Why supporting Independent Australia investigations is important

Successful investigations take more than money, resources and shoe soles, they also take public support and big hearts, writes founder David Donovan.

IN ABOUT 2012, successful Australian author John Birmingham urged his social media followers to subscribe to the Sydney Morning Herald because of an investigation they were then running.

It was a reasonable request — the SMH has done many great investigations.

Birmingham, a former journalist, suggested that to do “proper investigations” required “big money” to pay for journalists and battle defamation lawsuits, and “boot leather on the ground”. He was right. But he was also wrong.

IA had a public discussion with Birmingham then, where IA noted it had neither a surfeit of boot leather nor money, yet was still investigating. At that time, the twin investigations now known as "Ashbygate" and "Jacksonville" — two attempted coups by the Liberal Party to bring down the minority Gillard Government.

These investigations, maintained by IA over many years, gained national prominence and led to the exculpation of former Federal Speaker Peter Slipper and the eventual incarceration of Health Services Union (HSU) crook and Craig Thomson-accuser Kathy Jackson.

How Gina Rinehart bought the IPA

A feud within the Rinehart family has inadvertently exposed financial shenanigans by Australia's foremost purveyors of climate change deception — the IPA.

Independent Australia has done many similarly impactful investigations over the subsequent 13 years — including into the conservative think tank IPA, former Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, water-rorts, Robodebt, koalas, fracking, sports rorts, banking corruption, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate, fraudster Dominique Grubisa and more.

Interestingly, we are still in existence after 15 years of continuous publication, whilst John Birmingham’s then-employer, Fairfax Press, is no longer in existence. Indeed, even the platform where that interesting discussion took place in 2012, Twitter, is now a very different place owned by Elon Musk and known as X.

But this editorial is not about John Birmingham, a highly thoughtful humanitarian, with whom IA held a pleasant and courteous public discussion on the internet in 2012. One, indeed, that would be no longer possible today, because as he recently aired in his ongoing columns for Fairfax’s latest owner, Nine, he has since deleted all his social media accounts.

This editorial is about investigative journalism, something this publication is passionate about. Something about which we have just aired some of our successes, but also one in which we fully appreciate the obstacles Birmingham outlined.

Because, as we have said, Birmingham was right. Serious journalism is hard and takes money. Investigative journalism is even more uncommon and unlikely, boot leather notwithstanding.

How did we manage to overcome these obstacles? The short answer is, we face them each day but we have managed to gather widespread public and private support for our investigations. Where Birmingham was wrong is that you didn’t need big money to investigate, just big hearts.

Privately, because we had help from like-minded people. In the case of Ashbygate, because of unpaid work by private investigator Ross Jones, amongst others. Entirely unpaid work that was subsequently appropriated by the mainstream media, including in a book. Privately, in the instance of Jacksonville, through the unaccountable and also unpaid efforts of Peter Wicks, who has never been properly acknowledged for his unbelievably thorough work.

Jacksonville and Kathy's well-paid union mates

Kathy Jackson was back in court and emerged with the deal of the century, despite being both guilty and convicted of fraud.

Publicly, because we managed to take our readers on a journey, so that they supported and publicised our efforts, even when the mainstream media ignored, belittled and outright derided our efforts — even calling us conspiracy theorists, at times.

We got leaks and sometimes important leads. Indeed, in the case of Ashbygate, we set up a fully democratic investigation – via a unit trust − in which we raised over $50,000 from people all over Australia to pay for expenses, including legal costs. And our efforts were reported in the, yes, Sydney Morning Herald. We published a book detailing our findings in 2015, Ashbygate: The Plot to Destroy Australia's Speaker, which is still available in hardcopy HERE.

Importantly, we didn’t need to recapitulate every detail of previous stories in each new article, because each new revelation was eagerly awaited by our expectant audience.

Which all leads us up to our current investigation.

Not every one of our investigations has been successful. Occasionally, we have followed things down rabbit holes that led to dead ends. Not that often, because for a small enterprise like IA to commit to pursue an investigation, with all the time, energy and expense, we are usually very sure about our suspicions. Generally, these suspicions are beyond the balance of probabilities, being backed by an overwhelming preponderance of circumstantial evidence and material that may leave us liable for business-ending lawsuits.

So, successful investigations take more than money, resources and shoe soles, they also take public participation, engagement and immense amounts of discretion. Support and smarts.

Which leads us to our current investigation. It’s important, or else we wouldn’t be doing it, but we really need your engagement. Because it is one of those investigations that has never reached its potential, in our opinion, though it has already had an impact. Now, people are coming to us with confidential material, largely because we have kept at it since 2016, when IA published its first investigations.

It is getting so interesting, we really need your help, as subscribers and ambassadors for IA, to help promote this story.

Because it involves hot money, corruption in public office and infiltration of institutions by extreme religious sects and other self-interested bodies. Its impacts are far-reaching, not just for the 600,000 people living on the Gold Coast, but because it serves as a template for the powerful and the wealthy to exploit the vulnerability of all Australians. It exposes the fragile nature of our public institutions and political parties – most notably the Liberal Party – and has repercussions for our common wealth and the very roofs over our heads.

Bypassing democracy: Gold Coast now bowling for Tate

Founder Dave Donovan and managing editor Michelle Pini report on the latest corruption allegations involving Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate and the threat corruption at this level poses to livelihoods, property and democracy for all Australians.

Here are some of the stories by IA founder Dave Donovan and the team, which are a fraction of what we have covered so far on the subject of Tom Tate and the Gold Coast City Council since 2016:

4 September 2025 | Bypassing democracy: Gold Coast now bowling for Tate
27 August 2025 | Tom Tate cancels democracy to avoid Cableway questions
3 May 2022 | Tate and the secret Pentecostal plan for world domination
27 March 2020 | 50 blatant lies and broken promises by Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate
24 January 2019 | Sketchy GC Mayor Tom Tate lies — local Murdoch rag covers it up
16 October 2018 | INVESTIGATION 2: Tom Tate, Frankie Four-names and the piggy forestry bonds
22 November 2017 | Tom Tate's developer dollar hunt is building an unlivable Gold Coast
19 September 2017 | EXCLUSIVE: Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate and the man with four names
19 September 2017 | INVESTIGATION: The mystery of the mayors and the phoenix with four names
7 November 2017 | BYE BYE BOROBI! Developer free-for-all to wipe out Gold Coast koalas in 5 years
5 November 2017 | NO CONFIDENCE! Residents rebel as developers take over Gold Coast Council
21 September 2016 | Leaked letter shows Mayor Tom Tate and planning chair misleading GC Council
18 March 2016 | Tom Tate: The 'Crackerjack' mayor
13 March 2016 | Home on the Grange with Mr Polite — Gold Coast “bovver boy” Mayor Tom
1 March 2016 | The strange case of the developer mayor, the kid's charity and the bottle of Grange

We will also be featuring and updating the full investigation and producing a detailed timeline, including articles by other valued contributors, in the form of an easy-to-access resource soon. We would appreciate it if you would read and share them with others because the story of Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate is a national scandal.

Later this week, we will be releasing the latest explosive story, which ties many of the threads together, based on previously unexposed material and will be emailing you directly with this update. But it may not make complete sense, because we can’t recap everything in the words available. Trust us, it’s important.

This editorial was originally published as part of the Independent Australia weekly newsletter – usually only available to subscribers – and may be read online in the IA members-only area.

Follow Dave Donovan on X/Twitter @davrosz and Bluesky @davrosz.bsky.social, and Independent Australia on Bluesky @independentaus.bsky.social, X/Twitter @independentaus and Facebook HERE.