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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Sunday feature. Oh, Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed has just turned four years old, So

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Speaker 1: to celebrate our birthday a rather unusual way, I thought

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Speaker 1: we'd go back into the archives and pull out an

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Speaker 1: interview from our first year. And this one is an

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Speaker 1: absolute cracker. Sean talks to Adele Ferguson Investigative Reporter about

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Speaker 1: her incredible career, one that's seen her win the Gold Walkley,

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Speaker 1: which is of course the highest recognition available for journalists

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Speaker 1: in this country, as well as dozens of other awards.

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Speaker 1: Her stories have sparked inquiries, changes to legislation, even a

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Speaker 1: Royal commission into the banks.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: At the time this was recorded back in December of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Adele was working on newspapers within the Nine Stables.

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Speaker 1: She's since moved across to the ABC's investigative unit. And

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much all the context you need for what

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Speaker 1: is an amazing interview from the first year of Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed. I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 3: Investigative journalism is a noble and glamorous profession. It makes

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Speaker 3: a difference to society and often ends up changing public policy,

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Speaker 3: but behind the glamour. Investigative journalism is hard work, very

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Speaker 3: hard work. It involves years of building up networks, hundreds

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Speaker 3: of phone calls perhaps thousands, reading reams of papers and content,

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Speaker 3: and normally taking on people and companies that don't want

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Speaker 3: to help out. Over the past decade, perhaps the most

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Speaker 3: pre eminent investigative journalist has been adel Ferguson from the

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Speaker 3: nine stable of newspapers, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald,

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Speaker 3: in the Australian Financial Review. She is one of the

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Speaker 3: few reporters that has triggered a Royal commission, in her

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Speaker 3: case into banking bell welcome to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 3: How did you get into journalism?

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Speaker 2: I did an economics degree at Adelaida University and was

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Speaker 2: applying for all sorts of jobs. I always wanted to

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Speaker 2: get into journalism and I was lucky enough to get

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Speaker 2: into the Adelaide Advertiser as a graduate cadet.

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Speaker 3: What did you write on? Originally?

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Speaker 2: So it was because I had a nomics Pier Zackerman

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Speaker 2: said I should go straight into business journalism, which is

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Speaker 2: what I did.

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Speaker 3: Fantastic and business journals that met. The Adelaide Advertiser was

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Speaker 3: there much focus on it then.

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Speaker 2: Not at all. It was a very small, thin paper.

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Speaker 2: There's not very many companies in Adelaide, so I didn't

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Speaker 2: stick around Adelaide too long. I moved to Sydney and

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Speaker 2: got posting to work for the News Limited Group covering finance.

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Speaker 3: So what newspaper was that with or was with the group?

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Speaker 2: So yeah, it was with the group. So it was

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Speaker 2: all of the newsmitted papers except the.

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Speaker 3: Australian, okay, and then from there.

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Speaker 2: I went to The Australian, and that's.

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Speaker 3: Kind of where you really establish your name.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and then I went to BRW, which was a

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Speaker 2: business magazine, but you ended up editing after I'd lead

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Speaker 2: I did, yes, and then where did I go? And

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Speaker 2: then back to the Australian and then to the Sydney

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Speaker 2: Morning Herald and the Age.

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Speaker 3: So Adele and I have worked with and against each

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Speaker 3: other over quite a while, shall we say, And everyone

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Speaker 3: was always chasing Adele. So the editors are the places

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Speaker 3: that I worked. Always wanted to get Adele on board.

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Speaker 3: And I remember when you went to The Australian, the

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Speaker 3: editor at the time was most upset, but of course

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Speaker 3: cost cutting really hid in. But eventually they actually decided

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Speaker 3: to ignore the cost and being honest, no journalists gets

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Speaker 3: paid a lot of money, so we're not talking huge

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Speaker 3: sums here. But I remember you were one of the

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Speaker 3: few people that management actually said she's that good, right,

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Speaker 3: we actually need to get her. And that's quite a compliment.

