Catie McLeod

Catie McLeod reports on how business decisions, market structures and regulation filter down to everyday consumers, using a consumer affairs lens on The Guardian’s business desk to show the human impact behind economic stories. She holds a dedicated consumer affairs role, becoming the first reporter in that slot at the masthead’s Australian operation. Her coverage sits at the intersection of business, public policy and daily life, returning to questions of price, fairness and accountability. She writes in clear, direct prose that centres affected people rather than abstract market forces.

Consumer markets and supermarket behaviour

McLeod’s work on consumer markets often focuses on supermarket behaviour and how large retailers shape household budgets. In her reporting on Coles and Woolworths promotions, she uses data on everyday items such as toothbrushes, ice-cream and frozen pizza to show how the two chains switch discounts in sync, underscoring the effect of duopoly power on shoppers. She uses this kind of detailed pricing analysis to turn what could be a generic cost-of-living story into a close look at how promotional strategies influence what people pay and when.

Across this strand of her beat, she treats supermarkets and other consumer-facing businesses as systems that can be examined through evidence rather than anecdote. The focus on specific product categories and promotion patterns signals an interest in how marketing, competition and consumer psychology meet at the shelf edge. It also reflects a broader tendency in her work to anchor business reporting in the routine decisions that shape household spending.

Regulators, safety and public accountability

A second through-line in McLeod’s coverage is close attention to regulators and public safety, particularly where long-running issues have been under-examined. She has worked on stories exposing widespread asbestos contamination in New South Wales, reporting alongside colleagues on the scale of the problem and the legacy of past infrastructure decisions. In that work she traces how contamination affects communities over decades, and how regulatory responses have struggled to match the risk.

Her earlier reporting includes coverage of competition authorities reviewing spiralling childcare costs, examining how the competition watchdog approaches price pressures in an essential service. These stories reflect a consistent interest in the mechanics of oversight: what regulators investigate, how they communicate with the public, and whether their interventions are felt by families and workers as well as by businesses. By linking regulatory processes to everyday services such as childcare, she makes abstract competition policy legible to non-specialist readers.

Culture, access and public services

McLeod also covers decisions about public services and access to information when they intersect with families and identity. Her reporting has included the overturning of a controversial ban on same-sex parenting books in libraries in part of western Sydney, following a marathon late-night council meeting that reversed the restriction. In that story she focuses on both the policy outcome and the community debate, treating the library system as part of the public infrastructure that shapes which stories families can find.

This strand of her work shows how she approaches cultural flashpoints through the lens of access and service provision rather than only as political theatre. She looks at who is affected when institutions change rules, what practical consequences follow, and how those decisions sit within broader questions about inclusivity and representation. The emphasis on libraries and other public services complements her business reporting by showing how non-market institutions can still have profound consumer consequences.

Digital scams and emerging consumer harms

McLeod’s consumer affairs beat extends into online commerce and emerging forms of harm. In one widely picked up piece, she reports on “ghost stores” masquerading as Australian businesses that use the likeness of dietitian Lyndi Cohen to advertise Ozempic-like weight loss treatments without consent. The story dissects how these online storefronts exploit trust signals, blur jurisdictional lines and complicate enforcement for regulators and platforms.

Her treatment of digital scams is grounded in individual cases but attentive to the broader structures that enable them, including advertising systems and weak identity checks. By following both the experience of the person whose image is misused and the path of potential customers, she maps how deception travels through the online marketplace. This work fits neatly within her wider concern about how new business models and technologies alter traditional consumer protections.

Reporting style and format

Across these subjects, McLeod’s reporting is consistently people-centred, an approach she has described as central to her move into consumer affairs on the business desk. She tends to build stories around individuals or families confronting price changes, bans or safety issues, then steps out to explain the business and regulatory structures that shape those experiences. Her pieces range from data-driven features on supermarket promotions to accountability reporting on contamination, bans and scams, with a shared goal of making complex systems readable through concrete examples.

She frequently works in collaboration with other specialists on long-running investigations while also filing standalone consumer news pieces as market conditions and policy decisions change. The beat she occupies is defined less by corporate earnings and more by the everyday consequences of corporate and government decisions, making her coverage distinct from more traditional business reporting. For organisations whose stories touch consumer prices, public services, regulatory scrutiny or online harms, her work shows a clear focus on tangible impact and clarity over jargon.