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Louise Milligan
Milligan with TV/Video Feature (Long Form) award at Melbourne Press Club Quills, March 2019.
Born
Dublin, Ireland
NationalityAustralian
Occupation(s)Reporter and author
Years active2004–present
EmployerAustralian 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.

Early life and education

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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]

Career

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Journalism

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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 Milligan is an investigative reporter the ABC TV program Four Corners.[1]

Long-form writing

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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]

Other activities

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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]

Awards and recognition

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Reporting awards

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Book awards

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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]

Defamation suits

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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]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Milligan, Louise (2017). Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 9780522871340.
  • —— (2020). Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice. Hachette Australia. ISBN 9780733644634.
  • —— (2024). Pheasants Nest. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781761470349.

Interviews

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  • "Open page with Louise Milligan". Australian Book Review. 428: 64. January–February 2021.

Critical studies and reviews of Milligan's work

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Witness

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  • Silcox, Beejay (January–February 2021). "Curial bollockings : the monstrous cost of seeking justice". Australian Book Review. 428: 15–16.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Heath, Nicola; Nichols, Claire (2 May 2024). "ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan switches from news to fiction, with her debut novel, Pheasants Nest". ABC News. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  2. ^ "Louise Milligan". Melbourne University Publishing. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Alumni pick up awards across the globe". Monash University. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Speakers". Monash University, School of Media, Film & Journalism. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  5. ^ Milligan, Louise; Donaldson, Amy; Welch, Dylan; Uibu, Katri (4 March 2024). "Former female staff at Sydney's elite Cranbrook School warn of 'toxic' culture as it prepares to go co-ed". ABC News. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  6. ^ "MUP withdraws Cardinal from Victorian shops". Books+Publishing. 30 June 2017. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  7. ^ "Cardinal available in Victoria after suppression order lifts". Books+Publishing. 27 February 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  8. ^ —— (2020). Witness : an investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice. Hachette Australia.
  9. ^ Mathews, Ben (6 February 2024). "Review: Louise Milligan's Witness is a devastating critique of the criminal trial process". The Conversation. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  10. ^ "Louise Milligan – Witness". Stella. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  11. ^ O'Brien, Ellen (25 September 2022). "'You Have to Believe Me'". Sydney Review of Books. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  12. ^ "Pheasants Nest (Louise Milligan, A&U)". Books+Publishing. 6 February 2024. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
  13. ^ "2019 The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law / King & Wood Mallesons Annual Lecture". Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  14. ^ "2016 Quills: Coverage of an Issue or Event". Melbourne Press Club. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  15. ^ "Previous winners". Sport Australia. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  16. ^ "Law Reporting Award". Sir Owen Dixon Chambers. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  17. ^ "ABC's Louise Milligan wins Press Freedom Medal". ABC.net.au. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  18. ^ "Australian Press Council awards 2019 Press Freedom Medals". Australian Press Council. 30 August 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  19. ^ "Davitt Awards 2018 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 6 July 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  20. ^ "Milligan wins 2017 Walkley Book Award for Cardinal". Books+Publishing. 30 November 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  21. ^ "Davitt Awards 2018 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 6 July 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  22. ^ "Melbourne Prize for Literature". Melbourne Prize Trust. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  23. ^ "Woman and fiction dominate the 2021 Colin Roderick Literary Award Shortlist". James Cook University. 2 August 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  24. ^ "Davitt Awards winners announced". Books+Publishing. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  25. ^ "Stella Prize 2021 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 25 March 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  26. ^ "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2021". Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  27. ^ "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2021 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  28. ^ Grattan, Michelle. "Christian Porter sues ABC and reporter Louise Milligan for defamation". The Conversation. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  29. ^ Maiden, Samantha (31 May 2021). "Shock twist in Porter's defamation case". news.com.au. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
  30. ^ McGowan, Michael (28 June 2021). "Andrew Laming targets MPs, journalists with legal letters in campaign to remove tweets". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 August 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  31. ^ Wells, Jamelle (10 August 2021). "ABC journalist Louise Milligan agrees to pay MP Andrew Laming $79,000 in defamation settlement". ABC News. Australia. Archived from the original on 11 August 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  32. ^ James Madden; Sophie Elsworth (11 August 2021). "Milligan tweet costs ABC $130K in Laming settlement". The Australian. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
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