Louise Milligan | |
|---|---|
 Milligan with TV/Video Feature (Long Form) award at Melbourne Press Club Quills, March 2019. | |
| Born | Dublin, Ireland |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation(s) | Reporter and author |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Employer | Australian Broadcasting Corporation |
Louise Milligan is an Australian author and investigative reporter for the ABC TV Four Corners program. As of March 2021, she is the author of two award-winning non-fiction books. Her first novel, Pheasants Nest, was published in 2024.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, [1] Louise Milligan grew up in the Roman Catholic faith. [2] She moved with her family to Australia when she was six. [1]
She graduated from Monash University with an arts/law degree. [3]
Early in her career she was High Court reporter for The Australian . She subsequently spent seven years reporting for Seven News , where she specialised in freedom of information, before joining ABC News . [4]
In 2015 Milligan travelled to Indonesia to cover the executions of "Bali Nine" group members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and after that covered the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ballarat. [1] She reported on the allegations of sexual abuse against George Pell for ABC Television's 7.30 . [4]
In March 2024, Milligan reported for Four Corners on a toxic culture for female staff at Cranbrook School in Sydney as it prepared to transition from boys only to co-ed. [5]
As of May 2024 [update] Milligan is an investigative reporter the ABC TV program Four Corners. [1]
Melbourne University Press (MUP) published Milligan's first book, Cardinal, in May 2017. A month later MUP withdrew the book from bookshops across Victoria in response to Victoria Police charging Cardinal George Pell with historic sex assault. [6] Cardinal was returned to Victorian bookshops in February 2019. [7]
In 2022, she published Witness, [8] which critiques the criminal justice system in sexual assault trials. It includes interviews with prosecutors, defence counsel, solicitors, judges, and academic experts, and also highlights two high-profile cases which she had covered as a journalist. Milligan reveals how plaintiffs often feel as if it is they who are being tried, and legal practitioners also find it very stressful because of its adversarial nature. In the book she also describes how she was cross-examined in the Pell committal by Robert Richter, realising that she was not sufficiently protected by the Evidence Act s 41, and puts a strong case for legal reform in this area. QUT law professor Ben Mathews called Witness balanced, and "a triumph of intellect and empathy". [9] The book was generally well-received, [10] although Aboriginal writer Ellen O'Brien, writing in the Sydney Review of Books , points to its deficits in coverage of the additional complexities involved when Aboriginal women are the victim-survivors. [11]
Milligan's friend Louise Adler, of Melbourne University Press and then Hachette Australia, published her non-fiction books. [1]
In March 2024 Milligan published her first novel, Pheasants Nest, a crime fiction thriller. [12] The book was influenced by the rape and murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne in 2012, after Milligan was the first journalist to interview Meagher's husband, and explores the idea of a woman in a similar situation who survives such an attack. The name is derived from a notorious suicide spot, Pheasants Nest bridge, which in on the Hume Highway and crosses the Nepean River in New South Wales. It also includes themes of police officers' untreated PTSD. Milligan started writing the novel in 2015, and returned to it in 2022, when she took a break from journalism. [1]
In 2019, she was invited to give the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law annual lecture. Her talk was titled "A journalist's defence of trial procedures". [13]
| Year | Work | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Cardinal | Davitt Award | True Crime and Debut | Shortlisted | [19] |
| Walkley Book Award | — | Won | [20] [4] | ||
| 2018 | Davitt Award | True Crime and Debut | Shortlisted | [21] | |
| Melbourne Prize for Literature | Civic Choice Award | Won | [22] | ||
| 2021 | Witness | Colin Roderick Award | — | Shortlisted | [23] |
| Davitt Award | True Crime | Won | [24] | ||
| Stella Prize | — | Shortlisted | [25] | ||
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | People's Choice Award | Won | [26] | ||
| Nonfiction | Shortlisted | [27] |
In March 2021, the Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter commenced defamation proceedings against Milligan for an article published on 26 February 2021 which he says made a false rape allegation against him. [28] Porter discontinued the action in May 2021 after the ABC agreed to post an editorial note to the original publication and to pay mediation costs. [29]
In June 2021, federal MP Andrew Laming commenced defamation proceedings against Milligan for four tweets sent on 28 March 2021. [30] He alleged one tweet implied he admitted to illegally taking a photo of a woman's underwear as she bent over in Brisbane in 2019. In August 2021 Milligan agreed to pay Laming approximately A$130,000 in damages and fees. [31] [32]
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly owned body that is politically independent and accountable such as through its production of annual reports and is bound by provisions contained within the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, with its charter enshrined in legislation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983. ABC Commercial, a profit-making division of the corporation, also helps to generate funding for content provision.
George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 and 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He was also an author, columnist and public speaker. From 1996, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
Gerard Henderson is an Australian author, columnist and political commentator. He founded and is the executive director of The Sydney Institute, a privately funded Australian current affairs forum.
Andrew Bolt is an Australian conservative social and political commentator. He has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) for many years, for both The Herald and its successor, the Herald Sun. His current roles include blogger and columnist at the Herald Sun and host of television show The Bolt Report each weeknight. In Australia, Bolt is a controversial public figure, who has frequently been accused of abrasive demeanour, racist views and inappropriate remarks on various political and social issues.
David Ewan Marr FAHA is an Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. His areas of expertise include the law, Australian politics, censorship, the media, and the arts. He writes for The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, and Guardian Australia. Marr now hosts Late Night Live on ABC's Radio National.
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Leigh Peta Sales is an Australian journalist and author, best known for her work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She has won three Walkley Awards, and in 2023 won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television.
Peasants Nest is a small village in the Macarthur Region of New South Wales, Australia, near Bargo in Wollondilly Shire.
Vikki Petraitis is an Australian true crime author, based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Karen Foxlee is an Australian novelist.
Lian Tanner is an Australian children's author who lives in southern Tasmania.
The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
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Vikki Wakefield is an Australian author who writes adult and young adult fiction.
The Walkley Book Award is an Australian award presented annually by the Walkley Foundation for excellence in long-form journalism and nonfiction, with subjects ranging from biography to true crime to investigative journalism and reporting.
Laura Jean McKay is an Australian author and creative writing lecturer. In 2021, she won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel The Animals in That Country.
Evelyn Araluen is an Australian poet and literary editor. She won the 2022 Stella Prize with her first book, Dropbear.
Jennifer Down is an Australian novelist and short story writer. She won the 2022 Miles Franklin Award for her novel Bodies of Light.
This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2024.
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