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Speaker 3: So you worked your way through the different rounds and

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Speaker 3: then you eventually became a columnist and an investigative journalist.

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Speaker 3: How did that evolve?

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Speaker 2: So I've been writing a column for a while. I

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Speaker 2: started writing a column when I was at BRW. Bob

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Speaker 2: got leaps and left to go to The Australian. So,

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Speaker 2: as you know, journalists and moving around all the time,

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Speaker 2: and so I took his spot at BRW and started

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Speaker 2: writing a column every week. And then from there I

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Speaker 2: moved to The Australian and started writing a column once

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Speaker 2: a week. And then yeah, came to The Herald and

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Speaker 2: the Age and was writing a column. So while I

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Speaker 2: was doing the columns, I was still doing bigger pieces,

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Speaker 2: which I'd been doing a lot of when I was

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Speaker 2: at BRW. So I always liked to go deeper into

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Speaker 2: companies and so that continued. So I just really juggled

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Speaker 2: both doing a couple of columns a week and sort

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Speaker 2: of you know, in the background working on bigger pieces.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you are undoubtedly one of the hardest working journalists

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Speaker 3: I've ever seen, because you A column is hard because

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Speaker 3: we add value and a column takes a lot of work.

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Speaker 3: It does, but you're always breaking news. And then of

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Speaker 3: course you do work with the ABC.

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Speaker 2: Yes I do. Yeah, So I started doing that back

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Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen with when I was working on the

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Speaker 2: Commonwealth Bank. And yeah, that was very daunting because it

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Speaker 2: was the first TV was Four Corners, which is a

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Speaker 2: forty five minute documentary, So it was a big leap

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Speaker 2: into the unknown doing ATV and b doing a really

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Speaker 2: in depth documentary.

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Speaker 3: So let's get into how you actually do it. How

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Speaker 3: do you come up with your stories?

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Speaker 2: It's a number of ways. So often it's people contacting me.

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Speaker 2: So in the last few years it's been whistle blowers

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Speaker 2: that have got in touch and that really sort of

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Speaker 2: came about after I did the Gina Reinhart wrote a

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Speaker 2: book on the Richest Woman in Australia and the way

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Speaker 2: iron ore prices are going. She's probably heading up to

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Speaker 2: one of the richest women in the world and it

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Speaker 2: caused a lot of controversy, and she wanted to get

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Speaker 2: my contacts, and so we had to fight it at Fairfax.

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Speaker 2: And so a whistle blower thought, well, if she's not

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Speaker 2: going to give up a contacts, then you know, maybe

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Speaker 2: we can trust her.

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Speaker 3: So when you say contact, it's the people that spoke

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Speaker 3: to you about Genna Reinhart.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. And because she served me with a

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Speaker 2: subpoena to hand over contacts, documents, everything to do with

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Speaker 2: her son, John Hancock, which would have led to other people,

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Speaker 2: and of course we couldn't do that.

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Speaker 3: I remember that time at Fairfax as it was were

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Speaker 3: you scared? And at the time, Jenna rhin Hutt was

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Speaker 3: also talking about taking a steak in Fairfax and joining

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Speaker 3: the board.

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Speaker 2: From memory, oh yeah she did. She actually took a

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Speaker 2: big steak a week before the book was published. And

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Speaker 2: at that time she refused to sign the Charter of

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Speaker 2: Independence and wanted three board seats and wanted the ability

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Speaker 2: to hire and fire journalists. So at that time felt

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Speaker 2: like I was walking around with a target on my back.

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Speaker 2: Luckily that didn't happen and I kept my job.

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Speaker 3: Stay with me, Adele, We'll be right back. I'm talking

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Speaker 3: to investigative journalist Adele Ferguson. So you've done a number

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Speaker 3: of really big stories. I mean, if we go through

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Speaker 3: the banking one, which you triggered the Royal Commission, tell

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Speaker 3: us a little bit about that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was the financial planning. So the whistleblower

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Speaker 2: was Jeff Morris, who was a financial advisor Comwealth Bank,

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Speaker 2: and he'd gone to Asseic to blow the whistle on

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Speaker 2: what was going on with a dodgy financial plan called

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Speaker 2: Don Newan, And there was a politician involved, Senator John Williams,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, together we really you know, John was prosecuting

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Speaker 2: it in Parliament, trying to get a Senate inquiry into

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Speaker 2: what had happened.

