John Laws
When the King of Radio signed off at radio 2UE in November 2007, his legion of fans accepted that he would no longer be heard on the airwaves.
But after a refreshing three year break, the urge to sit behind the Golden Microphone got the better of him.
In January 2011 he triumphantly returned – this time at Sydney’s 2SM, anchoring a morning program that’s now heard on more than 30 stations around Australia.
John Laws’ extraordinary career began as an 18-year-old in Bendigo in 1953. At his peak in the 1990s, he was heard on more than 70 stations, with more than two million Australians hanging on his every word, every day of the week.
“Your contribution to public debate and to the media has been quite extraordinary,” then Prime Minister John Howard told him on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2005.
“Nobody is more synonymous with talkback radio than you. As someone who has appeared frequently on your programs, I’ve marvelled at your breadth of knowledge, your capacity to wrinkle answers out of me and your sheer energy and constant commitment to the cause of lively communication and interesting public debate”.
“There’s probably never going to be another one like you. No one has done it like you have,” Paul Keating, Australia’s Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996, once told Laws.
On another occasion, when referring to John Laws’ enormous influence, Mr Keating noted: “Forget the Press gallery in Canberra. If you educate John Laws, you educate Australia.”
