John 'golden tonsils' Laws ruled talkback radio

Laws pioneered a unique blend of entertainment, information and opinion, delivered with a mellifluous voice, easy wit and perfect timing.

His popularity - at his height, "Lawsie" claimed two million listeners each morning - made him very influential.

Paul Keating once said, "When you educate Laws, you educate Australia". And it was while talking with Laws that the then treasurer delivered his infamous "banana republic" warning.

Richard John Sinclair Laws was born on August 8, 1935, in the New Guinea gold mining town of Wau, where his father had a trade store. He came to Australia with his mother and sister ahead of the war that was to engulf his birthplace.

Laws contracted polio at the age of 12. After leaving hospital, he attended Sydney's Knox Grammar School, but left at 15 to go jackarooing.

Laws' radio career started in 1953 in Bendigo. After working at several rural stations, he joined 2UE in 1957, the first of what would be four separate stints at the Sydney station.

He was one of the first DJs to play rock music, with his success helped by using airline contacts to bring him the latest releases from overseas. This gave him an edge when there were often long delays before the music was released in Australia.

He left after two years to go farming in the Hunter region, but was back in Sydney, this time permanently, in 1962.

Apart from his various stints with 2UE, he worked for 2GB, 2UW and 2SM. He also had short periods with Network Ten and Foxtel.

In between Laws wrote poetry. (The line "My jeans still hug me, why don't you?" gives a flavour of his style.)

Bob Ellis once called Laws "the worst poet in the whole history of the entire universe", but all five collections of verse sold well.

His shows were widely broadcast around Australia and he was particularly popular in rural NSW. He always claimed a special affinity with the bush.

His female fans were legion. His deep, rich voice was said to be "music to a woman's ovaries".

Laws's radio show began with the blast of his theme song, The Lonely Bull (performed by Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass), followed by the words "Hello world, I'm John Laws". He called his studio staff "handmaidens".

He had the power to transform brands, and his advertisers were loyal.

Stations, seeing Laws as the key to ratings success, showered him with gold. At one time, he was said to be the best-paid radio broadcaster in the world. 2UE management presented him with a golden microphone.

Laws paid $15 million in 2004 for a spacious apartment on Woolloomooloo Wharf, where he lived with his third wife, Caroline, who passed away in 2020. He had five children from two previous marriages, and Caroline ("the Princess", as Laws called her) had four from her earlier union. He drove a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Other properties included a home on the Hawkesbury River and a country retreat behind the Central Coast.

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.

He seemed genuinely bemused by the fuss. After all, he'd been reading commercials all his working life. That's why it was called commercial radio.

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.

Mark Day, The Australian's senior media writer, has said talkback has become the preserve of older, more conservative listeners who tune in to have their prejudices confirmed. Audiences interested in broader issues become bloggers.

Australian Associated Press