Four Decades Digging Into to Australia’s Underbelly, from Corrupt Politicians to Organized Crime – Global Investigative Journalism Network

To look through the archives of Kate McClymont’s work at The Sydney Morning Herald is to take a tour through Australia’s underbelly: from political corruption to organized crime, real estate scandals to sleaze, her reporting often reaches those in high places, or those who have made their fortunes by disregarding those around them on the way up.

A multiple award-winning journalist, and the chief investigative reporter at the Herald, she recently produced a podcast about the compelling, mysterious case of a Sydney businesswoman behind a Ponzi scheme that ballooned into an AU$23 million (US$15 million) fraud.

The investigative podcast Liar Liar looks into the perpetrator of Australia’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme, and is co-hosted by Kate McClymont. Image: Screenshot, Apple

The Liar Liar podcast, which digs into the story of Melissa Caddick, explores how a fairly average student became a self-made financial guru, persuading family and friends to invest their life savings and retirement funds with her, money which she promptly spent on luxury travel, real estate, or to feed her penchant for opulent jewelry and designer clothing.

Caddick disappeared after her home was raided by police, and was declared dead by a coroner after her foot washed up on an Australian beach. She was, in McClymont’s words, a “sociopathic con artist” who committed the country’s crime of the century. The show was a hit, and won McClymont her ninth Walkley, awards which celebrate excellence in Australian journalism.

During the podcast, co-host Tom Steinfort revels in McClymont’s knowledge of Sydney’s organized crime scene, the scandals of old linked to locales that they encounter: “You are an encyclopedia, Kate McClymont!” he marvels at one point.

She has received death threats for her work, faced numerous legal challenges, and even temporarily had to go into hiding when she had young children — not for reporting on the mafia but to escape angry football fans after she investigated a sports team.

She started at the Herald in 1985, moving into investigative reporting around 1990, so next year will celebrate close to four decades in journalism. She told Women in Media recently that she has no plans of slowing down. “When people say, ‘Do you think you’re about to retire?’ I say, ‘No, I’ll be found face-down dead on the typewriter,’” she said. “I couldn’t think of a better way to go.”

GIJN: Of all the investigations you’ve worked on, which has been your favorite and why? 

Kate McClymont: It’s hard to say. Working on the Melissa Caddick story was great in some ways, because you’re working on something and you don’t know what the ending is. As you’re working on it, things are unfolding and I found that really interesting. I fell upon the story completely by accident. I was looking into a search warrant on a particular businessman, so rang up the Australian Federal Police, who execute the search warrants, and said, ‘Can you tell me about the search warrant you executed at Wallaroy Road?’ And they said, ‘Let’s look…. Ah, oh, hold on. Do you mean Wollaroy Road or Wallangarah Road?’ Because they were on the same day. They said that was for someone called Melissa Caddick. My first thought was that somehow the businessman and her were related, so I had a look at company searches. The next thing I know, she’s gone missing.

I wouldn’t say it was my favorite, but for years and years I worked on a story about a corrupt politician called Eddie Obeid, and when I say years, I first started writing about him in 1999. He sued me for defamation, and was successful. And at the time, I just thought I can never write about this man again. But I kept going, and when he finally went to jail – he’s now been to jail twice as a result of things that I’ve written about him — I just burst into tears. It was such a difficult process, and he used to say the most dreadful things about me in Parliament, so I think that’s probably my most satisfying investigation. I wouldn’t say it was the most fun because, apart from being sued, he hired private investigators to have me followed. It wasn’t fun, but it was that satisfaction of, in some way, doing public good, working on something that exposes corruption and that there are consequences to be paid for that.

GIJN: What are the biggest challenges in terms of investigative reporting in your country?

KM: Ours are, in fact, our laws. Sydney is known as the defamation capital of the world, and, you know, people sue. I had someone sue who was 96 and he’d been covered in cases 40 years earlier, and he suggested that I caused him economic loss. He died before the case got underway, but whenever I do a story, I have to think of what the defamation risks are. You have to say to yourself, how am I going to be able to prove this story in court? It’s like we are de facto police in some ways, and you have to think, do I have one or more sources that will give evidence in a court of law? All those things prey on your mind as you’re writing, and it is quite detrimental. I think a lot of media in Australia don’t take on certain stories because of the risk so it really does have a chilling effect on reporting in this country. There are some very rich, very high-profile, litigious people that have very deep pockets and a lot of organizations just will not take the risk because those people will sue no matter what.

I have been sued about five times… But you also get a lot of threats before you publish. You just have to sort of bite the bullet — but what’s more terrifying than actually getting death threats is the prospect of a lawsuit, because it’s months in court, it’s stressful, it’s to be avoided at all costs really.

I’ve had a couple of those (death threats). Gosh, but I always take heart from one of my police contacts who said to me, ‘Kate, it’s the ones that don’t threaten are the ones that you worry about.’ But I had one delivered to my house. It was a week after I had been writing about somebody who was gunned down while sitting in the car with his nine-year-old child, and that was sort of kind of scary, but you have to think of it as a form of bullying, and you can’t really let that stop you. If you’re going to let those kinds of things stop you, you can’t do your job. And also, I just think it would be very bad for business if they actually killed a journalist.

Because you’re doing journalism in Australia, there is that optimism that it’s not really going to happen because of the society we are living in. I don’t think I would be nearly so brave if I was reporting in Russia or South America or any of those other countries. I just think those people are beyond brave, those journalists.

