LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: But first tonight, 7.30 reveals fresh claims of serious off-air bullying against one of Australia's most well-known and influential radio broadcasters. Sydney radio shock jock Ray Hadley's former colleagues are tonight speaking about what they say is a pattern of serious bullying and intimidation against them in their workplace.

Their story has painted a portrait of a man prone to fits of rage and violent threats, behaviour that they say had a lasting effect on their personal wellbeing. For his part, Ray Hadley has said he's not proud of his behaviour in the past.

But, as Andy Park reports, a key question is why management allegedly allowed the workplace bullying to largely go unchecked.

And a warning: this story contains offensive language.

RAY HADLEY, SYDNEY RADIO BROADCASTER: And good morning and welcome. I'm Ray Hadley. Great to have your company on 2GB and stations on the Macquarie Regional, Southern Cross and Capital Radio networks.

ANDY PARK, REPORTER: Ray Hadley is one of the most powerful voices in the country.

CHRIS BOWEN, FORMER 2GB EMPLOYEE: He's an enigma. And I'll be honest — there are things that appealed to me about Ray Hadley early on.

RAY HADLEY: I'm going to go around and do some TV, so excuse me.

ANDREW MOORE, ABC GRANDSTAND PRESENTER: As a broadcaster, he's a very hard working broadcaster.

ANDY PARK: With a direct line to power...

TONY ABBOTT, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Always a good day to be with you. Thanks mate.

ANDY PARK: ...he's well known for taunting...

SCOTT MORRISON, PRIME MINISTER: I'm not going to use my faith as a stunt, mate, for the program, okay?

ANDY PARK: ...and name calling the powerful on air.

RAY HADLEY: Jeez, you're a wanker, Scott. A complete and utter wanker.

ANDY PARK: Away from politics, he's radio's voice of rugby league.

But rumours of his off-air behaviour have long been hinted at — even from his most ardent supporters.

JOHN SINGLETON, 2GB SHAREHOLDER: When he gets angry on air or off air, it's pretty scary. It scares politicians, let alone staff members.

ANDY PARK: Now, former colleagues are coming forward. They say Ray Hadley is a workplace bully.

CHRIS BOWEN: What you hear on the radio is a very shouty, opinionated man. There's no doubt he's aggressive on air, but off air he's really a ferocious, ferocious human being.

No, no, no, just — no, hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, listen. Listen. Listen.

IMRE SALUSINSZKY, FORMER MIKE BAIRD ADVISOR: Ray Hadley's on-air style is itself a kind of bullying. He's not peddling entertainment, information or news, he's demonstrating power.

RAY HADLEY: Goodbye, Lee [phonetic]. You seem to forget, Lee, it's the Ray Hadley morning program.

JESSE PEREZ, FORMER 2GB EMPLOYEE: The fact that people like Ray Hadley can bring in so much revenue gives them a level of untouchable-ness. It's almost like nothing can be done about them.

ANDY PARK: It's Friday night at Homebush Stadium. ABC Grandstand's Andrew Moore, a 30-year radio veteran, is calling tonight's footy.

ANDREW MOORE: (COMMENTATING) Ten or twelve thousand hits tonight for the unbeaten Parramatta Eels, taking on the premiers, the Sydney Roosters.

I love doing it every week. I lost that love; I've regained it, thankfully, over the last four and a bit years, but to me, it's exciting.

(COMMENTATING) Sydney Roosters eight, Parramattas six. It's one try apiece.

Crowds roaring — it's a thrill to me, even now.

ANDY PARK: Andrew Moore has known Ray Hadley longer than most. Now, they're on rival stations, but the pair worked together for decades.

ANDREW MOORE: (COMMENTATING) He's kicked the goal. Mitchell Moses converts from out wide.

He's been a very successful broadcaster. As a human being, I think he's a bully. I think he thrives on intimidation, has done ever since I've known him as a kid.

(COMMENTATING) They're cheering the Roosters players.

Well, I owe my start in the game to him. This isn't an easy thing to talk about, because I started in radio really because of him.

ANDY PARK: What was your first meeting like with Ray Hadley?

RAY HADLEY: My first meeting was my first day of work experience in 1984. I was in Year 10, so I would have been 15. He ripped the machine out, threw it against the wall and smashed into a million pieces.

That stayed with me for 30 odd years. That was an extreme case that I saw replicated.

ANDY PARK: Andrew Moore says the bullying and intimidation went on for a number of years, and was in part impacting his mental health.

ANDREW MOORE: Yelling and screaming is definitely one. Intimidation is a big one.

