Koch v Cassidy: Stars feud over Scomo comments

Barrie Cassidy, former Insiders host, has gone after Sunrise host David “Kochie” Koch, for spreading “false claims” about Gladys Berejiklian’s ongoing Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigation, during a recent interview with Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.

During the interview in question, Kochie questioned Scomo about who does the reviewing of ICAC, and explicitly asked “does ICAC need to be reformed?”

Quickly retorting, Scomo replied “millions of people who’ve seen what’s happened to Gladys Berejiklian who’ll understand it’s a pretty good call not to follow (the ICAC) model”.

Cassidy’s problem with this line of questioning was that it made claims about ICAC “assuming guilt before innocence”, before the findings had been handed down.

Barrie Cassidy launched the attack against Kochie via Twitter, saying:

David Koch obviously has no idea how ICAC works but the PM knows how the media works. If you want to spread false claims about ICAC assuming guilt before innocence and not get picked up call Sunrise. https://t.co/FIWERpDlrQ

— Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) October 5, 2021

The Australian spoke to Koch about this stoush, with Koch firing back:

“Look, I respect Barrie Cassidy and his role in the media. But what I don’t agree with is people in the media criticising the approach of other journalists who work on completely different shows and appeal to completely different audiences. It shows a sense of superiority that doesn’t understand the role of everyone else in the media.”

“It was an issue that Australians were talking about, and it wasn’t an unreasonable question to put to the PM. It’s what the person in the street was talking about: ‘What is ICAC?’ and ‘Who’s it accountable to?’

“It was one of the issues of the week: a popular premier leaves at a critical time in dealing with the pandemic because of an inquiry that not many people know about. The point is I’m not a fan of people in the media criticising other parts of the media.”

Kochie isn’t the only popular television host to have expressed strong feelings about Gladys Berejiklian and the ICAC saga; Waleed Aly has also recently mentioned it The Project.

ICAC is currently investigating Gladys Berejiklian over claims she “breached public trust” due to a past personal relationship she had with former MP Daryl Maguire. ICAC is due to hold public hearings over 10 days, from October 18.