Tony Jones

Former host of Q&A

Tony Jones is one of Australia’s most respected journalists. As host of Q&A for 11 years, he brings over 30 years of award winning journalism to the table.

Tony is known for his incisive and probing interviews on the breaking issues of the day. His role on Q&A capitalised on his ability to tap into the political zeitgeist and keep the discussion focused and on track.

Tony Jones has won pretty much every award an Australian journalist could wish for. He’s covered the seminal news events of the last three decades – from the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, through the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, to the rise of the Taliban and, closer to home, the revelations of sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities.

During Tony Jones’ career he has been was host of ABC’s Lateline and has reported for Four Corners on ABC as well as Dateline on SBS.

During his three years with Four Corners, he won a Walkley award for Horses for Courses on the Waterhouse racing dynasty as well as a Penguin Award for My City of Sydney examining the city’s development boom. Frozen Asset his story on the exploitation of Antarctica won a Gold Medal in the New York Film and Television Festival and was also an International Emmy Award finalist.

Jones also won a Walkley Award (with Kerry O’Brien and Dugald Maudsley) for Lateline’s coverage of the end of Gorbachev’s Soviet Union.

In 1990, Tony was the ABC TV current affairs correspondent covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the re-unification of Germany, the Gulf War, the war in the Former Yugoslavia, the fall of Kabul in Afghanistan to the Mujahadin and the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.

Tony returned to Sydney in 1993 as Executive Producer of Foreign Correspondent.

From 1994-96 Jones was the ABC’s Washington correspondent providing stories for both News & Current Affairs including coverage of the US Congressional and presidential elections.

He returned to Foreign Correspondent in 1997 as a reporter and covered war crimes in Bosnia and the search for peace, which won him a Silver Award in the New York Film and Television Festival. In mid 1998 Tony returned to Four Corners where he reported the rise of One Nation and profiled the Prime Minister John Howard prior to the 1998 Federal Election before becoming host of Lateline. In 2008, Tony was appointed as host of ABC’s Q&A, a program aimed at putting the Australian public directly in touch with the politicians and playmakers – giving them the opportunity to get some answers, eye to eye.

If you want to be inspired, educated, informed or entertained and, at the very least, congratulated after the event on your great choice of Speaker browse our speakers.