Decades later Derryn Hinch says he still has “no qualms whatsoever” about revealing details of the terminal cancer diagnosis received by Don Dunstan’s second wife Adele Koh in the 1970s.

Koh died five months after Hinch reported her condition on his Melbourne radio show in 1978, and following her death Dunstan said it was a “piece of bastardry [that] did affect her condition markedly and I have never forgiven him”.

Now Hinch has defended the decision, telling FIVEAA’s David Penberthy:

“I wasn’t calling for people to be intrusive and to go and get photographs of her in her hospital bed.

“The reason it was a political story is Dunstan had managed to cow the Liberal opposition into going easy on him, at a time when his government and his conduct were starting to unravel.

“There has been plenty of examples of the media rightly reporting on issues involving the illnesses of political partners, such as Betty Ford when she was first lady, and this was no different.”

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