Who owns the news you think you’re reading

Kerry 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 Western Australia’s only major newspaper and a television network reaching 98% of Australians. The conflict writes itself. The coverage doesn’t.

Sky News and the regional capture

In Australian cities, you pay to watch Sky News Australia. In much of regional and rural Australia, it is your only available news channel, broadcasting free, all day, every day. This is not an accident. And what it broadcasts is not news.

501,876 signatures and nothing happened

In October 2020, more Australians signed a petition calling for a royal commission into News Corp than have ever signed any petition in Australian parliamentary history. A Senate inquiry agreed with them. The government did nothing. This is the story of how media power defeats democratic accountability, every time.

Australia’s Gas Heist · 11 Articles

Investigation

We gave away the gas

Australia 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 on more than half of it. And Japanese buyers of Australian gas are reselling it to other countries for a billion-dollar profit. This is not a market failure. It is a policy choice.

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83% of all gas Australia extracts is exported as LNG

INPEX exported A$21 billion of gas and paid zero resource tax

Japanese buyers resell Australian LNG for over A$1 billion profit

East coast gas prices tripled while WA kept theirs at half price

A$22 million ad campaign killed the mining tax in six weeks

Who profits

Australia’s gas is mostly extracted by foreign multinationals. Their profits flow offshore. The executives running those companies earn millions annually. In one case, a CEO went straight from the top of Australia’s largest gas company to run one of the world’s largest oil companies for more than double the pay. This article names who takes the money and documents what they leave behind.

What Norway built

Norway and Australia both discovered oil and gas. Both had booms. Both watched multinationals extract billions of dollars from their continental shelves. Norway taxed the industry at 78 per cent, put every dollar into a sovereign wealth fund, and in 2025 that fund made A$350 billion in profit — in a single year. Australia built nothing equivalent. This is not geology. It is political will.

How they killed the mining tax

In 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 removed from office in 53 days. His tax was gutted, then repealed. In January 2026, newly-released files showed this campaign was being coordinated at the highest levels — and that the strategists themselves privately admitted there was no principled argument against the tax.

The political connections

The gas industry donated at least A$3.98 million to Australia’s major political parties in the year before the 2025 election. The minister who approved Queensland’s LNG export industry became chair of the national gas lobby within six months of leaving parliament. His successor did the same. Both were in breach of the Ministerial Code’s cooling-off period. Nothing happened. This is how the gas rort is maintained.

The east coast gas cartel

Australia 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 crisis in which Australians pay world prices for gas extracted from their own territory. The ACCC has been investigating the east coast gas market since 2017. Its own reports describe the structural features of a cartel. It has not broken it up. Manufacturers have closed. Households pay high electricity bills driven by gas prices. The industry that caused it paid almost no resource tax while it was happening.

Gas and climate: the final rort

Australia dropped its bid to host the world’s most important climate conference weeks before it was finalised. It did so while providing A$14.9 billion per year in fossil fuel subsidies, approving a 40-year extension to one of the world’s largest gas processing facilities, and resisting every serious proposal to reduce its gas exports. The gas rort and the climate crisis are the same failure, from two different angles.

World Worriers · Profiles + Updates

Environment

Breaking · 31 March 2026 · Antarctic waters

Operation Krill Wars

On 31 March 2026, the M/V Bandero, operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, rammed the Norwegian krill trawler Antarctic Sea in Antarctic waters. Aker BioMarine, the world’s largest krill harvester, called it a terrorist attack. Watson, from his houseboat in Paris, called it aggressive nonviolence.

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The Airline Rort · 8 Articles

Investigation

Data visualisation showing Australian domestic airfare pricing by number of competing carriers

The fare

Australia'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 factors are at near-record highs. Profit margins on domestic routes are more than double those on competitive international routes. Fares remain well above pre-COVID levels. The competition watchdog monitors it every quarter. Nothing has structurally changed.

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In This Series

The duopoly

Australia'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 deregulation and has persisted ever since. Eight challengers have tried to break it. Every single one has failed or been absorbed. The mechanism that protects the duopoly is not just market power; it is also control over a physical resource that determines whether competitors can fly at all.

The Qatar block

On 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 giving no reasons arrived ten days later. Qantas had lobbied against the application, while simultaneously admitting it could not meet demand for at least five years. The Acting Prime Minister was not consulted. The Senate inquiry called it a protection racket. The man at the centre of it left the country. Qatar arrived anyway, through a different door. The delay cost Australians up to A$788 million a year.

Alan Joyce and the politicians

The 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 CEO, and provides access to priority upgrades, private airport facilities, and a personal relationship with the airline that regulates no other industry creates. It is not a bribe. It is something more effective than a bribe: an arrangement in which politicians feel comfortable asking for things, and an airline that benefits from government decisions feels comfortable providing them.

The frequent flyer financial machine

Qantas 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 billion in revenue and A$511 million in profit. During the COVID pandemic, when flying almost completely stopped, Loyalty's profits fell only 9 per cent. The reason: Qantas's real business is not flying planes. It is selling a private currency to banks and retailers, and Australians are enrolled in it at a rate that makes the currency nearly unavoidable.

Who owns the airports

Australia'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 reach 82 per cent, almost double the industry global average. The companies that own them are, in many cases, the superannuation funds of the workers who pay to use them. The same deregulation era that was supposed to open aviation to competition also sold the infrastructure that competition depends on. The bill is now coming due.

What the media covered

Media

Qantas 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 ABC. Its Chairman's Lounge membership includes 'high-profile members of the media.' It is among Australia's largest advertisers. None of this is secret. What it creates is a structural environment in which the outlets best positioned to cover the airline rort have financial relationships with the airline they are covering, and the outlets that covered it most directly tended to be those without those relationships.

