In June 2023, McKenzie and colleagueChris Masters won what was dubbed the 'defamation trial of the century',[6] a historicfederal court lawsuit brought by decorated soldierBen Roberts-Smith.[7] A judge ruled that four of the six murder allegations against Roberts-Smith—which had been reported on by the journalists and presented in their defence—were substantially true.[8][7]
Early life and education
McKenzie's mother and grandparents are Polish Jews who migrated to Australia when his mother was 15.[9] His grandparents were bothHolocaust survivors.[9] McKenzie's mother's extended family were killed inNazigas chambers.[10]: 9 He is a twin.[11]
In 2005, he interviewed Australian terrorist leaderAbdul Nacer Benbrika before Benbrika was prosecuted for leading terror cells in Sydney and Melbourne. During Benbrika's court case, the public prosecutor told the court that Benbrika was covertly recorded by authorities claiming that he had threatened McKenzie, telling him to "watch yourself", and that he knew how to find the reporter.[14]
Corruption
In 2009, McKenzie and colleague Richard Baker investigated foreign bribery involvingReserve Bank of Australia subsidiaries.[15] The report led to Australia's first-ever foreign bribery prosecution in 2011 and guilty pleas from RBA firms Securency andNote Printing Australia.[15][16][17] McKenzie and Baker were awarded a Walkley Award for Investigative Reporting for their investigation, which also led to the governor of the Reserve Bank,Glenn Stevens, testifying before a Senate committee to respond to allegations the bank mishandled the scandal.[18]
In 2010, McKenzie and investigative reporters Ben Schneiders and Royce Millar revealed political parties were storing personal information about voters, raising privacy concerns.[19] The three were later charged with numerous counts of unauthorised access to data.[20] They subsequently admitted responsibility for the database access as part of a court diversion program, avoiding a conviction.[21] The trio's barrister said there was a public interest in whether political parties should maintain such data and that investigative journalists provide "genuine service to this community".[22]The Age published a news article acknowledging the unlawful conduct,[22] while editor-in-chiefAndrew Holden defended the reporting, stating investigative journalists needed to report public interest stories.[21]
In 2012, McKenzie's reporting on corruption and organised crime within theAustralian Customs Service was recognised with aWalkley Award.[23] The reporting led to reforms of the Australian Customs Service announced in 2013 by Home Affairs MinisterJason Clare and overseen by former NSW judge James Wood.[24] In 2012 McKenzie obtained confidentialVictoria Police files documenting the suicides of at least 40 people sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Victoria.[2][25] Victorian PremierTed Baillieu immediately called a parliamentary inquiry into abuse allegations by religious clergy.[26]
In 2014, a report co-authored by McKenzie on anundisclosed multi-million dollar payment to Hong Kong chief executiveCY Leung from Australian companyUGL prompted widespread calls for Leung's resignation and sparked an investigation by Hong Kong authorities.[27] In 2016, McKenzie and Baker revealed theUnaoil oil industry corruption scandal that implicated some of the world's biggest oil industry firms, includingRolls-Royce,ABB, Petrofac andHalliburton in alleged corruption involving a Monaco firm called Unaoil.[28] In 2019, two members of the family which runs Unaoil pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption offences in the United States.[29]
In July 2019, McKenzie presentedCrown Unmasked detailing corporate misconduct involvingCrown Resorts, including allegations Crown was working with casino junket operators owned by Hong Kong'striads.[30][31] The investigation also reported that wealthy Chinese gamblers "were offered help securing immigration to Australia, their children's schooling in Australia and property investments in Melbourne and Sydney".[32] Crown attacked the reporting in advertisements. Crown's chairwomanHelen Coonan in 2020 told a commission of inquiry into Crown's suitability to hold a gaming licence that the advertisement contained significant errors.[33] TheAustralian Criminal Intelligence Commission also opened probes into the money laundering allegations.[34]
On 14 June 2020, McKenzie's reporting forThe Age andNine Network's60 Minutes Australia released covert recordings purporting to show cabinet minister and Labor party power brokerAdem Somyurek organisingbranch stacking. Somyurek is alleged to have registered local party members with false details, taking funds from business owners to pay for party membership fees, and directing ministerial staffers to engage in wrongdoing.[35] Included in the numerous covert recordings are several sections where Somyurek is heard making derogatory comments towards MPsGabrielle Williams andMarlene Kairouz and ministerial staffers, which have been described as sexist and homophobic.[35]
"This is going to be relentless; we're just going to go fuck them. We're just going to go to town. This is fucking war. We've got fucking massive numbers, we've got about thirty going in every week..."
