Corporate

The wealth leaving through the corporate beat.

Hover the offshore nodes · click to open a dossier

THE RORT · THE DESK · CORPORATEDESK LIVE · TRACKING

The companies that shape Australian life. How monopolies form, how markets fail, and who pays when corporations write the rules.

61 investigations12 cases

Fig. 01 / On this desk · the cases running on this beat

The ACCCFEDERAL REGULATOR · 26 HERE The RBAFEDERAL REGULATOR · 20 HERE Anthony AlbanesePERSON · POLITICIAN · 13 HERE The PRRTMECHANISM · TAX · 13 HERE WoodsideCOMPANY · GAS · 12 HERE SantosCOMPANY · GAS · 11 HERE QantasCOMPANY · AVIATION · 10 HERE ColesCOMPANY · SUPERMARKETS · 10 HERE

Fig. 01Source: beat desk · cases assembled from the archiveAs of 2026‑10‑04Auto-assembled

Fig. 02 / The evidence · every file on this beat

The Inflation Rort · 20

01The two inflationsIn 2022, Australian inflation peaked at 7.8 per cent. The primary causes were supply-side: COVID supply chains, the Ukraine war, global energy price spikes. The Reserv…02GreedflationGrocery prices rose 24 per cent in five years. The ACCC’s Supermarkets Inquiry found Coles and Woolworths expanded their profit margins during the worst inflation in a…03Why the RBA did all the workThirteen rate rises. The biggest tightening since 1990. Budget in surplus (2022-23 and 2023-24). Some of the largest firms widened their margins, though Reserve Bank r…04Who rate rises hurtRoy Morgan’s survey model put 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders (1,786,000 people, not households) at risk of mortgage stress in July 2026, the highest …05Who rate rises helpedIn 2026, advertised variable mortgage rates rose by the full 0.25 points in the month of each of the first three rises, 0.75 points in all, while advertised transactio…06The fiscal tools they didn’t useThe UK introduced a windfall tax on oil and gas companies the same month the RBA began raising rates. The EU deployed a solidarity contribution levy on fossil fuel sec…07The political connectionsThe four major banks donated to both major parties. The fossil fuel companies whose export prices were driving energy inflation donated to both major parties. Woolwort…08The reckoningThe inflation came down. The RBA’s rate rises worked, in the sense that inflation returned to target. This is not contested. What is contested is how the reduction was…09Four rises in 2026On 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 4.60 per cent, unanimously: its fourth rise this year and the highest rate since 2011. Its reasons put a …10A global war, a national rateThe Reserve Bank does not deny the war: every statement since March names it, and today's puts it first. But its Governor says the rises 'will have no impact' on the o…11What a rate rise buysThe Reserve Bank’s own models say a one-point rise lowers inflation by an eighth to half a point, one to two years later in most of its models, and, in one of its two …12Who pays for the risesOn the same hypothetical $600,000 loan, four 2026 rises add about $364 a month, Canstar projects: about 8.4 per cent of a $1,000-a-week gross wage, and 0.44 per cent o…13Are corporations untouched?Not all of them. From June 2022 to June 2026, financial corporations’ surplus rose 36.6 per cent (a whole sector, not banks alone) and private non-financial corporatio…14The savers’ shareDid the banks keep the 2026 rises from savers? Not most of them, on average, on the Reserve Bank’s own tables: what households were paid on deposits rose about as much…15What the Reserve Bank pays the banksThe Reserve Bank paid about $36.9 billion in interest on bank reserves over the three years to June 2025 (THE RORT’s sum of audited figures), and its pandemic bank loa…16Is it the only way?The Governor calls the cash rate ‘all we have’. The government’s own Budget says fiscal policy is ‘better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such…17Nine people, one rateNine people set the cash rate. The Treasurer appoints six of them. The Treasury Secretary sits and votes, which the RBA Review called "unusual" but kept, saying a Trea…18Seven votes for a gas export tax, all lostSenator David Pocock asked on Tuesday afternoon why it is “always” households who are stung while “massive multinationals bank wartime profits”. The Parliament’s own r…19The grillForty questions to the Reserve Bank Governor and Board, the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and the Opposition, each built on their own words and records, most answerabl…24Above the 0.25NAB’s variable home loan rise is the Reserve Bank’s 0.25, no more. Its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates for new loans rose 0.35 to 0.47 points in two …