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Speaker 3: At Conwealth Bank and Jeff Morris.

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Speaker 2: So, Jeff Morris, as I said, was the whistleblower who

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Speaker 2: had exposed wrongdoing. And really at the heart of it

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Speaker 2: was the cover up by management. They didn't want it

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Speaker 2: to get out, and I came along and exposed it,

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Speaker 2: and it did trigger a Senate inquiry initially, and it

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Speaker 2: sort of went on from there. As soon as the

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Speaker 2: story came out, it became bigger than one dodgy financial

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Speaker 2: planner and some corruption in Comonwealth Bank. It sort of

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Speaker 2: led to bigger picture of it was systemic inside the bank.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't just one or two bad apples. It was systemic.

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Speaker 2: And if you went across and looked at what was

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Speaker 2: going on in National Australia Bank and West.

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Speaker 3: Bank and A and z HF.

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Speaker 2: HI DOUBLEF, the same thing was repeated that there was

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Speaker 2: a big issue with financial advice and vertical integration. Just

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Speaker 2: the conflicts that were involved.

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Speaker 3: At that time. You must have come under a lot

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Speaker 3: of pressure from the banks and seeing your people at

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Speaker 3: the banks, how did you handle that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did get a lot of pressure and they

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Speaker 2: were threatening to pull out the ads, which when I

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Speaker 2: did the second big bank story on common Shaw, which

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Speaker 2: was CBA's life insurance on they actually did pull the ads.

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Speaker 2: It was millions of dollars of ads, which was more

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Speaker 2: pressure because I think if they did it around the

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Speaker 2: time there was a lot of journalists that were let

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Speaker 2: go because of cost cutting due to pressures with what

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Speaker 2: was going on in the media and advertising, so it

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Speaker 2: didn't help. But yeah, no, there's always a lot of

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Speaker 2: pressure brought to bear, but it was great. Also doing

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Speaker 2: the joint venture with the ABC four Corners because it

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Speaker 2: just gave it that momentum to show that, you know,

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Speaker 2: there was two organizations backing this because some of the

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Speaker 2: other mainstream media didn't quite believe that, you know, these

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Speaker 2: venerable institutions were actually had rampant misconduct going on in

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Speaker 2: some of the divisions.

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Speaker 3: I think your story, I mean a couple of things there.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't happen overnight. So this actually evolved over a

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Speaker 3: couple of years. And as you said, once you did

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Speaker 3: the four Corners piece, it gave it renewed enthusiasm. And

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Speaker 3: also because journalism in Australia is so competitive, if you

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Speaker 3: get a great story, your competitors are more likely to

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Speaker 3: shy away from it, at least initially simply because you

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Speaker 3: got it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it often happens. You know, a number of journalists

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Speaker 2: can plain why isn't anybody else following this story? And

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Speaker 2: it can be the case unfortunately.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if you ever want to read a great rollicking

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Speaker 3: tale about that banking bad that's your book. Isn't an

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Speaker 3: adult Yes it is. What I loved about that book

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Speaker 3: is it just showed how government and John Williams, a whistleblower,

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Speaker 3: and Jeff Morris media in yourself can work together to

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Speaker 3: change how society thinks about a venerable institution. And I mean,

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Speaker 3: I really highly recommend that one. If we move on

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Speaker 3: to franchising underpayment, that's another big one of yours. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely. The first one was seven to eleven, which was

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Speaker 2: rampant to underpayment, and that again was a guy called

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Speaker 2: Michael Fraser had come to me and said, you really

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Speaker 2: should look at seven eleven. There's a lot of underpayments

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Speaker 2: going on, and so just went from there and then

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Speaker 2: you're sort of using the business side of my journalism.

