Tim Hornibrook: Opera House fracas shows how public can fight back against Jones

After my book Jonestown was published, bumper stickers produced by a former teaching colleague of Alan Jones began appearing around Sydney, proclaiming "I don’t listen to Alan Jones and I vote".

A louder echo of this expression of protest emerged this week in a petition mounted opposing the use of the Opera House to promote a horse race.

But I wonder how much of that outburst of public anger is down to the billboard or Alan?

Jones’ on-air bullying of Opera House chief executive Louise Herron bellowed like the morning alarm. "Who the hell do you think you are? Your job is on the line ... I am going to get Gladys on the phone." Classic Jones pre-breakfast vitriol.

As they are wont to do, the Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, succumbed.

Jones, as a politician who broadcasts, has a wicked advantage over properly elected officials. The public pay for the poor judgment inflicted on them, with no commensurate way to vote him out of office.

The problem for Berejiklian and all before her is the next election. Sydney politicians in particular see little upside in opposing Jones. The other wicked advantage he has is that microphone, which switches on every working day. You give in to Jones because he will keep on bullying.

One of the many victims, former police commissioner Peter Ryan, called him an enemy of democracy.

The nation’s most successful broadcaster of course sees it otherwise. He holds public officials to account when politicians fail to do so. Among unparalleled credentials is a term as a speech writer to a prime minister and an audience constituency far greater than that required to be actually elected.