Nick Bonyhady

Nick Bonyhady focuses on how rules, technology and power collide in business, using court cases, regulation and platforms to explain the behaviour of major companies and institutions. He is the business editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, after earlier roles covering federal politics and technology.

Corporate law, competition and major brands

In his business coverage, Bonyhady writes closely about corporate law and competition cases involving household‑name companies, such as a recent feature on a star competition lawyer pursuing former clients including Qantas and Coles in high‑stakes litigation. He uses these disputes to show how legal strategy, market power and consumer outcomes are bound together, rather than treating corporate cases as purely technical matters. His interest in the structure of defamation and reputation law, including analysis of slow‑moving reform efforts in Scotland and comparisons with Australia’s regime, adds another layer to his focus on how legal frameworks shape what powerful actors can say and do. Across these stories he pays sustained attention to the people inside the system — lawyers, regulators and executives — and to the long timelines of law reform and court process that sit behind headline corporate decisions.

Technology, artificial intelligence and pricing power

Bonyhady has written analysis on artificial intelligence and pricing, examining how AI was sold as a way to end the “rip‑off economy” but is now being used to supercharge sophisticated pricing strategies. In that work he looks beyond the technology itself to the incentives it creates for companies and the risk that automated systems entrench opaque or unfair pricing in everyday markets. He has also explained generative AI to a broad readership, including an early piece detailing how systems such as ChatGPT work and what distinguishes them from more rules‑based chatbots. Read together, these stories show him treating emerging technology as part of a wider commercial and regulatory story: he connects technical detail to business models, competition concerns and the question of whether new tools improve or worsen conditions for consumers.

Media economics, platforms and information control

His reporting includes coverage of the economics of news production, such as a story on newsprint price spikes and the threat they pose to the viability of country newspapers. In that piece he traces how upstream cost pressures translate into difficult choices for regional publishers and the communities they serve. Bonyhady has also written on the role of platforms in politics and information control, including coverage of WeChat as a Chinese mega‑app that can “do almost everything” — from messaging to payments — and its use in spreading election‑related misinformation. Earlier work on how politicians use social media to campaign adds further detail on his interest in how digital platforms reshape the conduct of elections and political persuasion. Together, these stories sit at the intersection of business models, media health and the power of technology companies and platform owners over what information people see.

Politics, archives and workplace disputes

Before moving into business editing, Bonyhady reported extensively on federal politics and the law, including coverage of legal battles over access to the National Archives and the public release of the Palace Letters. In those pieces he followed the money spent resisting access requests, the budget pressures on archival institutions and the constitutional significance of correspondence between the monarchy and Australian political leaders. His work also reaches into workplace law and industrial relations, such as reporting on a Victorian council employee who failed to convince the national industrial commission to allow extensive work‑from‑home arrangements. Across these subjects he shows a consistent interest in how rules — from freedom‑of‑information law to industrial awards — are tested by individual cases and then ripple outward through public administration and workplaces.

Career span across politics, technology and business

Bonyhady’s current business role follows a reporting career that has moved through federal politics desks and technology rounds, including time writing on technology for The Australian Financial Review. At The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age he has held senior editing and reporting responsibilities in federal politics and technology before taking on business editing duties. That trajectory explains the breadth of his subject matter: he approaches business stories with a strong grounding in public policy, legal process and the workings of digital platforms, and brings a technology reporter’s attention to detail when examining corporate use of AI and social media. For sources, this combination means he is most engaged by stories that reveal how companies navigate legal constraints, exploit technological change or shape the rules that govern markets.