A 2012 interview McKenzie conducted with sports scientist Steven Dank was used by Australia's anti-doping agencyASADA in its controversialdoping case against theEssendon Football Club.[38] In 2014, a news story by McKenzie onFour Corners into abuse in disability care homes led to aVictorian Ombudsman inquiry and a federal senate inquiry, which recommended a royal commission that was later announced by theMorrison government.[39]
Foreign interference
His 2017Four Corners documentary programPower and Influence reported thatASIO had warned Australian political parties about receiving donations from two men, billionairesHuang Xiangmo and Chau Chak Wing.[40] It also reported that former Trade Minister Andrew Robb had been hired on aA$880,000 yearly consultancy by a company closely linked to the Chinese government.[40] The story was a catalyst for Australia's controversial counter foreign interference laws and later led to the resignation of senator Sam Dastyari over his dealings with Huang.[41][40] Huang was expelled from Australia byASIO on security grounds, but denied the allegations about him,[42] whileChau Chak Wing commenced defamation proceedings.[43][44]
War crimes
In 2017, McKenzie and veteran reporterChris Masters produced several reports detailing allegations that Australia's special forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.[45] They reported thatVictoria Cross recipientBen Roberts-Smith was under investigation by the federal police and the military inspector general.[46] Roberts-Smith attacked the claims as unfounded andsued McKenzie and Masters for defamation.[47]
The trial began in Sydney in June 2021 and was named by media outlets as the 'defamation trial of the century'.[7][48] JusticeAnthony Besanko—who was appointed to theFederal Court of Australia in 2006—presided over the civil trial. It was the first time a court had assessed accusations of war crimes by Australian forces.[7][49] The trial lasted 110 days and cost an estimated $30m.[7][50] In June 2023, the case against McKenzie and Masters was dismissed after Besanko ruled that four of the six murder allegations—all of which were denied by Roberts-Smith—were substantially true.[51] Besanko found the newspaper had not proven two of the murder allegations; however, found that Roberts-Smith's "reputation has been lowered so far ... that two unproven allegations of battlefield murder weren't enough to defame him".[7][52]
The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organisation praised the investigative journalism for "uncovering the truth and raising public awareness" about the war crimes allegations.[7]
Shield laws
In a 2013 court case brought by Helen Liu, a political donor, in theSupreme Court of New South Wales, three journalists including McKenzie made an application to keep their sources confidential, but could not rely on shield laws as they hadn't been introduced. JusticeLucy McCallum ruled a journalist's pledge to keep a source confidential "is not a right or an end in itself" and could be overridden "in the interests of justice".[53] The journalists agreed that they would not use a defence ofqualified privilege, meaning Liu could pursue them, but not their sources.[54] Liu dropped the lawsuit in 2017 with no sources being disclosed.[55]
In 2015, McKenzie defeated aVictorian Supreme Court application brought by an alleged mafia figure for disclosure of his sources in the first legal test of Victoria's journalist shield laws.[56][57] The case was described by the ABC'sMedia Watch program as a landmark test of source protection.[58] The court ruled that identifying McKenzie's sources would jeopardise their safety, that there was a strong public interest in reporting on the mafia's infiltration of politics and that there would be a chilling effect if disclosure was granted.[57] The Australian journalists' union, theMEAA, described the decision as "important for public interest journalism,"[56] but other reporting suggested shield laws "are still far from satisfactory".[57][58] In his ruling, Supreme Court JusticeJohn Dixon found that it was reasonable for police to suspect the alleged mafia figure placed a $200,000 hit on the suspected newspaper source.[59][60]
In 2016, the alleged mafia boss discontinued his defamation lawsuit againstThe Age. The legal action concerned a series of articles that described him as a mafia boss involved in murder, extortion, and drug trafficking.[61]The Age subsequently published an apology, noting the man had never been charged by police; however, it did not retract its reports identifying him as the head of the Calabrian mafia.[61]
In 2017, the ABC reached a confidential settlement with the president of theChinese Students and Scholars Association. This followed her appearance in aFour Corners program, reported by McKenzie, which investigated the influence of the Chinese Communist Party within Australian politics and universities. The president had demanded an apology, which was refused. Instead,Four Corners added an editor's note to the program's transcript.[62][63]
Awards and recognition
McKenzie accepts theMelbourne Press Club Grant Hattam Quill for Investigative Journalism in March 2022.
