Sarah Danckert
Sarah Danckert follows the money where it collides with law, regulation and power, with a focus on finance and corporate misconduct for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Her reporting returns repeatedly to the points where companies, regulators, courts and political actors meet, and where those clashes leave investors, customers and workers exposed. She brings an investigative lens to business stories, from casino probity battles to cyberattacks on super funds and the fallout from banking failures such as HSBC’s scam call debacle.
She has covered business and finance for these mastheads since 2015, building a portfolio across companies, banking and finance, politics and the courts. Across that work she concentrates on evidence-heavy stories, using documents, inquiries and litigation to map how decisions taken in boardrooms and cabinet rooms flow through to households and retirement savings. Her pieces are typically long-form news and investigations rather than short market updates, and they often run as exclusives or deep dives into unfolding scandals.
Corporate governance, casinos and underworld influence
Danckert has a sustained interest in corporate governance failures, particularly in heavily regulated sectors such as casinos and listed technology companies. She has covered inquiries into Crown Resorts, reporting how Crown withheld key documents from an independent expert reviewing its junket operators after revelations that its casinos were used by drug gangs to move illicit funds. She has also reported on the New South Wales government’s legal battle to force Melco Resorts to hand over secret company documents to an inquiry into probity and licensing issues linked to Crown’s partnership with the Hong Kong casino group.
Her work extends beyond traditional gambling coverage into the intersection of corporate Australia and organised crime. In a detailed investigation co-written with a colleague, she examined how underworld figures pulled the strings at an ASX-listed technology company, tracing relationships between executives and crime-linked actors and showing how those ties influenced corporate decision-making and cash flows. Together with her reporting on HSBC’s $35 million penalty for scam call failings, this strand of her coverage shows a reporter who treats governance and compliance as central business stories, not niche regulatory beats.
Regulators, courts and investor disputes
Danckert’s finance coverage frequently runs through regulators and the courts, tracking disputes that pit wealthy investors, companies and institutions against each other. She has reported on legal action by the Pratt siblings against Alex Waislitz over more than $1 million in trust payments, detailing allegations that business decisions diverted funds to Waislitz and his family charity instead of being paid to the Pratts. In another piece, co-written with a colleague, she found and interviewed the cafe owner at the centre of a $500 million fight with the corporate regulator ASIC, placing a small business owner inside a national dispute about enforcement and financial responsibility.
Her court reporting extends into sport and class actions when money and governance are at stake.
She has covered the Melbourne Rebels’ $30 million damages claim against Rugby Australia over the club’s demise, framing the case as a commercial and contractual battle rather than a purely sporting story. She has also reported on fraud charges against former barrister Norman O’Bryan linked to an alleged class action scheme that rorted retirees out of millions, and on disgraced union official Kathy Jackson’s lawsuit seeking $1.3 million from her super fund and insurer over a denied mental illness claim. These stories show a consistent focus on how legal frameworks, financial products and professional conduct affect claimants, members and investors when things go wrong.
Cybercrime, super funds and digital assets
Danckert treats cybercrime and digital assets as core finance issues rather than technology curiosities. She has reported on the collapse of two Australian bitcoin schemes within a week, detailing how hundreds of investors were left potentially owed more than $150 million as the structures failed.
In another major story, she covered a co-ordinated cyberattack on some of the country’s largest superannuation funds, showing how thousands of Australians had their personal details fraudulently accessed and how several people lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from their retirement savings.
Across these pieces she emphasizes the human and financial cost of security failures, outlining both the scale of the losses and the responses of funds and authorities. She connects system-level risk - in crypto markets or superannuation infrastructure - with individual exposure, making clear that cyber and digital finance are now central to the business and consumer landscape rather than fringe topics.
Unions, major projects and political money
Another thread in Danckert’s work is the financial dimension of industrial relations and politics. She has covered the CFMEU “ghost shift” scandal on Labor’s multi-billion-dollar Metro Tunnel project, reporting that union delegates working for a major labour hire firm corrupted the project, prompting sackings and urgent investigations into the extent of the scam.
Her focus in that story sits on the misuse of public and project funds, the role of unions and contractors, and the consequences for a signature infrastructure build.
She has also written on political donations, reporting that wealthy donors have abandoned the Liberal Party’s traditional base to back Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. In that exclusive, she traced a “real leaching of donors” away from the Liberals, framing the shift as both a financial and political re-alignment within conservative circles. Taken together with her business and court reporting, this work underscores her interest in how money - whether from unions, donors or corporations - shapes power and accountability.
Across these beats, Danckert’s coverage distinguishes itself by its investigative depth, its use of legal and regulatory detail, and its focus on who bears the cost when financial systems, governance and oversight fail. She is a reporter to watch on stories involving corporate misconduct, regulatory enforcement, cyber-finance risks and the shifting flows of political money.
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Adelaide Miller
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Adeshola Ore
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