Strip Alan Jones of his AO

Alan Jones' comments about Julia Gillard's father dying of shame have disgusted the country — he should be stripped of his Order of Australia, says Peter Wicks.

ALAN JONES has disgusted most of the country with his comments about Julia Gillard's father's death.

His apology was rather hollow, unsurprisingly. Alan was quick to point out he thought it was a private function and his speech would not be made public. Like that makes it okay? He was also keen to mention that he had come under attack online from trolls; given his comments, I'm less than surprised.

In the Daily Telegraph's story on this disgraceful display of less than human behaviour, I was interested to note that, of the three MP's named as being at the event, two were from my area.

Federal MP for Mitchell, Alex Hawke; and State MP for Hawkesbury and parliamentary secretary for Premier O'Farrell, Ray Williams, were both there to cheer Alan on and ensure the youth are indoctrinated.

Both of these men came under fire recently when the Hills Shire Mayor, Greg Burnett was forced to stand down over allegations of a $280,000 embezzlement. Although both denied that they knew of the allegations beforehand, Ray Hadley has gone on air calling Ray Williams, who had Burnett as his campaign manager, a disgrace and a liar. There is now there a defamation case on the matter.

I can confirm that eyewitnesses saw Burnett, Hawke and Williams at the Rendezvous Cafe the evening the embezzlement story hit the fan. Also, after speaking to several of the Liberal Councillors, I can safely say that if Hawke and Williams didn't know of the allegations, they were the only sitting members of the Liberal Party in the area who didn't know and every Councillor I have spoken to on the matter believes that they knew.

In fact, when the questions over this embezzlement, and the goings on within the Alex Hawke faction became too hard, both MP's disappeared ― Williams, I'm told, fled the country. Almost as gutless as attacking someone over the death of a parent, but not quite.

This however, will give you an idea of the type of audience that thinks highly of Alan Jones and were keen to hear him speak at the $100 a head event.

If somebody brings the award into disrepute, it should be taken from them, because the highest award given to Australians should be scandal free. After all, an Order Of Australia Award is bigger than any of its individual recipients.

Last week, one member of this exclusive club has brought the award into disrepute and cheapened the Order with his actions and words in the most public of manners.

The person I refer to is Alan Jones AO, a radio broadcaster.

I am unaware of how he came to be given an Order Of Australia, but frankly I don't think it matters given his recent actions.

In the United States it is against the law to threaten the president, or to encourage their death, whether in public or private. If only that were the case in Australia.

Jones, on his radio breakfast show, has told his listeners that our elected Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, should be put into a chaff bag and dumped at sea. Despite public outrage at his words, Jones repeated his chaff bag comments on air again, this time putting the leader of the Greens Party, Bob Brown, in the chaff bag with her.

Last week, in what was the lowest point in political commentary this country has ever seen, Alan Jones did the unthinkable.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently mourned the loss her father, undoubtably one of the hardest and most heart wrenching things any person goes through. However, it would seem that not everybody has respect for others in these trying circumstances.

Alan Jones AO, made the conscious decision to announce during a speech to Young Liberals, at a political gathering, that he thinks Julia Gillard, our Prime Minister is a liar, and that her father had recently "died of shame" ― shame, Jones says, because his daughter is a liar. He then followed up by saying that the Liberals were weak for not using this method of attacking our Prime Minister, just because she is a woman.

Alan was also disrespectful enough to autograph a jacket made from chaff bags for auction at the event.

Clearly class is not a requirement for an Order Of Australia, and misogyny is smiled on.

If you were to ask people what it means to be Australian, I am confident that one of the most common answers would be mateship. The spirit of Australians, that has even rivals looking after each other when they are down. It is the spirit of the diggers, going through hell to help a fallen comrade.

Alan Jones has not displayed this sentiment at all; in fact he has shown quite the opposite, he has instead taken to putting the boot into somebody in the most cruel of manners when they are at their most vulnerable.

Put simply, Alan Jones, by his actions and words, has shown himself to be Un-Australian.

This week Alan Jones will continue to try and justify the unjustifiable to an utterly disgusted nation. All the while he will be referred to as Alan Jones AO.

I hope you will consider the future and past recipients of this most prestigious award, and agree that Alan Jones should be stripped of his Order Of Australia.

I thank you for taking this into consideration.

Yours Sincerely

Peter Wicks




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License