Alan Jones defamation case: radio host accused of baseless attacks on Wagner family
The broadcaster Alan Jones has been accused of a string of extraordinary and baseless attacks on one of Queensland’s most prominent families on the opening day of his defamation lawsuit.
The Toowoomba-based Wagner family is suing the talkback radio host over comments he made during 32 broadcasts in 2014 and 2015.
Most were made on stations 2GB and 4BC, while one was made on Jones’s Sky News television program.
Tom Blackburn SC told the Brisbane supreme court on Monday his clients, the four Wagner brothers, had been subjected to a torrent of extraordinary attacks by Australia’s most influential broadcaster.
Blackburn said Jones accused the family of being responsible for the deaths of 12 people in Grantham during the 2011 floods, when one of the walls of a Lockyer Valley quarry it owned collapsed.
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“All of his allegations, including this one, were accompanied by another message: that the plaintiffs are cruel, selfish and lawless people that pursue their goals through corruption, cronyism, intimidation and criminality,” Blackburn told the court.
“It will be our submission at the end of this case that there is not an ounce of evidence for those grave allegations that Mr Jones has made.”
Blackburn said Jones also used his broadcasts to accuse the Wagner brothers of engaging in a “high-level cover-up” with the then Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, and the then deputy prime minister, Wayne Swan.
“Those allegations have been dropped very recently,” he said.
The court heard Jones had abandoned the defence of truth with respect to several of the allegations.
Blackburn said despite this there had been no apology and the radio broadcaster maintained the Wagner family had engaged in lying, intimidation and a cover-up, just not involving politicians.
Blackburn said it was a landmark case for defamation proceedings in Australia.
“It’s the sheer volume of these charges and the relentlessness of them, your honour, that sets this case apart,” he said. “If the statements were not lawfully excusable in some way then the damages, in our submission, must be very large indeed, because as we say they constitute a defamation that is unparalleled as far as we’re aware in this country.”
Jones’s barrister did not make an opening statement but the court heard his client also intended to rely on honest opinion as a defence.
Jones stayed quiet on his thoughts about the trial outside court but said it was nice to be in his home state of Queensland.
“I normally do have a view but I’ve been told by my people to say nothing so this day I’m doing what I’m told,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’re told in this life.”
John Wagner was the first witness to give evidence on Monday. He told the court his business dealings both in Australia and around the world meant he had interacted with “tens of thousands” of people in recent decades.
The trial continues.