Year
2020
Category
Young Journalist of the Year Awards
All media: Shortform journalism
Luke Henriques-Gomes started his journalism career in 2014 covering local councils in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Since 2018, he has been the welfare and inequality reporter at Guardian Australia. Luke’s work at the Guardian has focused on Australia’s social security and disability policies — and how they impact the people they are supposed to serve. This has included a particular focus on the rate of Australia’s jobseeker payment and what has become known as Centrelink’s Robodebt scandal. Before coming to the Guardian, Luke covered federal parliament as a political reporter at The New Daily.
Judges’ comments:
“With deft analysis, gripping reporting and a determination to work his contacts to obtain leaked ministerial and cabinet documents, Henriques-Gomes demonstrated the sophistication of a much more seasoned journalism veteran. His explosive reporting, exposing the controversial Robodebt program, shone a light on the devastating impact it had on thousands of Australia’s most vulnerable. Henriques-Gomes’ tenacity in the face of bureaucratic stonewalling spearheaded public awareness of this scheme, which has since been found to be unlawful.”