Synonymous with journalistic excellence, Liz Hayes stands as Australia’s foremost and respected presenter and journalist.
The 2024 Top Talent Report from the Australian Talent Index voted Liz Hayes as Australia’s most trusted broadcaster.
Liz spent most of her forty-four years at the Nine Network as an investigative journalist. After 10 years as co-host on the Today show, Australia’s morning breakfast program, Liz joined 60 Minutes, where she spent nearly three decades, becoming the program’s most recognised and senior reporter.
At 60 Minutes, Liz reported on significant stories across the globe, including the war in Afghanistan, the oil debate in the Arctic Circle, the Syrian refugee crisis, Japan’s earthquake and devastating tsunami, and the Boeing 737 Max aviation crisis, among many others.
Liz has interviewed leaders from around the world, including presidents and prime ministers, Kings and Queens, entrepreneurs, sports stars, and Hollywood celebrities. Yet some of Liz’s most memorable interviews have been with those who see themselves as ordinary people but who have done extraordinary things. Sensitive and sometimes confronting stories like that of Jeni Haynes, who developed thousands of personalities to cope with deplorable sexual assaults by her father; Kylie Monaghan, who despite her fast moving terminal illness, continued to campaign for the legalising of euthanasia in Australia, until the day she died; Dan Jones, a young man gaoled despite being wrongly accused by his fiancé of rape, and 24-year-old Sarah Ristevski, the daughter who was placed in an impossible position when the father she deeply loved was convicted of the murder of her cherished mother.
Perhaps the most personal story of all was Liz’s own. In an award-winning report, she told the story of her father’s tragic death to highlight the failures in the New South Wales regional health system. Her story and those of others with similar experiences resulted in a NSW Government parliamentary inquiry.
In 2022, Liz gave evidence to the inquiry, which determined that people living outside cities had significantly poorer health outcomes, greater incidents of chronic disease, and greater premature deaths. The government pledged there would be change.
More recently, Liz was the presenter and Managing Editor of Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, an original Walkley award-winning crime program, solving mysteries and digging up new details for cases both old and new.
Liz has co-hosted a winter Olympics and was a key presenter at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006. She produced and presented an award-winning documentary The Greatest Gift, telling the difficult and emotional stories of heart transplant patients and following what has been described as a moment that changed Australia, Liz, as the reporter and host, presented a two and a half hour television special on Sydney’s Lindt Café siege, in which eight of the hostages spoke exclusively of their terror the day they were held for seventeen hours by a lone gunman.
In 2023, Liz co-hosted the 68th Walkley Awards for excellence in journalism and also published her bestselling memoir, “I’m Liz Hayes”, a heartfelt and authentic glimpse into her more than five-decade career and the possibilities and costs of a life filled with storytelling and adventure.
In November 2024, Liz travelled to Washington, DC to co-host Nine’s US Presidential Elections, a marathon nine-hour-long live broadcast from the nation’s capital.
In 2025, Liz left the Nine Network to tell her own stories across a variety of mediums, including as a guest reporter on Seven Network’s Spotlight.
Liz also hosted a series of live on-stage interviews with Oscar-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda in July this year to an audience of five thousand at the International Convention Centre in Sydney and at Melbourne’s The Plenary Theatre. Both events were sold out.
Liz has since embarked on a second book, “The Outback Astronomer”, published in October 2025.
After her 60 Minutes report on the incredible story of Trevor Barry, a mine worker from the Australian desert town of Broken Hill, whose backyard hobby of astronomy led him to NASA, Liz and her former producer, Ali Smith, reunited with Trevor to tell his story in print.
The official launch took place in Broken Hill in September and was an instant success, topping local and international bestseller lists.