Veteran 60 Minutes producer John Westacott dies aged 72

Former Nine news boss John Westacott has been identified as the 72-year-old who died after falling off a boat near Nielsen Park in Sydney’s Vaucluse.

John Westacott, former executive producer of 60 Minutes, who died on Sunday.

Former 60 Minutes executive producer and Nine Network director of news and current affairs, John Westacott, has died aged 72 in a boating incident in Sydney Harbour.

Westacott died after falling off a boat into Sydney Harbour near Nielsen Park, Vaucluse, about 1.30pm on Sunday.

A police report said emergency services responded and “the man was retrieved by officers attached to the Marine Area Command. (He was) taken to shore where he was treated by ... paramedics, but died at the scene.”

John Westacott, former executive producer of TV show 60 Minutes, who died after a boating incident on Sunday. Picture: Entertainment Sport

An 18-year-old man is understood to have been on board the same vessel as Westacott and was brought to shore uninjured.

Westacott is best known as executive producer of 60 Minutes, a role in which he worked for 16 years before he briefly became director of news and current affairs in 2007.

He spent more than 25 years as a journalist at Nine until his retirement in 2009.

He was credited with inventing the “worm” graphic used during election debates.

Former 60 Minutes reporter Charles Wooley on Monday said Westacott “was the kind of man you’d trust with your life … I’m just absolutely shattered, I’ve been blubbering about this to everyone I’ve spoken to – fair dinkum.

“We don’t have any details, he fell off the boat and they tried to keep him alive in the water but by the time (emergency services) arrived he was dead.”

Wooley first worked under Westacott at the ABC in the mid-1980s when the latter was foreign editor but it was the years spent working together on 60 Minutes that solidified in Wooley’s mind Westacott’s “indestructible” nature.

“I have never met anyone more indefatigable and ceaseless in his pursuit of a story,” Wooley said. “He would never give up and whatever he would do, he would enrich with his words and his work.”

Wooley recalled numerous times he had witnessed West­acott defend his journalism in and outside the newsroom, even when “the episodes didn’t bring in the ratings”, saying Westacott always believed in “upholding the integrity of the show”.

“He was the kind of journalist who was like The Crucible - like a vessel able to withstand the incredible heat of critique and I can tell you he was shameless about it,” he said.

“We’re all shocked to lose him, he was brilliant and felt indestructible – it kind of feels like he ‘did a runner’, which was Westie’s term for when you leave an unpleasant situation and leave the rest to face the music.”

He said his long-time friend would not have wanted a grand send off.

“Westie and I, we don’t believe in an afterlife … he didn’t want people to get together and talk about him and he always said ‘Don’t say I passed, I haven’t passed on anywhere – I’m dead,” he said. “He wanted to be burned, and to have his ashes scattered across his favourite cruising spot.”

Originally published as Veteran 60 Minutes producer John Westacott dies aged 72