The seven lives of Alan Jones

Jones has built his breakfast radio show into a national power base to which the nation's most powerful politicians pay homage.

This week Alan Jones came out of the shadows. The former Wallabies coach, now Australia's most powerful broadcaster, has emerged as a complex, contradictory man, driven by personal demons and a closet homosexuality that his unofficial biographer believes was fundamental to his success in rugby.

Author and ABC journalist Chris Masters sees Jones as a man of seven lives: "The blokey, foul-mouthed ex-football coach; the courtly, non-swearing charmer of older women; the farmer's (miner's/union official's/teacher's) son; the thwarted Prime Minister; the ombudsman of Struggle Street; the Oxford orator; and the hidden homosexual, forever hunting for love among the twentysomethings."

In New Zealand, Jones is best remembered for his glory days as Wallabies coach and his often furious exchanges with the New Zealand media. In Australia it is the fame, wealth and influence he won as a result of his rugby days that holds the nation enthralled.

Jones is a phenomenon, building a breakfast radio show into a national power base to which the nation's most powerful politicians pay homage. Prime Minister John Howard is a staunch fan and a regular guest on his show. Others line up for the chance to be heard.

In his book Jonestown, Masters questions the reality of Jones' power, a view mirrored in a recent study by Dr Clive Hamilton, director of think-tank, The Australia Institute. Hamilton notes that Jones' audience is overwhelmingly Sydney-based, over 50, pensioners or on average incomes, and conservative voters who believe society's fundamental values are under threat.

This does not stop the biggest political names in the country from queueing at his microphone. And when Masters' book, commissioned by the ABC, was close to publication, Jones was able to force the board of the national broadcaster to drop the project. It did not keep Jonestown from appearing - Allen & Unwin won a spirited bidding war - but it showed the clout the broadcaster can wield.

Masters also writes that Jones tried to use his wealth to intervene in the early stages. He said the broadcaster's employer, John Singleton, told him A$300,000 ($348,000 ) could be paid for a biography written with Jones' co-operation. "I asked whether that would mean Alan assuming editorial control. John Singleton said that was something to sort out between Jones and myself. It was never sorted."

In Jonestown, Jones appears as a driven man, living on three hours' sleep and relentless in his drive for success and influence, a man prone to anger and vendettas. But he is also portrayed as an intensely loyal friend, and an extremely generous person, even to listeners and strangers.

He took a deep personal interest in the welfare and future of the rugby teams he coached, helping, for example, Manly player and doctor Bill Campbell to win a postgraduate place at Oxford University in England.

"In hundreds of other ways Jones lent a hand, using his influence to fast-track a birth certificate, sort out a job interview, arrange a short holiday, intervene in a minor court matter and organise loans, often reaching into his own pocket," Masters wrote. "He did not seem to ask anything in return."

And the esteem in which he is held as a rugby coach is both real and rewarding. Lauded in the British media as an extraordinarily intelligent and articulate man, and thrust into national prominence through his success with the Wallabies, Jones was lured into breakfast radio and the career that has made him a household name in Australia.

What seems to have worried Jones, and what has become the major interest and controversy since Jonestown appeared this week, is the broadcaster's sexuality.

The confirmation of a long-held belief has outraged friends and supporters, including David Flint, former head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, who two years ago made his own homosexuality public.

Masters is unrepentant: "I could not avoid the elephant in the room. I am not alone in observing that Alan Jones appears to be homosexual. I can't see why homosexuality should be shameful, and I don't see why it is easier to smirk about it than speak about it."

The book's references to Jones' relations with students when he was a teacher, and with rugby players when he was a coach, do not suggest overt approaches. Instead, he suggests Jones' deep personal interest in his players helped him to fill empty spaces in his life.

"While some of the encounters were probably romantic from Jones' point of view, as likely as not the players did not see it that way. As best I can tell, if the relationships were ever sexual, they were probably more psychosexual. At the end of the night Alan Jones might embrace them and tell them what wonderful young men they were, but fell short of planting a big kiss on their lips."

But Masters argues that the masking of his apparent homosexuality is a defining feature of the Jones personality, helping to explain consistently curious behaviour and the intrusion of private self on public self. He says there are numerous examples of Jones using his power to get closer to the young heterosexual men he appears to favour, and of personal attitudes influencing public behaviour, such as his "lifelong habit" of playing favourites.

And, Masters believes, sexuality played a key role in Jones' career as a coach.

"Alan Jones was coaching rugby not just for the sake of developing fine young men and a winning culture for themselves and the nation. Alan wanted to be around young men. He wanted excuses that would involve him in their lives.

"Sensitivity about homosexuality in the aggressively male rugby world gave new cause to deny an interior motive, the Wallabies years adding a further concealment of the inner self."

Regardless, Masters records the continued admiration and respect in which former Wallabies hold Jones, and notes that Jones is the most successful Australian rugby coach ever. His Wallabies won 89 of their 102 matches, and of 30 tests, 23 were won and four were lost by only a point.