‘That’s life’: One of the nation’s best-known media identities dies
The ‘human headline’ has died after battling ill health with the news confirmed on radio this afternoon.
Veteran broadcaster Derryn Hinch has died aged 82, with reports saying it comes after a long battle with a series of infections after a bad fall last year.
Melbourne radio station 3AW confirmed the news on Friday afternoon, saying on air that Hinch had “died at home in his own bed as he wanted”.
It was in September that the well-known broadcaster whose famous sign off during decades working in television and radio was “That’s life”, suffered two broken ribs and the after-effects lingered for the rest of his life, sending him back to the nearby Alfred Hospital for multiple extended stays.
Melbourne-based Hinch kept his friends and followers up to date with his declining health on Facebook while maintaining as much of an upbeat attitude as a man who had endured cancer treatment, heart surgery, an infected leg, and a liver transplant could manage.
Hinch was born in New Zealand, he moved to Australia in 1963 where he worked in Melbourne television and radio.
He was elected as a Senator for Victoria from 2016 to 2019 representing Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, having hosted a weekly program Hinch Live up until campaigning began.
Hinch hosted the 3AW Drive radio show – and was known as an outspoken critic and dubbed the human headline.
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He experienced his fair share of off-air troubles, publicly discussing his battle with alcoholism, which would come at great cost to his health.
In 2008, he served five months in home detention for naming two convicted child sex offenders.
He was also jailed for 50 days for refusing to pay a $100,000 fine for revealing the criminal past of Jill Meagher’s killer Adrian Ernest Bayley in 2013.
The 29-year-old Irish woman was living in Australia when she was murdered some time after walking home from a pub in an inner suburb of Melbourne in 2012.
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