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Louise Milligan

@milliganreports

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Investigative reporter, 4 Corners. Author: Shellybanks, Pheasants Nest, Witness, Cardinal. Admires brave sources. Lied about being the outdoor type.

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Very, very exciting news! Today is my publication day for Shellybanks. This is me at my first in-store signing, for the lovely people @gleebooks_dulwich.

But I am also beyond excited to announce something I have been keeping under wraps for a while, something else I have recently signed: both Shellybanks and Pheasants Nest have been optioned for a multi-part TV series. See following tiles. The plan is an Irish-Australian co-production and I just can’t wait to see Kate Delaney, Liam Carroll, Dolores Murphy and all of the others come to life.

I am so pleased to be working with the excellent Monica O’Brien at Ambience entertainment. So many people have said to me since Pheasants Nest came out that they could just imagine bingeing it on the streamers. Well that process begins! The fact it will go to my birth country of Ireland too is just a dream.

Would love to hear your ideas for who should play the characters – I already have some brilliant people in mind.

So clink my champagne glass!

Happy days.

And thanks to @booksandpublishing for the write up.

#books #publishing @allenandunwin

🥂❤️📚☘️
PS: See you tonight, lovely Sydney readers, at The Royal Oak Hotel in Balmain – see @roaring_stories for details. by @milliganreports

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8 months ago

Story promo:

Last year, our #4Corners investigation, God Complex, into a Melbourne neurosurgeon’s behaviour, led to him losing his hospital credentialing and the medical regulator placing conditions on his registration.

After that story, I was flooded with tip offs with concerns about other medical professionals around the country.

But one stood out: concerning allegations about the circumstances in which young women were having reproductive organs and tissue removed.

We’ve been investigating this story for seven months.

It's hard to wrap your head around what we have found.

Young women have bravely spoken out.

And so have clinicians.

#Endometriosis affects about one in seven women and those who manage excruciating #pelvicpain are relieved the disease is now in the national spotlight.

But at what point does acknowledging female suffering tip over into something altogether different?

Our story team of producer Mary Fallon, researchers Lara Sonnenchein and Mayeta Clark and myself are so grateful to everyone who helped us with this story, both on camera and behind the scenes.

We so hope you’ll watch our program Scarred, on Four Corners this Monday, February 23, 8.30pm, ABC TV and iView. by @milliganreports

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8 months ago

I remember, nine years ago, sitting up all night, poring through document after document, shocked at what I was reading, that this could have possibly happened and that so many people let it happen. That so many people could have let children down.

I listened to this music over and over and it seemed to somehow match the intensity of the mood. The need to tell the world about what happened.

I listened to it again last summer, as I worked on my piece for The Monthly, reading and re-reading these new men’s accounts, having sat with them and the pain that radiates out of them, the anger at the lionising of this man who stole their innocence. Most of them are dads now. Watching their own kids grow up fuelled their anger and their determination for justice. You can still see the little boys in their eyes. Happy Father’s Day to all of them.

Lighting doesn’t strike this many times. The alternative explanation does not bear scrutiny. @themonthlymagazine #Pell. by @milliganreports

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a year ago

What book has unexpectedly made you cry?

Reposting this from @heread_sheread, where on their podcast with me about The First Stone I found myself, unusually for me, choosing a non-fiction book as my recommendation. I normally really love reading fiction. But I read this book earlier in the year because I was asked to interview Bob Carr for @wordsonthewaves. I should say this is not a political post because it is not a political book, in any way. I skimmed through the politics bit (sorry Bob, I already felt I knew that part as I was a young political reporter in the NSW gallery at that time). What I loved and found really quite brave for a man who is a former Premier was the unvarnished vulnerability. It’s a book about love and grief and it had me crying on I think about page three. It’s surprising and deeply moving. It’s really worth a read.

To hear our conversation head to your favourite podcast platform and search for He Read She Read.

@sarah_bailey_author and @jppomare and guests have so many great chats and are fantastic Australian authors of crime fiction. Really recommend their podcast more generally. by @milliganreports

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10 hours ago

This was a very bittersweet thing to come across on the way to a #4Corners interview today. For so many reasons. Happy birthday to a person who tried really, really hard to bring the truth to light. I know how much it has taken out of this person and so many others. But the truth is finally coming. Stay tuned. ⚖️ by @milliganreports

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3 days ago

I know I am a bit late off the mark with this, but I find this such an profoundly emotional experience to watch this last instalment of this documentary that we have all been watching all of our lives. #70up by @milliganreports

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5 days ago

Delightful news! Shellybanks @allenandunwin has been shortlisted for the 2026 Booktopia Book Awards.

If you’re one of the many sweet people who wrote to me to say you read and loved Shellybanks, I’d be so grateful if you could take a moment to cast your vote. Kate Delaney, Dolores Murphy and all my other imaginary friends will thank you endlessly.

Voting is open until 31 October, and as a special little bonus, everyone who votes goes into the draw to win a $250 Booktopia gift certificate. So get amongst it!

Thank you so much for your support of my writing, it means the absolute world. ❤️📚

Link in bio by @milliganreports

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6 days ago

Just got home to receive this delivery from the excellent folks at @harpercollinsaustralia - a box-full of my new book Slave Concubine Queen. Huge thanks to @msloulouelizabeth @milliganreports and @mmccwill @themonthlymagazine for their lovely reviews 😘🥰 by @milliganreports

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10 days ago

Ever get to the end of the day and just think “WHY?”? I had one of those days today. About to go out and film a piece to camera in my home town for a #4Corners story that has been in the making, on and off, for the better part of a year. About a subject I haven’t covered for many years. You’ll see it soon and I imagine will be left wondering why too. Stay tuned. by @milliganreports

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11 days ago

Did a massive spring clean yesterday and found some crackers. How good are spring cleans when the sun is shining? Anyway, cheeks for days. So squeezy. Including my own (in the last slide). My youngest looking very sceptical in the first one, despite being a very happy baby and an absolute delight. by @milliganreports

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14 days ago

Imagine reading a book now, about a real life incident, in which a famous woman writer accepts that a man at the centre of a university college scandal is a perpetrator, but writes nonetheless to him to apologise to him that his accusers went to the police (as was their legal right). That’s exactly what happened in Helen Garner’s The First Stone and that is the topic of @heread_sheread, which drops today, and where I have been invited along by the lovely crime writers @sarah_bailey_author and @jppomare to discuss.

OK so this was a riot of a chat and honestly I could have talked with Sarah and JP all day, even though my voice was a disaster and the subject matter was salty.

It’s a deep dive into the, at times, foreign country that is 1990s Melbourne, a place I knew well.

As they say “it’s a non-fiction book about a sexual assault scandal at a Melbourne university in the 90s. So much has changed since then…or has it?”

To me, reading this again, all these years later, it felt positively antique. But as Sarah points out, so many of the discussions had in the book are still playing out. Institutions are still wrestling with these sorts of issues. Indeed, my career has been so much about these questions. Anyway, I loved talking to Sarah and JP. I think you’ll enjoy it too.

Listen now wherever you get your pods or go to @heread_sheread and comment PODCAST and they’ll DM you the link 📚🎧

Get into it! by @milliganreports

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18 days ago

A beautifully heartbreaking story of love and loss. I hope we see Kate, Liam and Dolores again soon @milliganreports by @milliganreports

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22 days ago