Leigh Sales to step down as 7:30 presenter after 11 years in the role
• "I feel a strong sense of it being time to pass the baton"
After 11 years in the role, Leigh Sales has announced she has decided to step down as presenter of ABC nightly current affairs flagship 7.30, finishing in late June.
Sales will remain with the ABC in a new role and will lead the ABC’s federal election night TV coverage.
Sales was appointed 7.30 anchor in December 2010 and her first edition of the program was in March 2011. Since then she has covered the terms of five Prime Ministers, anchored nine federal budgets and two federal elections – with a third coming up – and been the face of many major primetime news events for the ABC, including the death of Nelson Mandela and the election of Donald Trump.
She has interviewed hundreds of leaders, newsmakers, celebrities and other people of note at home and abroad.
An announcement from @leighsales. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/hy01mUsYyD
— abc730 (@abc730) February 10, 2022
Sales told 7.30 viewers: "I feel a strong sense of it being time to pass the baton to the next runner in the race and to take a break. The end of an election cycle feels like a good time to move on to something new at the ABC.
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"I’ve always approached this job with one goal and that is to ask frank questions of people in power, without fear or favour, that a fair-minded, reasonable person with some common sense watching at home might like to ask if they were sitting in my position.
"The team at 7.30 is unparalleled in the media and I could not have more admiration or more gratitude for what they all do. It is an incredibly important program, there is no other show that does what 7.30 does night after night. I know the program is going to keep going from strength to strength, as it always has."
ABC managing director David Anderson said: "Leigh’s integrity, intellect and courage are evident in everything she does," he said. "Our audiences have always seen Leigh as a journalist and broadcaster who challenges her subjects and asks the questions we all want answers to. I’m really looking forward to the next stage of her career here at the ABC."
Leigh Sales has won an impressive number of awards, including two Walkley Awards, the Walkley Book Award, and the George Munster Award for Independent Journalism. In 2019 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to broadcast journalism.
