Peter Hand


Peter Hand is an Australian radio personality and journalist.

Early life

Hand began working at Channel Seven as a trainee at age seventeen. Schooled in Sydney, he furthered his education at Macquarie University and the University of Wollongong. Hand started his radio work at 2WG in 1975 then moving to 2MG. He worked at 2KA Penrith in 1978. In the 1980s Hand ran a successful advertising agency before going back to radio. Hand worked at 2GB for 15 years in the roles of presenter, producer, and reporter including election nights, Royal visits, disasters and celebrations.

Politics

Probably Australia's only rabid liberal talkback host, Hand is known for his lifestyle and constant advice to listeners to "start your own business and work for yourself so no other bastard is your boss". He is steadfast in his insistence on social justice but also a constant advocate of market economics.
Hand also exposed Alan Jones nearly ten years before Chris Masters' resulting in an unsuccessful campaign by Jones to remove him from 2GB. Hand survived despite devoting large slabs of his programs to critiquing what he calls the "talkback maniacs" like Stan Zemanek, Alan Jones, John Laws and even people on his own station such as Clive Robertson. With a barrister's understanding of defamation laws, Hand has never hesitated to name names as part of his journalism
Hand was dismissed from his employment at C91.3FM Radio for referring to Joe Jackson as a 'great, big, black bastard'. Hand successfully applied for an unfair dismissal remedy, arguing what he had said did not amount to a racial slur.