Fed: Laws to stay on air with 2UE

AAP General News (Australia)
12-13-1999
Fed: Laws to stay on air with 2UE

SYDNEY, Dec 13 AAP - Radio 2UE broadcaster John Laws today said he would remain on
air despite having endured one of the most vicious media attacks he had ever witnessed.

Mr Laws told listeners he would continue broadcasting for them because they had been loyal.

"I shall continue to broadcast and I shall continue to broadcast on these stations,
because with a couple of little hiccups here and there, the stations have shown loyalty,"

he said.

"And I may well have been stupid with loyalty ... (but) I hope you stay with me.

"I will continue to broadcast for the sake of you, the listeners, the most loyal of all."

The Australian Broadcasting Authority began investigating Mr Laws' sponsorship deals
after ABC's Media Watch exposed a deal between him and Australia's big banks in July.

The inquiry, which also looked into his colleague Alan Jones, has concluded and is
expected to deliver its findings early next year.

Mr Laws said he had endured one of the most vicious media attacks he had ever seen,
and denied there was ever a $1.2 million deal with the Australian Bankers' Association.

But the inquiry exposed the deal, which was valued at $1.2 million and with Mr Laws
to receive $500,000 of the overall payment.

He attacked one-time friend Mike Gibson and other broadcasters who frequently commented
on the cash-for-comment inquiry, as well as the media's reporting of it.

One headline read "Laws facing the sack", he said.

"My family had to read this, my kids and my grand kids had to read this," he said.

"Drawers and drawers and drawers of transcripts in my office, hours and hours and hours
of suffering and pain that had to be gone through because the media decided that it was
going to turn its back, and when it turned its back, it really turned its back, and it
hurt, my God it hurt."

He said the past five months had been the loneliest period in his life, despite only
one sponsor deserting him.

"Not one single solitary radio station stopped taking the John Laws morning program
and not one single solitary person stopped listening to it and that was what really mattered,"

he said.

"I will continue to (broadcast) with the kind of dogged determination that maybe didn't
exist before because when you've been beaten, when you've been knocked about ... you just
feel alone.

"So I'm going to keep working and I'm not going to let this beat me and I doubt that
I will ever pick up a newspaper and read something nice about John Laws."

He criticised the use of the term cash-for-comment, saying it implied he was accepting
money without paying tax.

"I pay tax on every single solitary cent I make and I work hard to make it," he said.

Radio 2UE chairman John Conde welcomed Mr Laws's decision to stay with the station,
saying it was his natural home.

AAP sal/tsm/kr/br

KEYWORD: DEALS (CARRIED EARLIER)

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