‘We used to be proud of this town’: Derryn Hinch launches lord mayoral campaign

Derryn Hinch says he won’t be a revolutionary should he win election as Lord Mayor of Melbourne in October.

“I’m not a revolutionary – but if the revolution includes some common sense, then I’m revolutionary. I just think we can do things better,” he said.

The journalist and former federal senator wants Melbourne to be proud of itself again and has invented what he calls a “triple M slogan” for that purpose – “Make Melbourne Magnificent”.

Former 3AW host and ex-parliamentarian Derryn Hinch is focused on civic pride.Credit: Justin McManus

“We used to be proud of this town,” says Hinch, 80. “People aren’t any more. You have got to blame the council. Back in the days of John So and Ron Walker people would say ‘isn’t the lord mayor doing a good job’. I haven’t heard a word about this lord mayor getting that sort of compliment.”

Incumbent Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s future is the source of much speculation, but no announcement has been made. Capp said on 3AW on Wednesday that she hadn’t decided if she would run again. She praised Hinch as a previously elected representative who understood hard work and the complexity of issues but also pointed out that Melbourne’s voting profile is getting younger.

Hinch is 80. Not as old as US President Joe Biden, he says, but older than former US president Donald Trump. “I think I am more coherent and more moral than Donald Trump.”

The broadcaster and author is about to start radiation treatment for melanoma on his right temple and says he has the stamina for the job.

Derryn Hinch in federal parliament in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I’ll put myself into a private hospital next Tuesday to have a top to toe check-up to make sure I am as well as I think I am.”

Hinch meets The Age in a window bench of the Gentleman George Bar & Burgers, just a block from his St Kilda Road apartment, where he enjoys a post-lunch sauvignon blanc (“watered down” – he adds, in reference to his liver transplant) garnished with ice cubes.

In the space of 30 minutes, he fields acknowledgements from 10 well-wishers.

The candidate says he wants to wipe out graffiti and have a more orderly system for Lime bikes and scooters – but not ban them. Similarly, he wants bike lanes, but not too many. “We don’t want to become Clover Moore in Sydney.”

A firm believer that “COVID hasn’t gone”, he wants to lessen its impact on the city and bring people back to the CBD by converting office blocks into apartments.

He does not want the council debating global issues such as Gaza, as it did recently.

“I mean, that is junk. We can’t affect it. And it can, as the acting lord mayor said, cause division in this town, which we don’t want.”

Hinch spent about a week mulling his decision to run after he was approached by people “in the city council”. He won’t say who it was or detail his backers.

TV Hosts Ray Martin and Derryn Hinch at Channel 9 in 1994.Credit: Fairfax

He estimates he will need only $250,000 for his campaign, which he doesn’t currently have. “If you have a good brand and Hinch for Mayor is a good brand.”

Born in New Zealand in 1944, Hinch was a radio star for decades on 3AW, part of a career The Australian Media Hall of Fame labelled “spectacular and controversial”.

He lists his own biography on social media site X where his handle is @HumanHeadline: “Journalist 60 years. Elected Senator 2016-19. Jail 1987. Fifty days jail contempt 2014. House Arrest (5 mths) 2011. Liver transplant 2011.”

He was jailed over a contempt of court case involving a paedophile priest and was under house arrest for publishing the suppressed names of sex offenders. He served as a federal senator from 2016 until 2019 (the oldest first-time elected senator), and says “part of me died” when he wasn’t re-elected.

His Derryn Hinch Justice Party won three seats in the 2018 state election, but none were re-elected and he dissolved the party last year, which he said was one of the saddest days of his life.

Hinch’s partner is former Cop Shop actor Lynda Stoner, now an animal rights activist to whom he was engaged to 30 years ago.

“I still have fire in my belly, if I didn’t I wouldn’t do it.”

Long a champion of independents, he saw the victory of the teal candidates at the last federal election as a form of vindication, and pointed to how he had a bigger influence, such as persuading the Coalition government to institute a child sex register.

In a few weeks he will announce a running mate, which he wants to be a female former member of parliament, but he won’t say whom.

“We’re not proud enough of Melbourne. And there are reasons currently why. And I think it can be improved. It can be fixed.”

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