From The Australian newspaper.
Alan Jones has defended writing to Qantas chief Alan Joyce and using the word “bribe” to describe the airline’s decision to fly to Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport, whose owners are suing the broadcaster for defamation.
During his second day of cross-examination in the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Jones said emailed correspondence to Mr Joyce in September 2014 had come after his “surprise” that Qantas had agreed to fly to Wellcamp, which had been built by the Wagner brothers’ family company.
Jones told the court he had spoken to Mr Joyce several times about his concerns about the airport and airspace near a Defence facility being used to service it, and felt the Qantas chief executive “agreed” with those concerns.
He was asked by Tom Blackburn SC, for the four Wagner brothers who launched the defamation suit, about him accusing the plaintiffs of “bribing” the airline in one of the emails to Mr Joyce.
“Well, I think I used that word because I noted in his letter of 9.38am that he had agreed to fly in because the offer is ‘commercially very attractive’ and ‘our competitor would have taken it provided the opportunity’,” Jones said, referring to the emails.
“Now when I saw that I thought, isn’t this an orthodox commercial deal? And it was commercially attractive — some inducement has been given for Qantas to fly in.
“I think that conclusion that I drew was perfectly legitimate.”
Asked if he equated
Mr Joyce’s comments with “bribery”, Jones said: “Well, I don’t know what word you’d use.”
“If you were wanting someone to fly in, you make a commercially attractive agreement to get them to fly in,” Jones said. “So what word would you use? An inducement? A bribe? I don’t know.
“Would they have flown in if they had to meet orthodox commercial requirements?”
Jones also repeatedly said he did not hate the Wagners.
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I particularly liked Mr Jones’ ‘Would they have flown in if they had to meet orthodox commercial requirements?’ That’s a Pandora’s box if ever I saw one!