What would fix it

The reforms that would lower Australian airfares are known. The ACCC has identified them. Independent economists have modelled them. The Senate has recommended them. They fall into four categories: more competition, better slot management, airport re-regulation, and political integrity reforms. None requires invention. Several are already in partial operation. The obstacle is not technical. It is political. The same mechanism this series has documented, an airline's cultivation of political relationships through upgrades, donations, and access, is the mechanism that has blocked every serious reform for thirty years.

The Inflation Rort · 8 Articles

Investigation

The two inflations

In 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 Reserve Bank raised interest rates 13 times in 19 months. Rate rises are a demand-side tool. Using a demand-side tool for a supply-side problem destroys purchasing power without fixing the supply constraint. The cost fell on borrowers. The supply shock continued regardless.

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Series Overview

8 Articles · Inflation Rort

14 min read

April 2026

Australia’s 2022–23 inflation was primarily supply-side — rate rises target demand
Big four banks posted A$32.5 billion combined profit during the rate-rise cycle
Woolworths and Coles control 67% of groceries — margins expanded during inflation
1.5 million households hit mortgage stress while real wages fell 5%
The UK, EU, and France used fiscal tools Australia refused to consider

Greedflation

Grocery 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 generation — margins now among the highest of any supermarket business in comparable countries. The regulator found the sector was ‘not working well.’ It could not prove price gouging. The companies’ share prices rose on the day the report was released.

Why the RBA did all the work

Thirteen rate rises. Fastest tightening cycle in Australian history. Budget in surplus. Corporate margins expanding. The RBA raised rates because it had to — its mandate required it. The fiscal tools that could have shared the burden were available. The UK used windfall taxes. The EU deployed a solidarity contribution levy. Australia halved fuel excise for six months and then gave it back. The RBA did it alone. The borrowers paid.

Who rate rises hurt

More than 1.5 million Australian households were at mortgage stress by October 2023. Monthly repayments on a A$500,000 loan increased by approximately A$1,210. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers who had locked in pandemic-era rates of 2 per cent rolled onto 6.5 per cent in a single day in 2023. Renters were hit twice: by inflation on essentials and by landlords passing on their own mortgage cost increases. Real wages fell. Household disposable income fell 6.1 per cent — the largest decline in the OECD. First home buyers were locked out of the market.

Who rate rises helped

While 1.5 million Australian mortgage holders were at risk of stress, Australia’s four major banks reported a combined record profit of approximately A$32.5 billion — up 12.4 per cent. Net interest income rose 13.8 per cent to A$74.9 billion. The mechanism is documented: banks pass rate rises to borrowers quickly and completely; they pass rises to depositors slowly and incompletely. The gap between the two is profit. The RBA’s rate cycle was a transfer from borrowers to banks.

The fiscal tools they didn’t use

The 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 sector profits. France capped household energy prices. Australia halved fuel excise for six months and then restored it. No windfall tax on energy companies. No bank excess profits levy. No price caps. A$14.9 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies: maintained. The full burden of stabilisation went to the RBA. The borrowers paid.

The political connections

The four major banks donated to both major parties. The fossil fuel companies whose export prices were driving energy inflation donated to both major parties. Woolworths and Coles donated to both major parties. The government commissioned the Supermarkets Inquiry eighteen months after the inflation peaked. No windfall tax on energy companies. No bank levy. No price caps. The ACCC’s inquiry found problems. The government’s response was A$2.9 million for supplier education. The pattern is the same as every other series in this publication.

The Roads Rort · 8 Articles

Investigation

The toll

The 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. Driving to work in Sydney — through the tunnels built with public money, now owned by a private company with a 75 per cent profit margin — costs a typical commuter over A$5,000 a year. The toll is contractually guaranteed to rise every year. There is no opt-out.

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Series Overview

8 Articles · Roads Rort

13 min read

April 2026

WestConnex M4 toll rose 128% since 2017 — CPI rose 28% in the same period
Transurban controls 18 of 21 Australian toll networks with a 75% profit margin
A typical Sydney commuter spends over A$5,000 a year on tolls alone
Public money built the roads — private companies own them until 2060
Your super fund profits from the same tolls you pay to drive to work

WestConnex M4 toll rose 128% since 2017 — CPI rose 28% in the same period

Transurban controls 18 of 21 Australian toll networks with a 75% profit margin

A typical Sydney commuter spends over A$5,000 a year on tolls alone

Public money built the roads — private companies own them until 2060

Your super fund profits from the same tolls you pay to drive to work

The model

The 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 the road and charge tolls for 30 to 50 years. The company builds the road. The company charges. The company earns. The government gets the road back — at the end of the concession — debt-free. What the model does not advertise is the other side of the ledger: the public funds that went in before the company arrived, the publicly owned roads that were bundled into the sale, and what happens when traffic is lower than forecast.

Transurban: the monopoly

Transurban 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$2.676 billion on revenue of A$3.732 billion — a margin of 75 per cent. Its market capitalisation is A$30.9 billion. Its average concession life is 25 years. It is a legal monopoly, created and maintained by government, that has expanded through a combination of competitive bidding, absorbing bankrupt competitors, and the network logic that makes each new road more valuable than the last.

The fuel price cycle

Every 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 again. The ACCC has documented this cycle for over twenty years. It is not a conspiracy. It is oligopolistic parallel pricing by four or five fuel retailers who benefit from its predictability. The regulator monitors. Its response to a cycle that costs consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year is to publish advice about what day to fill up.

The political connections

Transurban 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 party’s more generous donors.’ The CEO who oversaw Transurban’s expansion to network dominance subsequently became CEO of Sydney Airport. Infrastructure Australia — the body that recommends which projects get built — has board members with links to infrastructure investment funds. The concession agreements are commercially confidential. This is how private monopolies are built with public money.

Who owns the roads