It\u2019s a blindingly bright day in Sydney. Sunlight glitters on the calm harbour waters, and moored sailboats gently sway beyond the boardwalk at Murray Rose Pool in Double Bay, known by most as Redleaf.<\/p>\n
The harbour pool is where journalist and former Q+A host Tony Jones likes to swim when he\u2019s not doing laps in the heated Prince Alfred Park pool, or at the jewel-like waters of Shark beach in Vaucluse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese harbour beaches are quite unusual in the world,\u201d he says, meeting me at the pool\u2019s quiet cafe overlooking the empty beach. \u201cThey feel like national treasures.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unseasonably warm, and the sprightly, sun-kissed 69-year-old Jones suggests a walk along the pool\u2019s boardwalk then up the steep stairs to Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, where he wrote his first novel, The Twentieth Man, back when the building was a library.<\/p>\n
Before we leave the beach, Jones sheds his puffer jacket and drops it on one of the benches. I notice later it has a Sundance film festival logo, and he says proudly: \u201cThey give it to directors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones went to Sundance in January to premiere his documentary Sentient, which he co-wrote and directed. His wife, ABC\u2019s 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson, executively produced it. It\u2019s not the first time the couple have worked together, having met on the job in Paris in the early 90s when Jones was a European correspondent and Ferguson was a researcher.<\/p>\n
\u2018These harbour beaches are quite unusual in the world.\u2019 Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the beginning of a beautiful friendship,\u201d he says, smiling. They now share three adult sons, Felix, Cosmo and Lucien. \u201cAnd we\u2019re still together so something\u2019s going right,\u201d he says, laughing.<\/p>\n
As we circle the pool, Jones says swimming is \u201ca way of repairing my shoulder\u201d, after he fell and hurt it not too long ago. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful place to swim. The only time you can\u2019t is after rain, but I have a little app that tells me if the water is clean today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones started research for Sentient while living in Washington DC with Ferguson, who was reporting from the United States for the ABC. It was 2020, and like for many of us, the year hadn\u2019t gone to plan. Jones had initially left Q+A to join Sarah in Beijing where she was due to begin her role as the ABC\u2019s China bureau chief.<\/p>\n
double quotation markPeople are more prepared to look at terrible things happening to humans than they are happening to animalsTony Jones<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were ready to go, then the Chinese ambassador said, \u2018Maybe make other plans.\u2019 He was, I guess, being very diplomatic,\u201d says Jones. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t Covid that triggered the expulsion of many international journalists from Beijing. It was more a tightening of the regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, the next year, the couple wore full PPE on their flights from Sydney to Los Angeles then Washington DC, where their first task was reporting on the January 6 attack on the Capitol<\/a>. \u201cI was asked to produce Sarah, and all the way over on the plane we were looking at tonnes and tonnes of citizen journalist videos that the Four Corners people had put together for us \u2026 we hit the ground running and we made, I think, a really powerful program about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones and Ferguson have been married for three decades. Do they find it easy to balance their personal and professional relationship? \u201cRemarkably easy,\u201d says Jones. \u201cIt\u2019s not to say there are not moments of tension \u2013 pulling together scripts, trying to decide which direction a story will go \u2013 but I think we\u2019ve collaborated really well, and obviously that reflects a deep commitment to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n How often does he tune into 7.30? \u201cEvery night. I\u2019m one of the most assiduous viewers.\u201d The Guardian photographer joins us at the beach and conversation turns to Ferguson\u2019s recent viral interview with Barnaby Joyce yelling at his dog off camera.<\/a><\/p>\n Jones takes in the view of Sydney Harbour from Seven Shillings beach, Double Bay. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cI heard Sarah saying the other day that not a single thing she\u2019s done as a journalist has had such an immediate viral impact,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cShe is incredible. But that was a moment of incredibly unscripted weirdness.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s recent film collaboration is a whole lot more serious: it\u2019s a robust and moving examination of the ethics and consequences of animal testing. Sentient\u2019s central character is Dr Lisa Jones-Engel<\/a>, a primatologist who has worked with chimps at New York University\u2019s Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (which closed in 1998), at the University of Washington\u2019s National Primate Research Center, and in the field conducting research into zoonotic pathogen transmission \u2013 diseases that travel between humans and animals.<\/p>\n What\u2019s fascinating about Jones-Engel, and indeed others interviewed in Sentient, is that she \u201chad worked on both sides of the fence\u201d, says Jones. \u201cShe worked as a scientist and she worked trying to stop the science, or at least stop the use of animals in the science.\u201d<\/p>\n Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n After 30 years of working with primates, Jones-Engel became an animal rights activist \u2013 a position Jones hasn\u2019t adopted on this subject \u201cor any subject for that matter\u201d, he adds.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very far from being an activist,\u201d he says, now scaling the steep steps up to the car park without running out of puff. \u201cIt was very important that people could make up their own minds as to whether these practices should continue, whether we should double down on our efforts to get alternatives to this. As we can see, there are alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n