ANDY PARK: Did he ever intimidate you?

ANDREW MOORE: Yeah, he did. Not as often as I saw him with others, and I worked with him probably 20-odd years of my career.

But where it got me was the last year there. Isolation was a kit in his bag that he used with me.

ANDY PARK: He says his wife finally pointed out the contribution his workplace had on his mental state.

ANDREW MOORE: She was saying, "No. That's you. Go to bed. Talk." It makes you feel weak.

So I eventually went to the psychologist, got told I had anxiety. And I hated going to work. And I hate feeling so weak.

ANDY PARK: How many years after you working with Ray did this stuff sort of raise its head?

ANDREW MOORE: Well, I think even now, four and half years later, it still exists. Just from time to time when I feel stressed. It's just the effect on your wife and your kids, and I think a lot of people are going through it.

ANDY PARK: He says one complaint to management ended up in Hadley's hands and on air.

ANDREW MOORE: All of a sudden I'd hear references to discussions I've had with management, what I thought were private emails, being referred to on air by Ray, laughing about them.

ANDY PARK: Andrew Moore blames 2GB management for not acting.

ANDREW MOORE: He brings in a lot of revenue, they pay him a lot of money, and they're going to protect that at all costs.

The impact is ongoing for people, and I think if they can be emboldened by the fact that it can happen to someone who's been around as long as I have, it might give them a bit more courage to face what they had.

ANDY PARK: You work in a competitive industry. How do you respond to the idea that you're just trying to tear down a competitor, and maybe even seek damages?

ANDREW MOORE: My main thing of talking out — and it wasn't something I agreed to easily — because I just think that there are so many people out there who are, who have been victimised by bullying from him in one form or another.

ANDY PARK: It's not just radio rivals who say they've been bullied by Ray Hadley.

CHRIS BOWEN: News update is there, news update is ready.

I wasn't into TV. I just loved radio for some reason. It was just in my blood from a very early stage.

Yeah, you got two minutes to go. Two minutes to go.

ANDY PARK: Nobody worked more closely with Hadley than Chris Bowen, his personal panel operator for 16 years. So close, in fact, that Ray Hadley was the master of ceremonies at his wedding.

CHRIS BOWEN: You think you're in the good books with Ray one moment, and then subsequently

you're not. So it was this to-and-fro behaviour, a love-and-hate, if you want to call it that, a love-and-hate relationship.

ANDY PARK: Many former and current 2GB employees we've spoken to say you and Ray Hadley were like thick as thieves, very close, and in fact, Ray Hadley even MCed your wedding. Why did you allow that to happen if you say the abuse and the harassment and bullying were so bad?

CHRIS BOWEN: It's a very good question. And to be honest, I, in a way, have been complicit in some of his behaviour, simply because I was fearful of him and you had to do what Ray said.

ANDY PARK: Live broadcasting situations are pressurised and often robust conversations take place.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yep.

ANDY PARK: Is this behaviour that you're alleging just part of a normal broadcasting situation?

CHRIS BOWEN: There's no time for courtesies, but there's also no time to be called a C, to be called an F-wit, to be personally attacked.

ANDY PARK: But Chris eventually took issue with one daily and hated task.

CHRIS BOWEN: At the conclusion of the program he would get up, I would follow him with the chair down the corridor, along with his head phones and I would wheel that past the newsroom with everyone, you know, glaring at me and going, "You poor guy. You were like a lackey." It was called the walk of shame.

ANDY PARK: Bowen wrote to Hadley in June 2010, saying the task was degrading.

Hadley shot back, "Do it or find another job". Bowen wrote to the then-program director, "I don't need the stress of my job being in jeopardy."

Chris, you've had your own personal problems. You've suffered loss of family members and you posted your complaints about Ray Hadley's behaviour whilst you were in a clinic receiving treatment for alcoholism.

CHRIS BOWEN: Correct.

ANDY PARK: Is it the case that you're now blaming your former employer for problems that you've been experiencing in your own life?

CHRIS BOWEN: No. They're two separate things. I mean, you know, I am suffering severe anxiety. I admitted myself to a clinic voluntarily. I do have a problem with alcohol. I was self-medicating.

ANDY PARK: Hadley's verbal abuse has been caught on tape before, such as this instance directed at an employee during the Athens Olympics.

RAY HADLEY: He's a f*cking idiot, and I'll be telling John Brennan that. He's lost my support, that bloke. He's lost it altogether.

Right, well, he'll f*cking lose me and I'll f*cking ... when I find him I'll pull his fucking ears. He's a f*cking idiot ... He's a f*cking sp*stic.

