Emilia Terzon

Emilia Terzon is a national business reporter at the ABC who treats corporate and economic stories as coverage of power, technology and everyday life rather than just figures on a balance sheet. She has worked across the organisation since 2014, moving through different reporting roles before joining the national business unit, and has covered major events including bushfires, federal elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and Royal Commissions. That breadth underpins her business reporting, which links boardroom decisions and market shifts to their consequences for consumers, workers and smaller firms.

Supermarkets and consumer scams

Terzon’s supermarket coverage is both structural and granular, ranging from competition policy to the fine print of consumer scams. She has reported on the competition regulator’s decision to block a proposed Coles supermarket in Kalgoorlie to protect independent grocers, drilling into how national chains affect local business ecosystems and regional choice. In another strand, she has investigated complaints about “weird scratching” on Apple gift cards purchased at Coles, using a specific scam to explore questions of retail responsibility, corporate response and consumer protection. Her short-form explainer work includes coverage of the sudden resignation of Woolworths’ high-profile chief executive, where she fronted an ABC Business video breaking down what a leadership change at a major supermarket means for shoppers and investors. She also brings ordinary voices into market stories, as in her segment for The Business where she asked everyday Australians how they felt about stock market chaos, framing volatility through people’s fears and plans rather than abstract indices.

Artificial intelligence and big tech deals

Terzon frequently sits at the intersection of technology and economics, particularly around artificial intelligence and platform power. In a detailed feature asking whether AI is overhyped or represents a “fourth industrial revolution”, she examined how automation and data-driven systems could reshape jobs, productivity and investment, grounding big claims in real-world business use cases. Her reporting on the deal between Australia’s peak union body and Microsoft over AI highlighted the economic stakes of data and copyright, explaining why unions, media and technology companies are negotiating over how AI systems use and remunerate creative and journalistic content. She has also covered TikTok’s troubles in the United States, describing the battle over control of the platform as a “Godfather” or “Game of Thrones” struggle between powerful tech and media interests and unpacking the implications for global regulation, user data and the business models of social media firms. Across these stories, she treats AI and social platforms as industrial infrastructure and corporate power centres, not just consumer apps.

Property, publishing and the cost of living

Beyond technology and supermarkets, Terzon reports on how business decisions intersect with housing, culture and the broader cost of living. In an election-season piece on political parties’ promises about property and rent markets, she analysed competing policies through their expected impact on renters, landlords and housing affordability rather than party rhetoric alone. Her coverage of the collapse of major online bookseller Booktopia asked what the failure of a key retailer meant for Australian authors, publishers and readers, using the demise of one firm to map wider pressures in the literary and retail ecosystem. She has written on fuel excise cuts and inflation, reporting on energy analysts’ concerns and the limits of such measures in tempering price rises at the bowser. Earlier in the pandemic she documented her own move to the coast and subsequent return to the city, using that experience to explore regional relocation, working-from-home assumptions and the economic realities that draw people back to urban centres. In these pieces she consistently connects policy levers and corporate decisions to lived experience — rent, fuel, books, and the trade-offs of where people live.

Markets, trade and economic shocks

Terzon’s business remit extends to financial markets, trade and global economic shocks, with an emphasis on making complex systems intelligible to general audiences. Her ABC News archive includes daily market wraps such as ASX closes lower while recording gains over the week, where she tracks movements in equities, sectors and currencies and ties them to news events and investor sentiment. She has reported on cryptocurrencies, examining digital assets as part of the broader financial landscape and discussing regulation, volatility and the appeal of speculative investment. In broadcast formats she has translated global events into accessible economic stories, as in her stock market chaos coverage for The Business and her appearance on the podcast The Economy Stupid to discuss how a tariff war would hurt trade, prices and businesses. Earlier in her career she worked as a video journalist in remote regions and has reported on a wide range of news and feature topics, experience that shows in her ability to find clear narratives and human angles inside abstract economic shifts. Today, across television, radio, digital and social platforms, she delivers business journalism that ties markets and policy back to the people who live with their consequences.