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“Get it right.” David Koch slams Seven News, Today Tonight organ donation report.

Updated: Kochie lets rip at his own network's report on the Organ & Tissue Authority, of which he is Chairman. Until he resigned on air.

Sunrise presenter David Koch has criticised a Seven News and Today Tonight report into Australia’s organ and tissue donation system last night.

Koch, who has been chairman of the federal government’s OTA’s Advisory Council for the past three years, pulled apart the Today Tonight report.

Koch said Australia’s donation rate has risen from 32nd in the world to 19th and grown 41%.

He took issue with claims that OTA programmes had cost $250m which TT referred to as ‘money not well spent.’

“Really? That’s over 6 years,” Koch objected before elaborating on reforms saving money and attacking the interview subjects who spoke to TT.

“All these blokes are members of a rich lobby group called ShareLife, who basically want to take control of the reforms and take control of the money. How do I know? I should know because I used to be part of ShareLife,” he said.

“I left because I was sick of them criticising rather than doing anything.”

Koch then cited professionals in the industry who backed the work of the Organ and Tissue Authority.

“I have got strings and strings of these testimonies that have come in last night since this report. Even the Government authority which measured donation says last night’s claims of fiddling the result was totally inaccurate.”

He also took aim at Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash.

“The politician in charge of donations, Fiona Nash, has not supported the authority’s program and caved into this rich lobby group and started yet another expensive inquiry into it. It’s an absolute disgrace,” he said.

“Fiona Nash, get a backbone. You didn’t even ring me as chairman of your advisory council to get my view or even tell me an inquiry was coming.”

Koch finished by resigning from his position as Chairman, live on air.

“Obviously, I’ve got no choice but to resign from the position and actively counter the tripe dished out by a whole bunch of rich lobbyists that just talk and do nothing.”

Updated: A spokesman for Senator Nash said a health department deputy secretary rang Koch on May 20 to inform him of the review.

“Mr Koch’s unexpected resignation is a loss to the organisation,” the minister said in a statement.

Via: News Corp, Nine News

14 Responses

  1. Why did he resign in order to counter the claims? If he is so incensed by the report maybe he shouldn’t work for the same network, smh.com.au also report he was informed of this by the ministers office a week ago.

    1. Ah, so Koch is peed off that it wasn’t the Asst Minister but a dep sec who called him? On balance, I think I still side with him as it’s prob more appropriate for Nash to have been the one that passed on the initial advice.

  2. The organ donation commercial at the end that he recommended viewers watch was amazing and a real tear jerker. If it doesn’t make people think twice about organ donation, nothing will.

  3. Does that mean Kochie will resign from Channel 7 and Sunrise, after all he is criticising his employer. Cynics will note that both Nine and Seven have been using various media outlets, including newspapers, magazines etc. when creating news about their breakfast show hosts recently. Kochie may be angry regarding a serious and emotive subject but he should have made his comments away from Channel 7 to avoid the obvious commercial conflict it represents as a well paid host of Sunrise.

  4. Wow! People may criticise Kochie for various things but not having a backbone to stand up for what he thinks is right is not one of them. Good on him!

  5. 1: Good on him telling another side & standing up for something he believes in. He’s showing more integrity than I would ever have expected from him.

    2: It’s a shame the media in general isn’t that critical about every other ‘story’ on the news or current affairs programmes, and it takes someone with position to point out individual cases they’re passionate / knowledgeable about? How many more slide by and are missed because an unbiased investigation doesn’t make ‘good tv’, and nobody’s interested / involved enough to dig deeper?

    1. Agree. Good on him but of course it’s taken a story about something for which he has a passion to get him to call TT out. What about all the other poorly researched or biased stories that have been on TT over the years?

      Really stinks that the Asst Minister didn’t even tell him that there was to be an inquiry, let alone not seek his input. Suggests that there might have been issues with that relationship rather than a simple forgetting of protocol.

      Extra points for resigning but committing to continue the good work.

      1. He had been informed though smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/david-koch-told-a-week-ago-of-review-that-sparked-onair-fiona-nash-row-20150527-ghb072.html

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