The Airline Rort · 8

01The fareAustralia's domestic aviation market is one of the most concentrated in the developed world. Two airline groups control 94–99 per cent of all domestic flights. Load fa…02The duopolyAustralia's aviation market has been a duopoly for most of the past 35 years. The same structure that existed before deregulation returned within a decade of deregulat…03The Qatar blockOn 10 July 2023, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected Qatar Airways' application to almost double its flights to Australia. Qatar found out via media. The letter…04Alan Joyce and the politiciansThe Chairman's Lounge has approximately 5,000 members. Around 90 per cent of federal parliamentarians are among them. Membership is free, by invitation of the Qantas C…05The frequent flyer financial machineQantas Frequent Flyer has 15 million members, about half the Australian adult population. In the financial year to June 2024, the Loyalty division generated A$2.6 bill…06Who owns the airportsAustralia's major airports are private monopolies. They face no competition. They are monitored by the ACCC but not price-regulated. They earn EBITDA margins that reac…07What the media coveredQantas has content partnerships with three of Australia's four major media groups: Nine (AFR, SMH, Age), News Corp (The Australian, Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun), and A…08What would fix itThe reforms that would lower Australian airfares are known. The ACCC has identified them. Independent economists have modelled them. The Senate has recommended them. T…

Australia's Gas Heist · 7

01We gave away the gasAustralia is one of the largest LNG exporters on earth. Australians pay more for their own gas than buyers in Tokyo. The companies that take it pay almost no royalties…04Who profitsAustralia’s gas is mostly extracted by foreign multinationals. Their profits flow offshore. The executives running those companies earn millions annually. In one case,…06How they killed the mining taxIn 2010, a Prime Minister tried to make the mining industry pay a fair price for public resources. The industry spent A$22 million in six weeks. The Prime Minister was…09The decommissioning rortWhen Australia’s offshore gas platforms are eventually shut down, someone has to pay to remove hundreds of kilometres of pipelines, thousands of wells, and millions of…10The east coast gas cartelAustralia exports gas to Japan, where it is resold for profit. It exports gas to South Korea. It exports gas everywhere, and in doing so has created a domestic energy …12The A$60 billion boomerang: who cleans up the offshore rigs when the gas money is goneA regulator let Santos begin switching off a gas field without confirming Santos can pay to remove it. A court ruled the regulator was not required to check, and no ap…14The boom that paid Woodside backIn the middle of a price boom, Woodside's own guidance shows the statutory resource tax line opening as a benefit of US$210-410m: not a scandal, but the PRRT's deducti…

The Roads Rort · 7

01The tollThe WestConnex M4 cost $4.56 in 2017. It costs $10.38 today. Australian consumer prices rose about 28 per cent over the same period. The toll rose 128 per cent. Drivin…02The modelThe toll road concession model works like this: a government needs a road built. It does not want to borrow to build it. It offers a private company the right to build…03Transurban: the monopolyTransurban was founded in 1996 with one road. It now holds full or partial ownership of every major toll road in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Its FY25 EBITDA was A$…04The fuel price cycleEvery week, petrol prices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide follow the same pattern: they fall during the week, then spike on Thursday or Friday, then fall a…05The political connectionsTransurban is a documented political donor to both major parties. The NSW Premier who sold WestConnex was described by academic analysis as selling to ‘one of his part…06Who owns the roadsTransurban’s largest shareholders include AustralianSuper and IFM Investors, the investment arm of the industry superannuation movement. AustralianSuper’s head of infr…08What would fix itThe toll road concession model, as implemented in Australia, produces 75 per cent EBITDA margins, tolls rising faster than wages, and 40-year guarantees on rising retu…

