The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and shock jock Kyle Sandilands may have an easy banter on air and a shared love of music, but no one would have suspected they were good friends, if indeed they are.
Albanese and his partner, Jodie Haydon, will be guests at Sandilands’ Darling Point marriage to marketing executive Tegan Kynaston in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Saturday.
They will be joined by the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, and his wife, Anna.
With a $5m-a-year income Sandilands can afford to pay a wedding stylist $250,000, and has boasted on his show about the price tag for the flowers, $150,000. But it’s not endless cash that gives him the ability to pull both a prime minister and a premier to his event. It’s his unrivalled ratings power and the platform and influence that comes with it.
Sandilands is the most popular radio presenter in Sydney. His FM radio show has overtaken the talk radio programs to sit at the top of the ratings. He gives politicians access to an audience who may not follow politics.
Last month the Kyle and Jackie O show held its spot as Sydney’s top-rating FM breakfast radio program in the first ratings survey of 2023, with a 15.9% audience share. The podcast was downloaded 4.7m times in February.
Sandilands has power and he knows how to wield it. Before the NSW election he endorsed Minns. Many would argue it would be a brave premier who turned down the invitation.
Sandilands has been a divisive figure in Australian media for decades, recently having to undertake sensitivity training after referring to the Paralympics as “horrific”.
In 2009 he was dropped as a reality TV host after a public backlash over a lie-detector stunt on his radio show in which a 14-year-old girl revealed she had been raped. Sandilands and his co-host apologised on air at the time, saying they did not know the girl had been raped.
He said actor Magda Szubanski “could be skinny” if she were in a “concentration camp” and called a female journalist a “fat bitter thing”.
Dr Kathryn Shine, an associate professor in journalism at Curtin University, said politicians are attracted to the power that certain media figures hold.
“Attending someone’s wedding suggests you have some sort of personal relationship with them,” Shine said.
“I think politicians recognise that certain media personalities like Kyle Sandilands can be very influential.
“But I would argue that if you want to tap into that influence, you can do that through more of an amicable professional relationship. And I think it’s important for politicians to choose friends who reflect their own values.”
The prime minister was forced to defend his attendance at the celebrity event in the 19th-century mansion. Also in attendance will be Sandilands’ closest mates, including a convicted drug smuggler and a nightclub owner.
John Ibrahim, a Kings Cross nightclub mogul who owned or controlled more than 40 licensed venues between 1988 and 2014, and former convict Simon Main are just two of the colourful figures at the nuptials.
“Well I’m not in charge of the invite list,” Albanese said Friday.
“I’ll say this, a bloke who at one stage was homeless, living on the streets of Sydney, and has grown into someone who is a significant public figure, is a part of what is an Australian success story. So I was invited to the wedding, I said I’d go, and I keep my commitments, including to Kyle Sandilands.”
The deputy leader of the opposition, Sussan Ley, questioned why he was taking a day off, just before “his first real budget”.
There is nothing wrong with going to a friend's wedding, but it is curious the Prime Minister thinks he can take a day off just days before his first real Budget.
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) April 28, 2023
“Australians will rightly ask whether the prime minister should be spinning decks at a million-dollar wedding when people can’t afford their rent,” she said.
Albanese will not be the official DJ, but chances are he will step in for a couple of tracks if asked.