McKenzie has won Australia's top journalism award, the Walkley Award, twenty times.[1][3][64] In 2010, McKenzie and colleague Richard Baker won theAustralian Centre for Independent Journalism's George Munster prize.[65] In 2012, McKenzie and Baker were rated the third most influential journalists or editors in Australia by news websiteCrikey.[2]
In 2020, McKenzie was named the Kennedy Award's Journalist of the Year for his work exposing war crimes and corporate corruption.[71] He won the award again in 2022.[72][73] McKenzie is the most decorated journalist in the history of theMelbourne Press Club's Quill Awards and has twice won the press club's highest award, the Gold Quill.[74][75] He was shortlisted for the 2023Australian Political Book of the Year forCrossing the Line.[76]
The annualWalkley Awards, under the administration of theWalkley Foundation for Journalism, are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism.[78] McKenzie's twenty Walkley Awards include:[1]
2008 Walkley for exposing organizing crime and race fixing in Australian racing[80]
2011 Walkley for exposing corporate misconduct and bribery linked to Reserve Bank[81]
2013 Walkley for doping in the Australian Football League[81]
2013 Walkley for exposing corruption inside Australia's border force agency[81]
2014 Walkley for exposing corruption in the construction industry and union movement[81]
2019 Walkley for exposing organised crime and foreign interference linked to Australia's biggest gaming company, Crown Resorts[3]
2020 Walkley for exposing misconduct and the dark underbelly of Australian power in the60 Minutes investigation "The Faceless Man"[82][83]
2023 Walkley for Media Freedom to recognise his Ben Roberts-Smith stories from 2018 to 2023.[84]
Works
In 2012, McKenzie's bookThe Sting was published byMelbourne University Publishing (MUP) under its Victory Books imprint.[85][86] The "based-on-real-life-events" story details how a team ofAustralian Federal Police ran an undercover money-laundering sting. Their operation successfully identified the Grandfather Syndicate, a global drug empire controlled by triads, and got closer to dismantling it than any law enforcement group had before. Helen Crompton's review inThe West Australian described McKenzie's book as a "crack-ing yarn".[87]
McKenzie has contributed to the Australian journalism textbooks,Australian Journalism Today (2012)[47] andThe Best Australian Business Writing (2012).[88]
In 2023, McKenzie bookCrossing the Line was published byHachette Australia.[10] The book is his account of investigating the war crimes allegations against Ben Roberts-Smith and the subsequent defamation trial.[10][89] In her review, Bridget Brooklyn from theUniversity of Western Sydney wrote that the book "delivers a coherent and absorbing account of this shocking story" and that it is "a story that, after all the media coverage that made it so familiar, is one worth telling and worth reading".[90]
^Lee, Jane, McKenzie, Nick and Baker, Richard (12 April 2012)."Church's suicide victims".The Age.Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved5 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Munster Winners"(PDF).www.uts.edu.au. Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved22 October 2015.
^Brooklyn, Bridget (2024). "Crossing the Line: The Inside Story of Murder, Lies and a Fallen Hero".Global Media Journal: Australian Edition.17 (1):1–3.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related toNick McKenzie.
