Amazing On-Air Stoush Between Laws and Price. Is it Fair Dinkum? Mott Tells

In the most extraordinary radio we’ve heard since Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds, John Laws rang Steve Price on-air and called him piss weak – we have the audio.

Here’s how it unfolded. At around 10 am, NSW Premier Bob Carr addressed a press conference saying, “I’ve just taken a phone call from John Singleton, a businessman I respect (owner of 2GB/2CH). It was the closest thing I’ve experienced to blackmail in my eight and a half years as premier”.

According to Carr, Singleton, who is deeply involved with the club industry in NSW, suggested that unless Carr dropped his proposed poker machine tax, he would mount a $5 million dollar advertising campaign against it, demonising Bob Carr.

Steve Price, now on drive at UE, replayed Carr’s press conference comments and then called John Singleton to get his side of the story. Singleton denied that he tried to blackmail the premier. He was, “merely pointing out that the electors would turn against him once they were aware of the full impact of the tax”.

That’s only the beginning. After Singleton expressed his disappointment that the premier chose to make their private conversation public, he went on to divulge to Price’s audience another private chat he had with Carr just prior to the last election. According to Singleton, the premier told him, “Unless you get Alan Jones to stop attacking me, I’ll make sure you never get another radio license again.” Singleton added that Carr rang him a week later to apologise.

To add to the political dynamite that these revelations have ignited, no sooner does Price finish his interview with Singleton than his executive producer Hugh Crawford signals that John Laws is on line 4 – “in a cranky state”. Crawford denies it was a set up.


What did they say?

Listen for yourself by clicking on radioinfo replay:



 

 

Price: G’day John. How are you?

Laws: Well I was fine till I heard that piss weak interview you did with Singo…

Laws went on to accuse Price of twisting things around as if it was Singo who was right and suggesting that the premier had called Singleton a blackmailer. Price defended himself by saying that it wasn’t him but the premier who uttered the words and that he was merely giving both sides of the story to his audience.

Undaunted, Laws then went on a confusing tirade denigrating Price despite Price’s attempts to fill him on the whole story of which Laws seemed oblivious. Price, clearly shaken by the abuse and objecting to being called piss weak, finally hung up on Laws whose last remark was to call Price “lily livered”. The callers who followed, praised Price for sticking up for himself and were mystified by Laws and his motives. Many said it was great radio. But, at what price?

Southern Cross Group GM Graham Mott who is currently domiciled at the troubled Sydney operation was asked by radioinfo whether the incident was for real or a staged event to create headlines. Mott was adamant that he was as surprised as anyone else when PD Sandy Alouisi came rushing into his office to tell him to turn the radio up.

“We would prefer this sort of thing didn’t happen”, said Mott, “But if it does, we look for the positives to draw from it. This will generate news and talk amongst our target audience. And as Oscar Wilde said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

“What this does show is that here at 2UE, unlike at GB, we can accommodate more than one view between our personalities. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds tomorrow,” Mott said.

It is difficult to imagine that this could be a 2UE publicity stunt given the severity of the political implications surrounding it. As one pundit told us, “If it was a beat up it would more likely centre around a comment about the quality of the food at Laws’ restaurant, Otto”.