Duncan Murray
Duncan Murray covers the intersection of politics, law and institutional accountability for Canberra CityNews, with a consistent focus on how decisions by powerful actors play out in courts and public life. His reporting tracks political controversy into legal findings, sentencing decisions and regulatory actions, rather than stopping at the surface of the political debate. He works in straight news formats, building stories around documented events, court rulings and official statements across politics and public policy.
Politics under scrutiny
Murray’s politics coverage is distinguished by its emphasis on scrutiny of elected figures and parties when their conduct is tested in formal processes.
He has reported on a corruption finding against former premier Gladys Berejiklian, detailing her unsuccessful appeal and the reputational and legal consequences of that decision. His work on Gina Rinehart’s payment for Pauline Hanson’s Europe flights shows an interest in the money and influence behind political travel and advocacy, linking private funding arrangements to questions of transparency and accountability.
He revisits political controversies at the point where they intersect with law, corporate governance and institutional review. In coverage of Lisa Wilkinson’s Logies speech about Brittany Higgins, he focuses on what was cleared by executives and legal counsel and how that shaped the handling of a highly charged political and legal story. His reporting on a One Nation senator’s claim about covid deaths centres on the factual basis of the statement and the response from authorities, rather than on opinion or partisan framing.
The climate blockade story sits in this same pattern, following police decisions to withdraw hundreds of protest-related charges and the implications for policing large-scale political demonstrations.
Courts, policing and long-running cases
A major strand of Murray’s work follows serious criminal and civil cases through court systems, highlighting the outcomes and their wider consequences. He has covered sentencing in Australia’s largest tax fraud case, detailing the prison term imposed and situating it within the broader scheme and its impact on public finances. His reporting on the conviction of Chris Dawson for the murder of his wife focuses on appeal outcomes and the court’s reasoning on whether there was any miscarriage of justice.
In the case of the police officer who killed a great-grandmother with a Taser, he tracks the judge’s deliberations and the timing of the officer’s release, showing how judicial decisions are weighed in high-profile use-of-force incidents.
Murray also returns to older cases when new developments emerge, treating them as live matters of justice rather than closed history. His piece on a police plea for information decades after an outback murder illustrates an interest in unfinished cases, victim families and investigative persistence.
These stories sit alongside his coverage of police and prosecutors dropping charges against climate activists, where he reports the scale of the decision and its significance for both protesters and authorities. Across these assignments, he stays close to court documents, judicial comments and police statements, giving communications professionals a clear sense of how legal risk and public perception intertwine.
Corporate behaviour, regulation and public services
Murray regularly reports on how corporations and large institutions are overseen, particularly when failures or ethical questions trigger political or regulatory responses. His coverage of major superannuation funds holding large positions in gambling stocks addresses the alignment between retirement savings, corporate investment decisions and social harm, framing it as a policy and governance issue rather than a market story alone. In examining a significant Telstra outage, he focuses on a lack of oversight and expertise as drivers of the failure, connecting technical shortcomings to organisational responsibility and service obligations.
He extends this institutional lens to public-sector workplaces and funding decisions. His story on teachers securing a pay deal that makes them some of the best-paid in the country details starting and top-scale salaries and positions the agreement within broader debates about workforce retention and public education.
These pieces share a method: identify the actors responsible for large systems - telecommunications, retirement savings, public schools - and chart how their decisions affect everyday services, political debate and regulatory scrutiny.
Public health and science with policy edges
Alongside politics and courts, Murray covers public health and scientific developments where institutional responses matter as much as the discovery itself. His reporting on bird flu, including detection in domestic settings and the first recorded case in a mammal, stresses the risk assessments, biosecurity measures and government reactions tied to emerging infectious disease threats. The stories explain what the findings mean for agriculture, public health systems and future preparedness, keeping attention on the agencies managing the response rather than on fear or speculation.
He also writes about archival science and exploration in ways that link historical material to present-day access and stewardship. In his piece on early Antarctic expedition images being made available online, he frames the release as a question of how fragile collections are preserved, digitised and opened to the public by national institutions.
Across these science and health assignments, his reporting mirrors his political work: institutions are central, and the focus stays on what they do in response to new information.
4 more politics journalists.
Alexander Britton
Alexander Britton is a senior digital editor and political reporter whose work combines political strategy, economic policy and the human impact of major decisions. He covers tax and cost-of-living pressures, central bank forecasts, interest rates, trade risks, parliamentary accountability and social debates. His reporting also examines global crises, including Gaza, with a focus on humanitarian need, aid limits and direct testimony. Britton has written about sport, culture and language, including fans travelling for the Boxing Day Test and Words of the Year. He now works in senior newsroom leadership for a major news group, after digital editorial roles at SBS News. Earlier, he was a political correspondent in the UK. He writes in clear, accessible language, using concrete examples, eyewitness material and direct reporting to connect policy and political conflict to households, businesses and individual lives.
Andi Yu
Andi Yu reports on how politics and legal processes shape social cohesion, public safety and everyday life. She is a journalist and digital producer for ABC News. Her beat spans politics, antisemitism, extremism, multicultural and faith issues, housing, planning, transport, courts, crime, health regulation and inequality. She has covered a royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion, an alleged attack on an Indigenous protest camp, changes to the Suburban Rail Loop, high-rise housing plans, Erin Patterson’s appeal, black-market peptides and culturally tailored midwifery care for First Nations families. She previously reported for the Australian Associated Press and has covered politics, health, crime, refugees and diverse communities. Yu explains complex policy, court and regulatory issues in clear, accessible formats. She connects testimony, evidence and government decisions to their effects on residents, businesses and marginalised communities.
Andrew Bolt
Andrew Bolt is a journalist, columnist and political commentator known for combative conservative analysis across print, online and television. He writes for the Herald Sun, where his national affairs columns and political blog are promoted as driving the news cycle, steering discussion and offering a strong perspective on leadership and cultural conflict. He hosts The Bolt Report on Sky News Australia four nights a week, extending the same opinion-led style to broadcast. Bolt’s core focus is party politics and leadership struggles, using senior figures in government and opposition to argue about values, national interests and ideological direction. He also writes on culture, history, identity and race, including contested narratives about Indigenous identification, and covers populist movements, border control, terrorism and free speech. His work is written as arguments rather than reportage, using direct language, stark framing and sustained campaigns on chosen issues.
Ben Smee
Ben Smee is a public interest reporter whose defining work examines how state power affects justice and vulnerable people. He is Guardian Australia’s Queensland correspondent and senior correspondent, covering Queensland politics, policing, youth crime, domestic and family violence, courts, elections and major policy debates. His investigations into children held in police watch houses exposed institutional failures and won a Walkley Award and Queensland Clarion honours. He also reports on police use of force against vulnerable First Nations people, police culture, victims failed by domestic violence systems, human rights, health policy, electric vehicles, surrogacy and infrastructure spending. His work has appeared across breaking news, features, live blogs and investigative podcasts. A former editor, head of news and political reporter, he combines sustained investigations with daily coverage, returning to institutions and laws to track whether promises of reform produce change.