The War Trade · 5

01Sixteen minutesThe United States went to war with Iran on 28 February 2026 from a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. The record since then is not a finding of insider trading. It is a sequence …02Ninety-seven per centPolymarket ran contracts on the things the 2026 Iran war turned on, and some accounts bet on them as though they already knew the answer. At least fifty brand-new acco…03The Australian positionHancock Prospecting’s quarterly US filings show Gina Rinehart moving US$133 million into American defence contractors and gold in the war’s first quarter, then US$1.37…04The round tripThe war moved through the Australian share market twice, up and then down. On the first trading day after the strike, Santos and Woodside jumped almost 8 per cent as t…05Five dollarsAustralia's Parliament can find a five-dollar golf club membership and put it to the Prime Minister within a day. It has not put a single question to the forecast A$38…

The Reporting Rort · 4

01The inbox checked once a dayFor 84 days, by the government’s account, the only party that knew an AI agent had been inside a Services Australia portal was the company that built it. The state fou…02Nobody has to tellWe checked every reporting duty in Australian law that might have obliged OpenAI to tell the state its agent had been inside a Medicare portal. Each binds someone else…03Fourteen daysA Centrelink recipient given a notice has 14 days to tell the state about a change, and failing to comply is a crime. An AI company whose agent got inside a government…04The fifth systemOn Thursday 1 October, by the NSW Government's account, OpenAI told it that one of its models had entered a National Parks and Wildlife Service web application in June…

Media Ownership · 3

01Who owns the news you think you’re readingAustralia has some of the most concentrated media ownership in the world. Three billionaires and a US conglomerate control almost everything you read, watch, and hear.…02The mining company that owns your newsKerry Stokes controls a A$10.74 billion industrial empire selling Caterpillar equipment to mines and holding the largest stake in an oil and gas company. He also owns …03The property platform that owned your property reporterAustralia is in the middle of its worst housing affordability crisis on record. The companies whose media outlets shape the housing policy debate are also the ones mak…

The Privacy Rort · 2

01One penaltyBusinesses and agencies told the privacy regulator of 1,205 notifications of data breaches likely to cause serious harm in 2025, the most since reporting became compul…02Nearly five yearsThe privacy regulator’s biggest matters are measured in years. Its investigation of the Optus White Pages breach ran from August 2021 to June 2026. The Optus and Medib…

The Triple Zero Rort · 2

01The calls that did not connectOn 8 November 2023 an Optus outage left 2,145 emergency calls unsuccessful, and Optus then failed to make 369 welfare checks it was required to make. Three Optus compa…03One thousand and fiveTwenty-two months after the first outage, Optus says a firewall upgrade went wrong and Triple Zero calls failed for more than 14 hours in South Australia, Western Aust…

The Cartel Switch · 1

01Thirteen days, pointed backwardsAct No. 48 of 2026 lets the Treasurer declare exceptional circumstances, a term the Act does not define, and that declaration unlocks a new ACCC power to authorise coo…

The Consultancy Rort · 1

01The crackdown that cost moreCanberra promised to rein in the Big Four consultants. The federal consultancy bill climbed to A$968.6 million. The money never left the building. Only the letterhead …

The Pork Barrel · 1

01The only golf clubMarrickville Golf Club was the only golf club invited for funding under a A$560 million program that sent nearly three-quarters of its money to seats the government al…

Fig. 02Source: article scan · grouped by the case each file belongs toAs of 2026‑10‑04Auto-assembled

Instruments

The Watchfloor The Docket The Ledger The Desk The Drain The Patch Investigations

Beats

Politics Corporate Resources Environment Housing Media Health Justice

Sections

Voices World Worriers Method About

The Rort

Tip Line

THE RORT

Independent · No ads · No masters · If it's a rort, we cover it

Submit a Tip → Follow on X →

Engine DΛREΛKT_Contract site.therort 1.0.0Core 72ab73b22f92Build 2026-10-04T13:47:24Z