David Koch, TV presenter and businessman, 68: Q&A

David Koch on scandals in the TV industry, the tough choices for young people saving for a home – and his suprising party trick.

Former Sunrise host David Koch works at the helm of family business Compare the Market, and is an economic director of Compare the Market.

After 20 years on air, do you have any regrets about leaving Channel 7’s Sunrise program when you did? Any regrets I have are in moments of hubris – when I think, “I’ve got an opinion on this, I’d really like to share it with a few people”, and then I think to myself, “Don’t be a wanker.” I loved every single minute of Sunrise but it wears you out because it’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle.

As a television industry veteran, how hard was it to watch the various scandals unfolding recently, whether it be the Bruce Lehrmann defamation suit or the circumstances of Darren Wick’s departure from Nine? I feel for the good people, the majority of good people, who actually work on those shows and work for all three commercial networks. There are these old-school management types and journos that are dinosaurs of the past with very different values, but a vast majority of people at the networks are hard-working, not in-the-media-bubble types, and I feel for them.

You’ve been chairman of the Port Adelaide Football Club since 2012 – a job that’s not without its challenges, on and off the field. Why do it? My dad played for Port Adelaide. When I took over, the club was basically broke and there was a push to boot us out of the AFL. The presumption was that South Australia couldn’t support two clubs. I took on the job and since then we’ve built a really stable organisation model. It can be a stressful role, but footy brings so much joy to many people’s lives. You ride the wins and the disappointments but there’s such a magic to it.

Young people these days looking to secure their financial future face bleaker prospects than their parents’ generation. If they want to retire at all, they will need to invest wisely. What do you suggest? The intergenerational wars will never go away, because a younger generation always wants to live the lifestyle of their parents and get there quicker. It’s always hard to buy a house, and you can say Boomers benefited from rising stocks and rising house prices, but they had no compulsory superannuation. So there are swings and roundabouts. The other major issue is not the “cost of living” but the “cost of lifestyle”. If you want to buy a house, there has to be sacrifices, and it’s usually in lifestyle. That’s just the way it is.

Is the government doing enough to help Australians through the current cost-of-living crisis? No. It could be doing simple things. For example, refinancing your home loan to a better deal is so complicated because every financier has a different process. There should simply be a standard process to refinance. Also, the energy regulator forces energy retailers to show on their bills if there’s a better plan available. Why can’t that be extended to other bills? Information is power. It’s why I work with Compare the Market – these services bring people’s bills down.

When will interest rates come down? An economist once advised me: “If you’re going to forecast, do it in one of two ways: either forecast regularly so you can keep changing your mind, or forecast so far into the future that people will forget what you predicted.” But look, I don’t think we’ll get any cuts this year, it’ll be next year.

What’s one thing about you that people don’t know? Oh gee. This will embarrass my grandkids. OK, so my party trick is that I can make my individual pecs on my chest move in time to The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music. It’s Poppy’s party trick and it gets a lot of laughs.