Alan Jones breaks his lengthy public silence with message about his longtime arch-rival John Laws

Alan Jones has broken his silence about his long-time arch-rival John Laws following the talkback radio king’s death.

The broadcasting legend died on Sunday aged 90, following a career that spanned seven decades.

Laws and Jones endured a long-standing and bitter rivalry as talkback radio hosts, initially fuelled by the infamous ‘cash for comment’ scandal in the late 1990s.

Tensions reignited again several years later after Jones left 2UE to join rival station 2GB, taking many of his loyal listeners with him.

From then on, there was a back-and-forth of bickering and bad words said about one another for years, with Laws once infamously branding Jones a ‘vicious old tart’ live on-air. 

Bitter animosity between Laws and Jones finally ended in February 2020 following the death of Laws’ wife, Caroline. They then caught up over a long lunch months later.

Early on Monday, Jones broke his public silence about Laws to pay a heartfelt tribute to a ‘idiosyncratic individual’.

He shared two photos of the pair – one from their heyday on talkback radio in the 1980s and another warmly greeting each other at the funeral of Laws’ wife.

‘For almost three quarters of that time, “the voice” entertained, cajoled, persuaded, jested, but, above all, spoke with an unapologetic clarity, best summed up by his often personal observation to me, “If they don’t like it, they can turn off”,’ Jones said.

‘But they rarely did because, whether from adulation or anger, John Laws was compulsive listening.

‘What terrified politicians about him was that he could read the pulse of the nation when few politicians can.

‘John pioneered talkback radio, which to him, was the broadcast medium where, while you talked, you also had to listen back and respond. The results bear witness to his extraordinary success.

‘Like most successful people, such success was born of modest beginnings. The late, great John Brennan, who identified the Laws’ talent from age 17, would always recall how Lawsie lost his first radio job because he refused to heed the directive of management to stop smoking. 

‘I can never forget the beyond memorable nights at the old Darcys restaurant in Sydney’s Paddington, hosted by the mercurial late Sam Chisholm, with the dearly departed Brian Henderson, John, and me.

‘No eating before 10pm, would leave at about 2.30am, head home to change my shirt, and prepare for the breakfast shift. 

‘An unsteady “golden’ voice would invariably ring me on air, in uncertain tones, to tell me he would make it by 9am! How? I never knew.

‘Too much has been made of our so-called rivalry. Of course, in any game worth its salt, there is always competitive tension; but there was never animosity, always a lot of great stories, many laughs, and enduring respect and friendship.’

Jones broke his silence just hours after paying tribute to Labor political icon Graham Richardson, who died on Saturday aged 76.

‘I can’t believe the innings is over. But to continue the cricket analogy, there were a lot of runs, plenty of missed chances, more than a few wasted appeals, but what remains forever towards John Laws is the spontaneous applause of gratitude and thanks for the pleasure and enjoyment given to millions by a fabulous innings of life generously and gloriously played out.

‘There can be no greater gift and reward in life than to enter the lives of others and receive something in return. 

‘John Laws has lived within the lives of millions of Australians who today honour his extraordinary place in his chosen vocation, and are deeply appreciative that in choosing such a professional life, he gave an impossible-to-evaluate dimension to the lives of others. Can there be any greater legacy?’

The long-time foes buried the hatchet over a long lunch at Sydney’s Sokyo restaurant at The Star in December 2020.

Jones shared a picture standing alongside a beaming Laws, then 85, saying the pair shared ‘unrepeatable stories’ and ‘laughed today as we have laughed in the past’ during the three-hour lunch.

‘How’s this?’ Alan captioned the photo. ‘Christmas lunch at Sokyo with the best.

‘J Laws will always be at the top of the media tree. We laughed today as we have laughed in the past.

‘Many of the stories are unrepeatable! You can’t replace good times.’

In 1999, Laws and rival Alan Jones were caught up in the cash-for-comment scandal, with big companies paying the broadcasters for favourable comment. A particularly bad example involved the big banks, which Laws had bashed until making a secret agreement with them. Suddenly, the banks became, in his view, excellent corporate citizens.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority found 2UE and the two broadcasters had committed 90 breaches of the industry code and estimated the value of deals at $18 million.

Laws was again in trouble with the authority in 2004, this time over deals with Telstra.

When a listener sent him a fax saying he was nothing more than a cheap whore, Laws read it on air, paused and commented: ‘I’m not cheap’.

Laws was particularly angered by the authority’s 2004 ruling that cleared Jones.

He called then authority head David Flint a ‘posturing, pretentious, pusillanimous effete professor’ and Jones ‘a vicious old tart’ who’d be a gold medallist if hypocrisy were an Olympic event.

Some commentators felt Laws never fully recovered from the cash-for-comment affairs.

In 2007, with his ratings sagging, Laws retired. Prime ministers present and future – John Howard and Kevin Rudd – queued up to make their obeisances.

After almost 55 years behind the microphone, Laws told Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope: “I don’t think I’m all that important in the overall scheme of things. I’ve done a job that I loved doing and apparently I’ve done it with some success, but so what?”

But he couldn’t give up radio. In 2011, a non-compete clause in his 2UE deal having expired, he signed up with 2SM and Super Radio Network.

And still controversy followed.

In 2013, he asked a woman reporting childhood sexual abuse if it had been her fault and if she’d been provocative; and two years later, he called a male victim a wet blanket who should brighten up.

There might never be another John Laws.

Former Keating adviser Bill Bowtell has said Laws’ audience grew up with him and grew old with him.

But the medium is much more split now.

“A new Laws can’t appear because no single person can ever command that mass audience, because there is no longer a mass market,” Bowtell said.