Tributes are being paid to Australia’s “Golden Tonsils” John Laws, an influential talkback radio titan who resonated across national airwaves for more than 70 years.
A towering figure on Australian radio, Laws died peacefully at home at age 90, his family said in a statement on Sunday.
Laws pioneered a unique blend of entertainment, information and opinion, delivered with a mellifluous voice, easy wit and perfect timing.
His popularity — at his height, “Lawsie” claimed two million listeners each morning — made him very influential.
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating once remarked, “When you educate Laws, you educate Australia,” highlighting the influential role of a prominent media figure.
John Laws was among the pioneers in playing rock music on the radio. Leveraging his connections in the airline industry, he secured the latest international releases before they hit the Australian market, giving him a distinct advantage during an era when there were significant delays in music distribution.
Richard John Sinclair Laws was born on 8 August 1935 in the Papua New Guinea gold mining town of Wau, where his father had a trade store. He came to Australia with his mother and sister ahead of World War Two, which was to engulf his birthplace.
Laws contracted polio at the age of 12. After leaving hospital, he attended Sydney’s Knox Grammar School, but left at 15 to go jackarooing.
Laws’ radio career started in 1953 in Bendigo. After working at several rural stations, he joined 2UE in 1957, the first of what would be four separate stints at the Sydney station.
Renowned as the “Talkback King,” John Laws retired from his illustrious radio career in 2024, concluding an impressive seven decades behind the microphone.
In addition to his long association with 2UE, Laws also lent his voice to other Sydney stations such as 2GB, 2UW, and 2SM. He even dabbled in television, with brief tenures at Network Ten and Foxtel.
Apart from his various stints with 2UE, he worked for other Sydney stations 2GB, 2UW and 2SM. He also had short periods with Network Ten and Foxtel.
His shows were widely broadcast around Australia and he was particularly popular in rural NSW. He always claimed a special affinity with the bush.
He had the power to transform brands, and his advertisers were loyal.
Stations, seeing Laws as the key to ratings success, signed him to big-money contracts. At one time, he was said to be the best-paid radio broadcaster in the world. 2UE management presented him with a golden microphone.
Laws paid $15 million in 2004 for a spacious apartment on Woolloomooloo Wharf, where he lived with his third wife, Caroline, who died in 2020. He had five children from his two previous marriages, and Caroline (“the Princess”, as Laws called her) had four from her earlier union.
Tributes paid after Laws’ death
“His legacy lies not only in the thousands of hours on air, but in the connection he forged with millions of Australians. Vale John Laws,” NSW Premier Chris Minns said in a statement.
Actor Russell Crowe, who was Laws’ neighbour for more than two decades, said he was a wise mentor, a mischievous mate and a very good friend.
“I am deeply saddened by his passing, however, I am buoyed in the sure and certain knowledge that he led a magnificent life of achievement and adventure and he lived every moment,” he said on social media.
“He worked hard, played harder and loved completely. A legend, in the very best, most Australian, sense of the word. I loved him and I’ll never forget him. Vale John Laws.”
Former Sydney radio broadcaster Ray Hadley described Laws as a “radio icon”.
“Those who follow him and drink from the well like I have in the past should remember the person who dug that well,” Hadley said.
“And that well was dug by the great John Laws, a true pioneer of Australian talkback radio.”
Fellow radio host Kyle Sandilands said Laws was “one of the true originals”.
“You could never mistake him for anyone else,” he said.
“He said what he thought, didn’t care who he offended, but could also show deep compassion when required.”
Controversies and scandals
In 1999, Laws and rival Alan Jones were caught up in the cash-for-comment scandal, with big companies paying the broadcasters for favourable comment. A particularly bad example involved the big banks, which Laws had bashed until making a secret agreement with them. Suddenly, the banks became, in his view, excellent corporate citizens.
The Australian Broadcasting Authority found 2UE and the two broadcasters had committed 90 breaches of the industry code and estimated the value of deals at $18 million.
Laws was again in trouble with the authority in 2004, this time over deals with Telstra.
When a listener sent him a fax saying he was nothing more than a “cheap whore”, Laws read it on air, paused and commented: “I’m not cheap”.
Radio talkback great John Laws was one of the most recognisable voices in Australia. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins
Laws was particularly angered by the authority’s 2004 ruling that cleared Jones.
He called then authority head David Flint a “posturing, pretentious, pusillanimous effete professor” and Jones “a vicious old tart” who’d be a gold medallist if hypocrisy were an Olympic event.
Some commentators felt Laws never fully recovered from the cash-for-comment affairs.
In 2007, with his ratings sagging, Laws retired.
But he couldn’t give up radio. In 2011, a non-compete clause in his 2UE deal having expired, he signed up with 2SM and Super Radio Network.
And still controversy followed.
In 2013, he asked a woman reporting childhood sexual abuse if it had been her fault and if she’d been provocative; and two years later, he called a male victim a wet blanket who should brighten up.
