Angus Thompson

Angus Thompson reports on how power, law and work collide, covering industrial relations and federal politics for The Sydney Morning Herald and its sister masthead The Age. His stories follow unions, employers, tribunals and ministers as they fight over wages, conditions and accountability in workplaces across key sectors. He brings a court reporter’s discipline to complex policy debates, tracking how decisions in parliament, commissions and courts translate into real consequences for workers, families and businesses. His coverage extends from contested workplace disputes to high‑profile business figures, including the sale of luxury assets belonging to a jailed Vietnamese tycoon.

Industrial relations and the world of work

Industrial relations is the core of Thompson’s reporting, with repeated coverage of union campaigns, employer groups and government intervention in the labour market. He writes closely on disputes involving doctors and psychiatrists in the public health system, documenting strikes, threats of industrial action and the pressures chronic understaffing places on patient safety and pay negotiations.

His work follows the doctors’ union through tribunal hearings and urgent deadlines imposed on planned stoppages, showing how commission rulings shape the balance of power between professionals and the state. Thompson also covers union‑led debates about casualisation and misclassification, including speeches by leaders such as Sally McManus that challenge major employer groups over permanent workers treated as casuals.

He moves beyond public sector rounds into the private economy, reporting on class action litigation by 7‑Eleven franchisees who say they were misled about store profitability and the resulting settlement worth almost $100 million. In related pieces, he tracks how spiralling input costs for cafe owners push everyday prices, such as the cost of a regular flat white, higher for consumers, tying workplace and business pressures together.

His body of work in this area includes both news and opinion formats, using commentary to draw out the broader implications of franchise models, labour costs and regulatory failure.

Immigration, detention and tribunals

Thompson’s federal politics round frequently runs through immigration and detention policy, where he focuses on how ministerial directives and tribunal decisions affect people with precarious visa status. He reports on the immigration minister’s directive linked to tribunal findings that allow some visa holders to remain in the country despite serious criminal convictions, examining the political backlash and legal nuance around those decisions.

His coverage follows the debate within parliament and political parties, including accounts of Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale questioning provisions that block visas from countries refusing to accept the return of their citizens. Thompson profiles voices pushing for a different tone in national conversations, such as a Coalition senator arguing for empathy in the immigration debate, and places those arguments within the wider contest over border policy and public opinion.

Through these stories he shows how administrative law, ministerial discretion and party politics intersect in individual cases before tribunals and commissions.

Courts, whistleblowers and legal reform

A strong court background anchors Thompson’s coverage of whistleblowers and legal reform, where he often reports from inside or around significant trials and hearings. He covers the case of defence whistleblower David McBride, explaining how McBride’s lawyer invokes a duty to act in the public interest that overrides orders not to disclose documents, while prosecutors challenge that framing of his motivation.

In related pieces he explores arguments that blindly obeying orders ignores principles established at Nuremberg, situating the trial within a long tradition of accountability for military conduct. Thompson’s reporting also extends to decisions of the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission, including a tribunal ruling that the dismissal of a government worker who attended an anti‑lockdown rally and shared an image of a premier with a Hitler moustache was justified but harsh. He follows how those findings weigh freedom of expression, public service codes and proportionality in disciplinary action.

Legal reform is another recurring theme, particularly in family law, where he details exposure drafts of legislation that would force courts to consider the effects of family and domestic violence when determining property settlements. He explains how upcoming changes to “equal say” in court custody battles are set to transform how judges weigh parental input, linking years of advocacy by campaigners to concrete alterations in the law.

Earlier in his career, Thompson covered courts and urban affairs for the masthead, building experience in corruption cases, council misconduct and government pork‑barrelling that informs his current focus on institutional accountability.

Political figures and policy stakes

Across these rounds, Thompson writes about political figures at moments when policy decisions carry high stakes for communities and industries. He reports on Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt’s role as a central figure during the Australian summer, when natural disasters become tests of political competency and crisis management. In trade and foreign policy, he has co‑authored pieces on the collapse of last‑ditch efforts to secure a free trade agreement with the European Union, explaining how the breakdown sets potential deals back years and reshapes expectations for exporters and negotiators. His work often sits between parliamentary reporting and subject‑matter beats such as industrial relations, health and justice, showing how cabinet decisions and party negotiations filter down to workplaces, courts and households. Thompson’s consistent thread is to treat business, labour and law not as separate silos but as interacting systems, using case studies from unions, franchisees, detainees and whistleblowers to illustrate the real‑world impact of political choices.