GIJN: What’s been the greatest challenge that you’ve faced in your time as an IJ? 

KM: That Eddie Obeid case – after being successfully sued I thought that I would never be able to write about that person again, that people would think it looked like sour grapes, or there was something sort of vengeful about me writing about it, and I stopped for about six months. But then it was overwhelming — the evidence — and it finally came out. But knowing that people had hired investigators to try to find things that they could blackmail you over? It just makes you feel uneasy.

GIJN: What is your best tip for interviewing? 

KM: My best tip is to be an amateur psychologist. Work out who it is that you’re talking to, and the best way to approach them. But I always find that if you ring people up and you say to them: ‘I’m hoping that you might be able to assist me?’… I’m trying to make people feel not threatened, to feel comfortable. Always be polite. Don’t shout. If they ring up and abuse you and are angry, it’s the same. It’s always better to deflect that by saying: ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. Do you want to talk about it?’

Being polite gets you a long way. Not always, and sometimes you have to be a little bit more forceful than that. And you’ve got to try to keep someone on the phone, the longer you can keep somebody on the phone, the more information you get. And it’s always better to meet somebody in person. I know in journalism with time constraints it is not always possible, but I do think it pays off to try to meet people in person and talk to them.

GIJN: What is a favorite reporting tool, database, or app that you use in your investigations?

KM: Mine is a very expensive one. It’s a program we use at the Herald that searches the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, where we do company searches, property searches, etc, and that is a tool I use almost every day. I hate to think how much I actually rack up for the company. You have to pay $30 for a search. So if I’m looking at somebody, the first thing I want to know is what companies they’ve had, who they’ve been in business with, have the companies been de-registered? Do they owe tax? But it also gives you their date of birth. It gives you where they live. It gives you their former business partners, so that is one way to start forming a picture of who you’re dealing with.

But it’s $30 a pop, so it adds up. And because of the prohibitive cost of that, it means it’s only the larger media organizations who can afford it.

GIJN: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten thus far in your career and what words of advice would you give an aspiring investigative journalist? 

KM: I think the best advice is to be collaborative. I think that sometimes we are great rivals, but in the end, we should be working for a common purpose. If other journalists from other organizations ring me up for assistance, I’m happy to help them, as long as I don’t tip them off on what I’m looking at. Know you can call other people for help and assistance. Never be afraid to ask if you don’t know something.

Because of the compression of the media industry, I’m in a position of time luxury in some ways, in that I am allowed time to do a story, to do it properly, and it can take weeks. But for young journalists who are on a daily grind that is really hard. So I often advise people, if you come across a good story, come to a senior journalist and say, ‘Could you work with me on this story?’ That often is helpful to both people, because I find it helpful to pass on skills, but I also find younger journalists are fantastic at other things, so I think it’s a really good way to do stories.

GIJN: Who is a journalist you admire, and why?

KM: Patrick Radden Keefe, an American journalist. I just read his book “Empire of Pain” about the Sackler family, and I’m now reading “Say Nothing” about the Troubles in Ireland. I think having that investigative gift with a beautiful ability to write? That’s a very admirable quality to have both of those things.

GIJN: What is the greatest mistake you’ve made and what lessons did you learn?

KM: Probably my biggest mistake was getting two people, with the same common name, confused. I had the wrong one and my book had to be pulped, reissued, and republished with the right person.

Another one that I did was in a murder trial. Someone had allegedly thrown their girlfriend to her death, and instead of meters per second, I accidentally put in kilometers per second. A keen eyed reader wrote in and said ‘according to your calculations the victim would have been on the moon.’ That was no one’s fault but my own. You do make mistakes, the important thing is, own them. If you make a mistake, go and tell someone immediately, don’t try and hide it and hope no one else will notice. You need to be upfront, apologize, and do what you can to remedy the situation.

GIJN: How do you avoid burnout in your line of work?

KM: I was just saying to someone tonight I have got about five stories on the boil with different journalists and I just feel I’m not doing any of them. A bit here, a bit there – and I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how you avoid burnout. I think you just take a risk when you need it… A good night’s sleep, ready to go again.

It’s that thing where you are feeling tired, grumpy, then even today I’m working on a story with someone and we get the documents from court and we find out the person they are dealing with was a mafioso wanted in Italy. You get a lead and your job weariness immediately dissipates and you are fired up again. You only need a couple of little breakthroughs, and it’s amazing how that can reinvigorate you almost instantaneously.

GIJN: What about investigative journalism do you find frustrating, or do you hope will change in the future? 

KM: I just wish that we had much better access to court documents, to exhibits. I’m so envious of US journalists where the legal system just seems to bend over backwards to lend assistance. Here it’s a constant battle trying to get records of cases, or results from court cases, things like that.

But the great thing about journalism is every day is different. I look back and think how lucky I have been to be doing a job I love so much – not all the time – but it’s just the most wonderful thing you can do.

In 2023, McClymont was recognized with an Outstanding Contribution to Journalism honor at the 68th Walkley Awards in Australia (see her acceptance speech below).  

Laura Dixon is a senior editor at GIJN, based in the UK. She has reported from Colombia, the US, and Mexico, and her work has been published by The Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among others. She is a former staff reporter of The Times in London, and has received grants and fellowships from the IWMF, the Pulitzer Center, and Journalists for Transparency.