Breakfast radio star Ben Fordham has hit back at his nemesis Amanda Keller who accused him of 'whipping up' anti-lockdown riots across Australia.
Keller, who significantly trails Fordham in the ratings, suggested her 2GB rival had caused 3,500 protesters to storm Sydney's city centre on Saturday
'There are a lot of people who are frustrated with this lockdown, of course they are, but there's a lot of people also responsible for whipping up this up: people on other radio stations,' she told her WSFM listeners on Monday.
Keller's co-host Brendan Jones asked: 'Which other radio stations?'
Keller replied: 'I think Ben Fordham's been saying, "This lockdown's ridiculous".'
Fordham has returned fire 24 hours after that baseless accusation, without mentioning Keller by name.
'Yesterday, someone complained that I described the month-long, great Sydney, never-ending lockdown as "ridiculous",' he said on Tuesday.
'Apparently, that kind of language is unhelpful at a time like this and it just whips people up.
'Well, my experience is people don't need any whipping up at the moment, they're already angry and anxious.'
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Breakfast radio star Ben Fordham (pictured) has hit back at his breakfast nemesis Amanda Keller who accused him of 'whipping up' anti-lockdown riots across Australia
Unlike Fordham, many of the people who gathered in downtown Sydney to protest were anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists who deny the existence of coronavirus.
The 2GB broadcaster on Tuesday reiterated his belief Sydney's eastern suburbs should have been locked down harder in mid-June when a limo driver at Bondi caught the virus from returned international travellers.
Fordham is also a critic of the delayed Covid disaster payments to affected businesses forced to shut down, in the absence of a federal JobKeeper scheme.
Riot control horses were required to control the crowds and 5,500 reports were made to police, with 63 people so far arrested for defying a public health order.
Keller on Monday had also had a go at Alan Jones, Fordham's breakfast predecessor at 2GB who is now on Sky News.
'The Sky presenters, Alan Jones, etcetera, "Why are we having this lockdown?",' she said.
'It's counterproductive. It whips all this up.'
Radio personality Amanda Keller has accused her breakfast rival Ben Fordham and conservative commentator Alan Jones of 'whipping up' anti-lockdown riots
Keller, who also hosts The Living Room on Network Ten, likened Sydney's anti-lockdown protestors with Americans who rioted for Donald Trump in January 2021 at the Capitol building in Washington DC in a bid to stop the Electoral College from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the November presidential election.
'It's like looking at Trump rallies,' she said.
Brendan Jones then brought up Alan Jones's controversial comments ahead of the December 2005 Cronulla riots in Sydney's south.
'It's not like Alan Jones to whip up a riot of sorts, not like Cronulla 2005,' he said.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2007 found Alan Jones had vilified people
