James Packer backs ‘my friend’ Alan Jones

Speaking to news.com.au, Packer said: “Alan is my friend and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence.”

The billionaire and the broadcaster have been close friends for decades, their friendship forged in Packer’s youth when his father, the late media titan Kerry Packer, was a close friend of the mercurial radio talk back star who, at one time, was a frequent guest of Packer’s wife, Ros at various social events.

Last year businessman-investor Packer emerged as a key multimillion-dollar investor in Jones’ Australian Digital Holdings, a company Jones co-founded in December 2021 following his departure from Nine Entertainment and Sky News Australia in 2020 and 2021.

Jones established ADH-TV as an alternative conservative platform to those owned by his former employers News Corp and Nine, the nation’s two largest media companies.

His partners in the business are a pair of 20-somethings, Jack Bulfin and Jake Thrupp, a former protege and assistant to Jones who has been a member of the Liberal Party since age 16 and who harbours political ambitions.

The week before Jones was arrested on Monday for alleged indecent assault and sexual touching, ADH TV was in the news after Southern Cross Austereo confirmed it had received a bid from ADH for its 93 regional TV stations.

Packer’s investment is believed to have made the bid possible.

Despite its grand ambitions, Jones has not made an appearance in ADH TV since the end of last year when it emerged he was the subject of indecent assault allegations which he has denied.

The Jones-Packer association, which was forged over a mutual love of sport – notably rugby league and horseracing with Packer Sr – media, and power, has twice seen Jones go into bat for the Packers on their dreams to secure a casino licence for Sydney.

The first time was in 1995 when Packer Sr’s bid for the state’s first casino licence lost out to Leighton Holdings-Showboat consortium, prompting Jones to criticise the NSW government of the day, premier John Fahey’s Liberal government, and rail on his popular 2UE breakfast show that the process had been flawed.

The second time was in 2012 when Jones hosted a lunch between then premier Barry O’Farrell and Packer’s son James at his glamorous “Toaster” apartment in Circular Quay.

The lunch would pave the way for Packer’s Crown winning a second Sydney casino licence, controversially without public consultation or the bid going out to tender.

The Packer/Jones/O’Farrell lunch meeting, meanwhile, would go undisclosed for years.

In 2021, Jones confirmed the lunch – over “pies and mash” – had taken place so that Packer could define his “vision for Sydney”.

“(James) said he’d like to meet Barry O’Farrell, that was my recollection. So I just invited the premier to lunch and we had lunch here and they met and away it went,” Jones told ABC’s Four Corners.

News of Packer’s ongoing support of Jones comes as the veteran broadcaster faced two new charges on Tuesday after a ninth victim came forward claiming indecent assault and sexual touching by the influential broadcaster.

Jones has been accused of two decades of predatory behaviour concerning his alleged victims, the youngest of whom was 17 at the time of the alleged offending while another man is a prominent Olympian.

Jones served as MC at Packer Sr’s 2006 funeral and was rumoured to have helped script Packer Jr’s eulogy to his father.