Ben Schneiders

Live Updates: After Global Economy Shudders, Trump Zigzags on Whether War Is Nearing End

So who is making $$$$ out of these market ‘zig-zags’? We’ve seen this play out before

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

Setka’s links to Gatto have been publicly ventilated for years - no one in politics should be surprised by any of this

Setka’s secret sisterhood: Labor women in covert support of CFMEU boss revealed Leaked text messages reveal a network of Labor-linked women rallied around the fallen union leader over criminal harassment charges and his criticism of Rosie Batty’s domestic violence advocacy work.

The relationship between Setka and Gatto was extremely close. As it is with other union leaders (Peter Marshall and Earl Setches mentioned in The Age’s reporting today). www.smh.com.au/national/set...

The union has been in administration for much of that time since the stories were published. And there’s rightfully plenty of attention today on the role of underworld figure Mick Gatto in the industry

At the time we reported how the $100 billion Big Build in Victoria and major projects in Sydney had become a honeypot for organised crime corrupting the CFMEU and builders

Building bad: How bikies, underworld have become a construction industry ‘cancer’ A months-long investigation featuring secret surveillance reveals how bikies, criminals and underworld figures have infiltrated the building industry, including on large publicly funded projects.

Building industry corruption and the CFMEU is dominating Vic politics the last few weeks. Here‘s the first part of our investigation from July 2024 www.theage.com.au/national/building-bad-how-bikies-underworld-have-become-a-construction-industry-cancer-20240703-p5jqr0.html

Restaurant empire behind Chin Chin underpaid staff: leaked audit The high-end restaurant business that includes Chin Chin in Melbourne and Sydney underpaid staff by $340,000 in a single year, a leaked audit shows.

And here’s the original reporting. We went through months of digging, verification and speaking to dozens of people www.theage.com.au/business/wor...

Some of the most satisfying work of my career was exposing these high end restaurant groups for wage theft. Detailed in more depth in my 2022 book Hard Labour

There were far worse offenders in the restaurant industry than the Lucas group in terms of underpayment but none were worse to deal with In terms of pressure, aggressive tactics etc towards our reporting.

Lucas and his external PR spivs used every trick in the book to stop the story running even though the details were pretty straight forward. His was one of many restaurant empires we exposed through those years whose business model was bolstered by wage theft

Not sure how Chris Lucas was “absolutely exonerated” when an audit he had commissioned showed 20% of his workforce were paid unlawfully below the minimum rates of the award …

Amazing what gets forgiven/forgotten

They should hold Richo’s state funeral at a burnt out printing press. All donations to be made through his old Swiss bank account

Richo’s gospel was every man for himself Graham Richardson embodied everything most normal people detest about politics. His legacy is one of self-enrichment, self-aggrandisement and self-indulgence.

Some good truth bombs here from the AFR. Unfortunately all too rare

We are a couple of news cycles away in Victoria from someone calling for the ADF to take charge

That’s a good idea. The death of local
papers has been really bad for the ecosystem. Also left largely unwatched the level of government that is probably the most corrupt

It really does. It needs an ecosystem of a big enough reporting staff, and an outlet willing to take the risk to do it. Only a few outlets do it at scale in my view; old Fairfax papers and ABC. Legal costs/risk a big part of it.

Some people doing v good work as solo independent journos or part of small teams. But it’s so precarious and mostly lacks reach/impact. The reality is you still need scale and lot of money to do consistent public interest journalism

I’ve been to a lot of clubs the last few years. Nothing beats the cevapi the Albanians do at Dandenong Thunder. A 10/10

Heidelberg souvas I’d give a 6/10. The team can beat half the A-League but could learn something from Northcote on souvas

That should be flare - but there was some flair on the ball too!

Went to Heidelberg v Marconi in the first game of the Championship yesterday. Quality game, good vibes (and the odd flair). Football has got to find a way to integrate the rich history of the old with the A-League. Economics of it are hard but some form of pro/rel football has to be the answer

Look, they’ll always be the Brisbane Bears to me.

Missed the first 20 minutes as I was on the wrong 7 channel ffs

Amazing, but not surprising, that Australian media still report Netanyahu’s statements as if he’s a normal democratic leader and omitting from any context that he’s someone wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Surely relevant?

NSC ministers resign after Foreign Minister Veldkamp quits over blocked Israel sanctions All ministers and state secretaries from Nieuw Sociaal Contract (NSC) resigned on Friday after Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp quit in protest over blocked sanctions against Israel, NOS reported.Veld...

Nine ministers quit Dutch governement after they pushed for stronger sanctions against Israel. Includes deputy PM and foreign minister nltimes.nl/2025/08/23/n...

Allan rises from historic low, eyes unprecedented fourth Labor term The results of the latest Resolve Political Monitor leave Victoria’s Liberal Party teetering towards a seventh defeat from eight elections.

Extraordinary turnaround in the Resolve poll. Vic Libs remain dysfunctional and basically unelectable www.theage.com.au/politics/vic...

Semi-pro giant-killers pull off another upset against A-League team Australian soccer’s giant-killers from Heidelberg United did not only topple another top-flight team on Tuesday night, they trounced them.

This is such a great achievement. Two games now from winning the thing

Targeting journalists is a war crime.
As colleagues, we remember them.
meaa.io/45A4vZ5

MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime as toll nears 200 deaths