True Leaders 2015: Adele Ferguson fearless pursuer of truth

Adele Ferguson, investigative journalist at Fairfax Media, publisher of BOSS magazine, has already accumulated Australia's three top journalism awards for her investigation into the banking industry: the Gold Quill Award, the Gold Walkley Award and the Gold Kennedy Award. In May, she added a TV Week Logie Award for outstanding public affairs report for her "Banking Bad" report into the "profit at all cost" culture within the wealth arms of major banks.

True Leaders judge Steve Tucker queried whether Ferguson, who is also author of the unauthorised biography of Gina Rinehart, had failed to recognise the improvements that have been made in the financial planning industry in recent years. But ultimately the judging panel felt her fearlessness, relentlessness and tenacity deserved recognition.

"One of the things that impressed me about this work was, if you took an average journalist, they would have been happy enough with the story on the CBA, and could have sat back and relaxed. But she's actually been quite relentless in pursuing it across the board," judge Michael Traill said. "When you hear from some of the banks who initially said, 'no, there is nothing wrong with us', and then she has carried on this investigation and you found out that actually there were problems at NAB, which came out. There were problems with other institutions, which came out – that only came through her being relentless.

The Age investigative journalist Adele Ferguson has been nominated for the Graham Perkin Australian journalist of the year, an award she won in 2015.  Fairfax Media

"She's actually pushed and pushed, and when you look at the reform that has come out of it, everyone is realising now that this is a major issue we've got to deal with."

Amanda Harkness agreed: "What I would say is, I think in these days where you've got the eight-second attention span, it's really important to have investigative journalists and to promote them and celebrate them. I would certainly see Adele has been a leader in doing that and would be very supportive of her nomination."