At the height of his career, he was reportedly Australia’s highest-paid media personality, bringing in A$1 million a year.
His life’s work was marked by both accolades and controversy. In 1987, he was jailed for 12 days for identifying a convicted paedophile.
The issue of child sex abuse was one of his defining causes, later serving another 50 days in 2014 for naming another sex offender in violation of a suppression order.
In 2016, he entered politics, becoming Australia’s oldest first-time senator when he was elected aged 72 after founding his own party.
Speaking to 3AW, journalist and former colleague Peter Ford paid tribute to Hinch’s extraordinary career.
“It’s an amazing story of somebody who, as a young guy in rural New Zealand, had dreams of getting into journalism and slowly but surely, boy, did he do that.
“Apart from having a really good journalist’s mind for a story, he knew how to write a story, how to present a story … he knew a good yarn when he heard it.
“Now that wasn’t to say, of course, that he wasn’t provocative; he stirred the pot a lot, he upset people a lot, and he saw that almost as being validation of doing his job well.”
Media personality Ray Martin had described Hinch as a “legend of Australian journalism” during his 2018 induction to the Australian Media Hall of Fame.
“Senator Derryn Hinch has been a colourful, megaphone-campaigning, ground-breaking journalist. He has always pursued the story as ambitiously and doggedly as the headline.
“He has long been amongst the very best tabloid reporters in Australia, a special skill that should be recognised and rewarded. He has also consistently been on the ‘decent’ side of most public debates.”
Hinch’s death followed several years of declining health. According to Nine News, he battled liver cancer and cirrhosis before undergoing a liver transplant in 2011.
Last year, he was admitted to hospital for a leg infection and revealed a string of falls had left him increasingly frail.