00:03I mean, it was like, I've often thought about working for Lawsie was like working at a sitcom.
00:08You never knew what you were going to get.
00:10I first met the guy back in 1981 when I got off the plane from New Zealand
00:14and got a job as the lowliest little cog in the newsroom at 2UE in North Sydney.
00:22And Lawsie had the morning show, hello world, this is John Laws.
00:25Many years later, I ended up as his executive producer on the morning show.
00:29And the cavalcade, the cast of characters that went through the studio was just astonishing.
00:35As you said, 17 prime ministers, Paul Keating famously said,
00:39you educate John Laws, you educate the country.
00:42Susie Quattro would drop in in her levers and whenever she's coming through Sydney for a show,
00:48hi John, how are you going?
00:49Hello Susie, how are you going?
00:50It was extraordinary.
00:52It was like a sitcom.
00:54It really, really was.
00:55And he was such a complicated character, Mel.
00:57Well, you heard behind the golden microphone because it was golden and he had a special chair
01:03with JL engraved on it and red leather and all due reverence paid to the golden microphone.
01:09But in that studio, he was untouchable.
01:11And you got him out of the studio to say an outside broadcast and he was such a shy man.
01:17He would have punters come up to him and say, oh John, I love your show, I've followed your career.
01:22And he would be really, really shy around those fans.
01:25I can use that phrase.
01:26They were fans of Lawsie.
01:28In a way that we'll never see again, I don't think, Mel.
01:31Yeah, he had a really loyal audience, Murray.
01:35What do you think it was about him that, you know, meant that people followed him wherever
01:39he went?
01:40I think it was a couple of things.
01:41I mean, it was the national reach that Laws had.
01:45I mean, he started life as a disc jockey in the bush in Victoria, Bendigo, and eventually
01:50made his way to Sydney.
01:51As you said in the intro, pioneered talkback radio, and that gave him a national profile.
01:56You could hear Laws in Darwin.
01:57You could hear him down on the Derwent in Tasmania, and all points in between.
02:01He was a commercial success, made hundreds, you know, tens of millions of dollars on the
02:07back of his voice.
02:08And yet he was extremely shy, as I mentioned.
02:11He never liked his skin, for example.
02:13Said he had awful hair and very self-deprecating.
02:17He always put himself down, and yet he had this incredible presence about him.
02:22He was really a pioneer shock jock.
02:25Famously, he said that when he started as a talkback host, he would insult listeners who
02:32were, oh, John, I love your show.
02:34Why did you shut up?
02:35And he said he did that deliberately because they'd be so outraged that they'd threaten
02:39to hang up, but of course they never would, and then they'd keep listening.
02:42And so he built his audience that way.
02:44And yet, you know, he had, as you said, 17 prime ministers.
02:49He had that reach across that spectrum of politics.
02:55Business leaders would come in.
02:56He'd have pop stars, as I mentioned.
02:58I had two text messages this morning from very old friends who worked in the radio industry
03:02with Lawsie.
03:03One said, my mum would be pretty stoked about Lawsie's arrival in heaven this morning.
03:08And another very good friend of mine, such a very sad day, the best mate I never had.
03:15So that kind of speaks to, on the one hand, Paul Keating praising John Laws for his reach
03:21and his ability to transmit economic messages across the country.
03:27And ordinary punters, one of whom never met him, and said, you know, the best mate I never
03:32had.
03:33An absolute legacy.
03:34Murray, take me back to you being his executive producer, I believe in the early 2000s.
03:40Yeah.
03:40What was that like?
03:41Did he listen to you much?
03:44Look, some days we would have an editorial meeting at six o'clock.
03:47We'd all get in there at five.
03:49We'd be pounding away like little beavers banging away at stories and so on.
03:53And you'd go into his office.
03:55He would arrive perhaps at, you know, ten to...at ten to six.
03:59And he'd sit behind the desk.
04:01And oftentimes we'd have the golden...
04:03I've mentioned the golden microphone.
04:05He had golden nail clippers.
04:07And these would be produced from beneath the...
04:10From a drawer on the desk.
04:12And so what do you have for me this morning, team?
04:14And we'd be pitching stories to John.
04:16And I remember famously one morning we were saying, we can get the Prime Minister on.
04:21And, you know, we've got the head of BHP who wants to come on after ten o'clock.
04:25He said, I've got a story for you this morning.
04:27I'm going to announce my retirement.
04:30And we all said, what?
04:31Couldn't believe our ears.
04:34And sure enough, he retired.
04:36That was, I think, 2009.
04:39And yet he obviously missed not being behind the microphone.
04:42I remember standing in the corridor at 2UE up near the old ABC studios at Greenwich.
04:50And everybody clapped him out down the back into one of his many beautiful motorcars.
04:56And he drove away.
04:57But the microphone lured him back.
04:59And he only retired November last year.
05:03So he's ticking over 71, 72 years behind the microphone.
05:08It was an extraordinary career.
05:09And really and truly, I don't think we'll ever see the like again.
05:11Laws was doing this long before mobile telephones, long before the internet, long before any of the modern trappings where, you know, AI can generate music in 50, 60 seconds.
05:25You can have a track you can play on air.
05:27He would have, he was a master in the studio.
05:30He would literally have 50, 60, 70 plastic boxes called carts with different sounds, different stings, different music.
05:37And he would whack those on, on and off, play the buttons, stop, pause, talk.
05:43He also, don't forget, during high school certificate, HSC, because he went everywhere, he'd give a big shout out to all the children doing HSC today.
05:52It's ancient history today and I think maths this afternoon.
05:55He just had this extraordinary common touch and he was very comfortable in his own skin when he was broadcasting in that way.
06:04In the studio, he was untouchable.
06:06Outside, he was a vulnerable man and he admitted himself he made mistakes.
06:10Of course, controversy did dog his career in, you know, in the later years.
06:16He always denied the cash for comment, said it was, in fact, a commercial arrangement.
06:20And he was adamant that he'd broken no, no rules, admit, you know, the broadcast authorities disagreed.
06:29And he had those run-ins.
06:31He also admitted, mate, I make mistakes.
06:32I make mistakes all my life and I'm not the only one to do so.
06:36And he certainly is not the only one to do so.
06:38He was a complex man, a very generous man.
06:41He would take us out for ratings lunches to different restaurants.
06:44And East Sydney was particularly popular.
06:47I remember once he stopped off at home to get freshened up after coming off air, sent us on to the restaurant.
06:56He turns up half an hour later, looks at the wine we're drinking and says, oh, we can do better than this.
07:00Claps his hands and the staff come galloping back with much more expensive wine.
07:05A very complex man and a man that I'll miss and I know many, many, many others will do so as well.
07:11Claps his hands and the staff come galloping back with much more expensive wine.
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