2014 Quills: Monash University Gold Quill


An expose of the multi-million dollar financial advice scandal at the Commonwealth Bank won Adele Ferguson the highest honour in Victorian journalism – the 2014 Monash Gold Quill.

The award was shared with Four Corners producer Deb Masters and researcher Mario Christodoulou for the program ‘Banking Bad’, which encapsulated a two-year investigation by Ferguson, whose work appears in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.

Watch Four Corners program 'Banking Bad' on the ABC website

The judges praised Ferguson for a “courageous, painstaking and tenacious exposure” of the financial advice scandal at Australia’s biggest bank.

“Her work … revealed a culture of greed, secrecy and corruption within the Commonwealth Bank that destroyed the life savings of many vulnerable Australians,” the citation said.

“The bank was forced to make a public apology and announce a $250 million-plus compensation scheme open to 400,000 customers.”

Ferguson’s investigation forced the Federal Government to abandon plans to water down regulation of the financial planning industry. The fallout from the scandal – and Ferguson’s ongoing reporting – continues to reverberate across Australia’s banking sector.

Adele Ferguson's 2015 Gold Quill win

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