60 Minutes’ Liz Hayes looks back at her career and gives her verdict on Lisa Wilkinson’s move

AFTER more than 20 years of reporting for 60 minutes, Liz Hayes has one confession to make, as she champions the move her best friend Lisa Wilkinson made.

IT’S hard to imagine Liz Hayes lacks the nerve to do anything, take on anyone.

Whether it’s applying her polished blow torch to the belly of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, as she will in tonight’s 40th season return of 60 Minutes; or provoking the Wolf Of Wall Street to famously walk out on her mid-interview, the 59-year-old surprises TV guide when she confesses: “I wish I could be a little bit more steely sometimes, to be honest.”

“I spend my life blubbing now,” she says, recounting some of the many tears she’s shed over 22 years reporting for Nine’s flagship current affairs show.

Just about every story, she claims, leaves some sort of emotional “calling card.”

Standing in the kitchen of police whistleblower, Michael Drury, where years before his family had been targeted in a terrifying hit by now disgraced killer cop, Roger Rogerson.

Haunted by the vision of 26-year-old Clare Oliver, waving farewell from her hospital wheelchair, after using her final hours in a losing battle against sun-bed-related skin cancer to warn others about the dangers.

60 Minutes reporter Liz Hayes talking to PM Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: Kym Smith

As composed as her signature bob, Hayes explains: “there’d be a school of thought that you should absolutely stay stony-faced and unmoved and I don’t think it’s a good thing to go crying for every interview ... [but] I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to show emotion, as long as it doesn’t overwhelm the story.”

Being the story is something the country-born Hayes remains uncomfortable with, deflecting interest in her own life; and baulking at sharing the kind of juicy anecdotes she knows give celebrity interviews like this one a pulse.

“Hand on heart, celebrity interviews are my least favourite to do, because getting the real person is near impossible. I think it’s too much of a dance for me sometimes. I’d much rather have a real conversation and I really appreciate it when it happens.”

Liz Hayes and Lisa Wilkinson, in Sydney. Picture: Supplied

When talk turns to her headlining best friend, Lisa Wilkinson, she is a much more effusive cheerleader for Ten’s star recruit, who Nine’s bosses undervalued and let go.

“Lisa is a very capable woman. Always was and always will be,” Hayes says.

“It’s not easy having these battles play out in public but I think she’s really resilient, an incredibly hardworking woman, and she’ll be fine. That’s what I said to her, to be deadly honest.”

She’s just as pragmatic about the sexual harassment claims sweeping the entertainment industry, taking on boys’ club cultures and systemic misogyny in TV and media.

“I’ve been a journalist since I was 17 and if we hadn’t gone forward by now, I would be a bit distressed, I have to say. But we have and I do think the playing field is far more level than it used to be.”

Hayes says she has “never felt a victim, but then I’ve always been aware of behaviour that shouldn’t be tolerated.”

“I’ve been aware of being paid less in certain roles, but I’ve not felt a victim. I’ve been aware of being paid more and not felt bad about it either.”

“Maybe in past worlds,” she reveals, “people have used me as a bit of a shop steward because I would be the one who would say [to management], ‘I don’t think that’s reasonable’ or ‘I don’t think that should happen.’

“It’s about knowing right from wrong. And both [sexes] can be equally badly behaved.”

* 60 Minutes, 8.30pm, Sunday, Nine

Originally published as 60 Minutes’ Liz Hayes looks back at her career and gives her verdict on Lisa Wilkinson’s move