019s Wagner family $3.75 million in damages.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AAP<\/cite><\/p>\n Jones comes from Queensland, and he retained a keen interest in his home state. That, too, is evident in his defamation history. The most famous and costly case against Jones and his then employer Macquarie Media involved the disastrous 2011 Grantham Floods.<\/p>\n A court awarded the Toowoomba-based Wagner family $3.75 million in damages after it found a broadcast by Jones conveyed grave defamatory imputations, including that the collapse of the family\u2019s quarry wall caused the deaths of 12 people.<\/p>\n In 2015, five members of the Queensland\u2019s Liberal National government, including then premier Campbell Newman, also launched legal action against the broadcaster in the dying weeks of their reelection campaign, accusing him of wrongly linking approval for a mine with donations to the LNP. It was billed as the biggest defamation case in 30 years, but was dropped a few months later.<\/p>\n Jones, however, wasn\u2019t always the defendant. He sued The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and journalist David Leser over a series of stories during the cash for comment scandal of 1999, which alleged a secret deal between AMP and Jones to benefit the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Jones claimed the story injured his credit, feelings and reputation, and a jury agreed. Fairfax eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n An inquiry later found Jones and his stablemate, John Laws, had taken money from companies to promote their services, without disclosing the deals to listeners.<\/p>\n SBS also settled a defamation suit from Jones over a retirement tribute on satirical program The Feed<\/em>, in which the SBS presenter said he\u2019d made a career out of bullying people, gleefully used racial slurs, and spread lies and fake news. Jones claimed it wrongly painted him as a racist, a misogynist and a liar, and in 2020 SBS settled the case out of court.<\/p>\n This week, Jones flagged another legal defence of his reputation, sending a letter threatening defamation proceedings to Nine about the stories published in this masthead. He claimed the journalists wanted to destroy his reputation because they resented his rise as one of Australia\u2019s most prominent commentators.<\/p>\n The letter follows an investigation by the Herald<\/em> and T<\/em>he Age<\/em> which revealed the high-profile radio star allegedly used his position of power to prey on young men, indecently assaulting, groping or inappropriately touching them without their consent. Jones has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n A concerns notice is the first step towards commencing defamation proceedings but does not institute proceedings. The decision to proceed involves weighing up many factors, says Michael Douglas, senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia\u2019s law school.<\/p>\n One is the cost; top barristers can charge more than $10,000 a day, plus fees for the lawyers who work for them. Cases can drag on for years. If a plaintiff loses, they may have to pay their opponent\u2019s costs, as well as their own. Money will be less of a concern for Jones, who was earning $4 million a year by the time he retired.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the question of whether it\u2019s worth prolonging the scrutiny. High-profile defamation cases attract media attention, and recent examples involving special forces soldier Ben Roberts Smith and former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann have involved regular headlines that kept reminding the public of the original injury.<\/p>\n \u201cIt certainly exposes you to public scrutiny when you\u2019re suing anyone in a public court,\u201d says Douglas. \u201cIt\u2019s usually a political decision, in my view; can they tolerate letting the allegations stand, and do nothing?<\/p>\n \u201cDefamation plaintiffs aren\u2019t always economically rational. There\u2019s a lot of pride and emotion mixed up with the underlying subject matter. If they feel aggrieved, they\u2019ll go hard even though it may not be a sound financial decision; they\u2019ll want to defend themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of defamation cases that talk about the value of reputation in terms of honour. What\u2019s the price of that? Shakespeare said a good name is the \u2018jewel\u2019 of the soul, and some people probably feel the same way these days. Reputation matters, particularly if you\u2019re a public figure and your whole identity revolves around being seen in a particular way.\u201d<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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