Derryn Hinch, a fearless interrogator, remained candid and controversial as a journalist and senator – obituary

Twice jailed for breaching suppression orders, Hinch was relentless in his pursuit of sex offenders and was elected to the Senate on a law-and-order platform

With a timeline that featured imprisonment, politics, a rags-to-riches twist, multiple marriages and several serious health challenges, all played out in the public sphere, the Australian journalist, broadcaster and former senator Derryn Hinch embodied his nickname: the human headline.

Hinch, who has died in 2026 aged 82, gained the epithet, of which he was not a fan, for his strident opinions delivered in a bombastic manner over radio and television airwaves and later, aged 72, in the halls of parliament, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/12/derryn-hinch-uses-parliamentary-privilege-to-name-sex-offenders-in-maiden-speech">where he claimed to be “the oldest person ever elected to the Senate”.