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Nick McKenzie

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Nick McKenzie
NationalityAustralian
OccupationInvestigative journalist
WebsiteNickMcKenzie.com.au

Nick McKenzie is an Australian investigative journalist and author who has won multiple Walkley Awards.[1]

He works for Fairfax Media and his investigations regularly appear in Melbourne's The Age newspaper,[2] The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review. He also presents special investigations for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television program, Four Corners.

Life and career

His career began as a cadet journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, later joining Fairfax Media. McKenzie's investigative reporting has led to a number of government inquiries and police investigations, including a federal police probe into political donations given by alleged mafia figures.[3]

An investigation in 2009 by McKenzie and his Fairfax Media colleague Richard Baker into alleged foreign bribery involving two companies owned by the Reserve Bank of Australia, sparked a national scandal and prompted an investigation by the Australian Federal Police.[4]

It ultimately led to Australia's first-ever foreign bribery prosecution in 2011, with the criminal charging of two firms, Securency and Note Printing Australia and several individuals.[5] 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.[6]

In 2013, McKenzie and two other journalists were charged with unauthorised access to restricted data held in the ALP's electoral database during the 2010 Victorian election campaign. He admitted his guilt in accessing the confidential database. The court heard he wished to avoid formally pleading guilty and risking a conviction because he intended to work overseas. Under diversion, a first-time offender can acknowledge responsibility for the offence and be released without conviction. The allegations of hacking led Victorian Police officers to raid The Age's offices in late 2011, seizing computer hard drives. The legal representative for the trio said it was "fundamental" that journalists, like any other citizens, operated within the law and the reporters accepted they did not take steps to satisfy themselves that their database access was legal. He escaped conviction after reaching a deal with the Commonwealth prosecutor. The chief magistrate agreed to put the three journalists into the Melbourne Magistrates Court criminal diversion program as first offenders after they admitted their guilt and agreed to pay $500 each to charity and be of good behaviour for one year. The Age has also agreed to publish a news article and editorial on the court ruling [7]

In 2013 Chinese investor Helen Liu took defamation proceedings against The Age and three of its journalists including Mckenzie, who failed in a final bid to keep confidential his sources in a series of stories about the Chinese-Australian businesswoman and a Labor MP. In the judgement, the judge found that 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".[8]

In 2014, a report by the pair on an undisclosed multi-million dollar payment to Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung from Australian company UGL, prompted widespread calls for Leung's resignation and sparked an investigation by Hong Kong authorities.[9]

In 2016 McKenzie relied on undisclosed sources for a series of articles that, among other things, claimed grocer Antonio Madafferi was alleged to be the head of the mafia in Melbourne. Fairfax Media apologised to Madafferi and dropped a defamation case.[10] The Court documents revealed Mr Madafferi suspected Mr Acquaro, a former friend and family lawyer, of providing information to one of The Age journalists he was suing, Nick McKenzie. The Age published a page two apology to Mr Madafferi that ­“acknowledges that Mr Madafferi is a hard-working family man who has never been charged by the police with any criminal offence’’.

In 2018, McKenzie was sued by Chau Chak Wing, one of Australia's most generous political donors. Chau filed defamation proceedings in June 2018 against McKenzie, the national broadcaster and the newspaper group over a joint investigation.[11] [12]

Much of McKenzie's work has been produced with Richard Baker. In 2016, the pair revealed the Unaoil oil industry corruption scandal that implicated some of the world's biggest oil industry firms, including Rolls Royce, ABB, Petrofac and Halliburton in alleged corruption involving a Monaco firm called Unaoil.[13] In 2012, McKenzie and Baker were rated the third most influential journalists or editors in Australia by news website Crikey.[14]

McKenzie won the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award with Baker in 2017 for his work on Chinese Communist Party interference in Australia.[15]

Awards and recognition

McKenzie has won Australia's top journalism award, the Walkley Award, on seven occasions.[16]

In 2010, McKenzie and his colleague Richard Baker were awarded the prestigious George Munster Prize for Independent Journalism by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.[17]

McKenzie is the most decorated journalist in the history of the Melbourne Press Club's Quill Awards and has twice won the press club's highest award, the Gold Quill.[18][19]

Books

In 2012, McKenzie's book The Sting,[20] about one of Australia's biggest organised crime and money laundering investigations, was published by Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) Victory Books.

McKenzie has also contributed to the Australian journalism textbooks, Australian Journalism Today (2012)[21] and The Best Australian Business Writing (2012).[22]

References

  1. ^ "Nick McKenzie & Richard Baker". The Power Index. The Power Index. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  2. ^ "Nick McKenzie". The Age. 15 August 2013. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  3. ^ McKenzie, Baker, Bachelard (22 May 2014). "Libs Take Money Of Mafia Man". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 October 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Parliamentary Library. "Australia's Efforts Against Foreign Bribery: An Update". Australian Parliament House. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  5. ^ Parliamentary Library. "Australia's Efforts Against Foreign Bribery: An Update". Australian Parliament House. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  6. ^ Eltham, Ben (13 September 2012). "A Grubby Trail of Plastic Money". New Matilda. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
  7. ^ Ackerman, Pia (22 May 2014). "Age journalists plead guilty to avoid conviction". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  8. ^ Ralston, Nick. "Age journalists ordered to reveal sources". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  9. ^ BBC News (8 October 2014). "HK leader given secret payment by Australian firm". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  10. ^ LeGrand, Chip. "Fairfax apology as businessman accused of mafia links drops case". Financial Review. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  11. ^ Whitbourn, Michaela. "Court throws out truth defence in Chau Chak Wing's defamation case". Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  12. ^ Pelly, Michael. "Chau Chak Wing wins $280,000 in defamation case v two former Fairfax Media papers". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  13. ^ Thomas, Natalie. "Amec Foster Wheeler Shares Drop 10 % on SFP Probe". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  14. ^ "Nick McKenzie & Richard Baker". The Power Index. The Power Index. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  15. ^ Publisher, Master. "Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year honour roll - Melbourne Press Club". www.melbournepressclub.com. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  16. ^ "Nick McKenzie & Richard Baker". The Walkley Foundation. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  17. ^ "Munster Winners" (PDF). www.uts.edu.au. Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  18. ^ "Best Coverage of an Issue or Event". Melbourne Press Club. Melbourne Press Club. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  19. ^ Melbourne Press Club. Melbourne Press Club http://old.melbournepressclub.com/quills/2011/monash-university-gold-quill/nick-mckenzie-maris-beck-tom-mckendrick_age-age. Retrieved 22 October 2015. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  20. ^ "Extract from The Sting". The Age. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  21. ^ "Australian Journalism Today". Palgrave Macmillan Australia. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  22. ^ "The Best Australian Business Writing 2012". NewSouth Books. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
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