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Speaker 2: I wanted to know what the business model was because

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Speaker 2: in all these things you try and get behind and see,

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Speaker 2: so it's not just underpayment wages. What's driving that? What's

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Speaker 2: the motivator? You know? So I was frantically trying to

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Speaker 2: get hold of a copy of the franchise agreement that

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Speaker 2: these franchisees sign, and it was just so hard to

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Speaker 2: get because the franchisees, we're doing the wrong thing, underpaying workers.

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Speaker 2: So the last person they wanted to help with me.

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Speaker 2: So we finally got one and you could see that

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Speaker 2: it was really a skewed business model, and seven eleven

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Speaker 2: at the top was the franchise or that was pressuring

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Speaker 2: the franchisees, who was then pressuring the workers. So it

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Speaker 2: just shocking business model that they ended up changing. But

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Speaker 2: it turned out that, you know, you looked at Domino's

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Speaker 2: and Retail Food Group and Pizza Hut, they all had

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Speaker 2: different models. But you know, the underpayment of wages was

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Speaker 2: being driven by various business models that were questionable.

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Speaker 3: How hard is it to work out who's telling you

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Speaker 3: the truth and who's not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be quite it can be challenging. That

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Speaker 2: could be so careful because you know so many people

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Speaker 2: have vested interests and you have to try and look

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Speaker 2: behind that and see who you can trust, and you

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Speaker 2: know what's motivating them, you know, and sometimes they may

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Speaker 2: have impure motivations, but it still doesn't hide the fact

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Speaker 2: that you know they've got something important to say.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you are articulous, and I have worked

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Speaker 3: alongside you at times, and the amount of evidence you

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Speaker 3: would collect before actually writing something I thought was quite astounding.

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Speaker 3: But I suppose you need to do that because you

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Speaker 3: always could think that you could be in court trying

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Speaker 3: to defend your story.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and so therefore a lot of what

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Speaker 2: you have never gets into the media because you know

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Speaker 2: it's too much granular information, but it's really helpful if

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Speaker 2: you need to defend yourself.

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Speaker 3: We'll be back with more in a minute. My guess

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Speaker 3: this morning is journalist and columnist Adele Ferguson. So we

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Speaker 3: mentioned franchising and underpayment and banking. What are the big

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Speaker 3: stories are you particularly proud of.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was really proud of the retirement villages, which

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Speaker 2: was a VEYO was one of the biggest retirement villages,

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Speaker 2: and that was a pretty horrifying story, but it really

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Speaker 2: shone a spotlight on just how elderly people are treated

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Speaker 2: retirement villages. So I did that with four corners. And

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Speaker 2: again if you look behind at the business model, you

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Speaker 2: find what was motivating it. You know, some of the

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Speaker 2: stories were horrific. So in that case, it was a VEYO,

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Speaker 2: the company would it was payday for them if a

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Speaker 2: person left the retirement village, they would then get up

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Speaker 2: to forty percent exit fee. So every time someone left,

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Speaker 2: they get an exit fee of forty percent on the

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Speaker 2: value of the property. So that worked out to a lot,

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Speaker 2: you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so there

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Speaker 2: was one woman Gwyneth Jones, who.

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Speaker 3: I remember this adele. It's horrifying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Gwyneth Jones who was put into a psychiatric

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Speaker 2: ward involuntarily to try and say she had dementia and

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Speaker 2: therefore didn't qualify anymore to be in the of our home.

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Speaker 2: And as it turned out, it was completely voters. You know,

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Speaker 2: through freedom of information searchers, you see that it was

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Speaker 2: a total setup just to get her out.

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Speaker 3: That story I remember so well. And maybe it's because

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Speaker 3: I have a you know, aged parent, but you know,

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Speaker 3: stories of people getting locked out of buildings and wilting

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Speaker 3: in the sun literally and things like that.