ANDY PARK: Hadley's alleged workplace bullying has extended to those well outside his show's team.

JESSE PEREZ: Ray Hadley had nothing to do with my employment there. He's an on-air presenter. I was working for the newsroom. It was a good environment to start with.

ANDY PARK: Now a documentary maker, Jesse Perez wrote a satirical article while working for 2GB in 2009 that Hadley deemed inappropriate.

JESSE PEREZ: He didn't really understand the humour, and I was called in to his studio at 1201.

That situation felt like I was being fed to the lions. It was a ferocious amount of rage that was directed at

me.

I went downstairs and nearly vomited from like a panic. It was like my guts fell out of my body, because I've never experienced anything to that ferocity in my professional life.

ANDY PARK: Jesse Perez claims he raised the behaviour with a manager in January 2009, but the response was lukewarm.

JESSE PEREZ: He said to me, look, it's really important that we know this stuff, that you communicate this incident to us because we need to know this. But nothing was done about it.

ANDY PARK: Hadley has denied any knowledge of Jesse Perez.

RAY HADLEY: I must admit one fella making accusations against me today, I just have no recollection of.

ANDY PARK: On air towards Chris Bowen, Ray Hadley expressed regret.

RAY HADLEY: I'm sorry for any hurt I caused him. I'd like to think as part of his recovery we could catch up into the future and talk about all the good times we had, because there's a lot of them over that 15-year period.

ANDY PARK: Hadley says the bullying allegations are historical.

RAY HADLEY: I took responsibility for my former behaviour, which has been well documented. I gave my word in 2013 to my fellow staff members the sort of culture I grew up in in the radio industry would no longer be the standard I'd abide by.

I can only say, again, if people have been offended by my previous behaviour, I can only apologise, as I did in 2013, and I again today do it.

If you want a pound of flesh, you're getting it.

ANDY PARK: But as recently as 2013, 2GB paid out another employee after that staff member covertly recorded Ray Hadley's verbal abuse towards him. Last week management emailed staff saying that these claims were, quote: "historical", and that Ray Hadley was being supported.

Ray Hadley and 2GB management have not yet accepted our offer for an interview.

MIKE BAIRD, FORMER NSW PREMIER: The only humane response is to close that industry down.

ANDY PARK: Ray Hadley was ferocious in hounding politicians into overturning the greyhound racing ban in New South Wales.

Imre Salusinszky was targeted on air because of his role advising the former New South Wales premier, Mike Baird.

IMRE SALUSINSZKY: I have a long-standing concern, before any of this arose, about the tendency of the political class, particularly conservative politicians, to regard Hadley as an ally, or to give in to Hadley's threats. I think it reflects poorly on them. I think it leads to poor policy.

And I also think it reflects a view of the media landscape that's very old-fashioned.

RAY HADLEY: In the studio with me is a former police officer and the immigration minister, Peter Dutton.

IMRE SALUSINSZKY: I think there's a message in this for the Peter Duttons of the world who rock up there every week, feed the beast, think it's going to help them somehow, and now these guys have to step back.

They have to step away while these allegations are seriously investigated. Because workplace bullying destroys lives and is not on.

RAY HADLEY: In a statement, 2GB said they'd received no formal complaints from Moore, Bowen or Perez. Ray Hadley said he did not recall the incidents raised by Andrew Moore. He did in fact recall Jesse Perez, whose article he called inappropriate.

He added, "I'd like to make amends with anyone who has been affected by my past behaviour."

ANDY PARK: Chris Bowen's recent Facebook post sparked others to speak up about their experiences.

Why didn't you raise it any earlier?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I don't trust management. I never have, because as I've said, Ray's tentacles are everywhere. And I said in my Facebook post which started all this, raising a complaint against Ray Hadley was about as effective as setting yourself on fire.

JESSE PEREZ: There's a huge level of hypocrisy because 2GB is a station that is saying, we are the moral arbiters of society, you're doing this wrong, you need to correct yourself. But it's almost like the same level doesn't apply to them.

ANDREW MOORE: (COMMENTATING) And he's tackled him quarter halfway, Roosters' territory, Friend dummy-half.

ANDY PARK: Years later, Andrew Moore is still coping with the experience of working with 2GB's Ray Hadley.

ANDREW MOORE: He's got to be accountable for it. Definitely very successful and good broadcaster, but a deeply flawed human being.

LEIGH SALES: That report from Andy Park and producer Penny Timms. You can find full statements from Ray Hadley and 2GB on our website.

If that story has raised issues for you, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Beyondblue on 1300 22 46 36.