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Speaker 2: Just ye shocking. It was terrible. And you know one

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Speaker 2: guy who was left for days, he'd fallen over in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the night and he was left for

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Speaker 2: days and the only reason he was found was because

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Speaker 2: he's cleaner who he personally hired to come in once

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Speaker 2: a fortnight found him on the Thursday. So luckily for

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Speaker 2: him it was you know, it wasn't the following Thursday

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Speaker 2: that she was due and found him and he got

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Speaker 2: rushed off to hospital, and you know, he had severe

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Speaker 2: injuries because he you know, he'd been dehydrated for days.

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Speaker 3: A Commonwealth Bank and the banks seven to eleven. In

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Speaker 3: the end, they're business stories, but they're really personal stories.

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Speaker 3: They're actually they're just a tale of real people.

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Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, that's right. You know. So the more

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Speaker 2: recent one I did was a worker's comp and again

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Speaker 2: it was a joint venture with Four Corners, and it

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Speaker 2: looked at Victoria and New South Wales and you know,

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Speaker 2: again it was just horrifying that the business model and

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Speaker 2: again it's people, you know, injured workers who are not

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Speaker 2: being booked after and so many snouts in the trough

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Speaker 2: who are making a lot of money out of multi

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Speaker 2: billion dollars schemes and there are these workers who are

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Speaker 2: just being neglected.

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Speaker 3: I mean, what journalists do you admire.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorite journalists is Kate mcclemont.

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Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, why Oh.

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Speaker 2: She's fearless. She is absolutely brilliant, and she writes so

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Speaker 2: well and she's yeah, she's always so passionate, which I

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Speaker 2: think is something that's so important Kate. Her passion for

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Speaker 2: what she does always comes through. Nick mackenzie is a

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Speaker 2: fabulous journalist. Sarah Ferguson, Sally Nighbor, who's at Four Corners,

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Speaker 2: is fantastic They've got so many good people there. There

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Speaker 2: are a lot of really great journalists.

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Speaker 3: I don't know Sally neighbor, but all of you are

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Speaker 3: very helpful people too, So Kate mclemate. You know, as

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Speaker 3: a younger journalist, Kate would help you every day of

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Speaker 3: the week. A girl, you're exactly the same. Nick's very

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Speaker 3: free with his time. I suppose as you get more senior,

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Speaker 3: that's part of the gig. But do you all hang

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Speaker 3: out together? Do you all just respect each other? How

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Speaker 3: does it work?

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Speaker 2: Well, No, we don't hang out together. When I'm in Sydney,

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Speaker 2: I'll catch up with Kate and Marian Wilkinson and Pambill's

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Speaker 2: and Elizabeth Sexton and we have dinner and it's great.

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Speaker 3: I'll leave you shortly. But what do you think makes

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Speaker 3: a great journalist?

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of passion and motivation for the job,

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Speaker 2: because you know, at the end of it, if you

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Speaker 2: can really crack open a story, you can do a

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Speaker 2: lot of good.

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Speaker 3: You must get a real buzz when it hits the

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Speaker 3: front page or it's on a four corners and people

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Speaker 3: start responding. The government has to respond or the business

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Speaker 3: has to respond. That must be a buzz.

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Speaker 2: It is. It's also nerve wracking because you never know

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Speaker 2: how it's how it's going to go.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, have you ever actually been scared physically scared?

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Speaker 2: I remember years ago when I was doing Opus Prime

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Speaker 2: and Tricolm and the Underworld figures, which was a bit scary.

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Speaker 2: I remember catching up with someone related to Opus Prime.

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Speaker 2: I'd written a piece on a lot of pieces on

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Speaker 2: a liquidator called Stuart A. Reef, and he was connected

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Speaker 2: to the Underworld and I got some threats, which was

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Speaker 2: It's a bit unnerving.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Adele, I totally admire you and keep doing what

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Speaker 3: you're doing.

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Speaker 2: Please, thank you so much, Sean.

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Speaker 3: Adele, thanks for talking to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 3: That was Adele Ferguson, investigative journalist and columnist from the Age,

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Speaker 3: Sydney Morning Herald, in the AFR and of course the

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Speaker 3: ABC at times