Calla Wahlquist

Calla Wahlquist is a Melbourne-based reporter for The Guardian Australia, specializing in Indigenous affairs, environmental policy, and social justice. With a career rooted in regional journalism, she brings a nuanced understanding of systemic inequities to her national reporting.

Key Coverage Areas

  • Indigenous Rights: Investigates deaths in custody, heritage protection, and treaty processes.
  • Environmental Policy: Focuses on invasive species, mining impacts, and climate adaptation.
  • Social Equity: Exposes education and healthcare disparities in rural communities.

Pitching Tips

  • Provide data-supported leads with direct access to affected communities.
  • Highlight underreported systemic issues rather than isolated incidents.
  • Avoid celebrity-driven or urban lifestyle angles.

Awards: Two-time Walkley Award winner for investigative innovation and Indigenous affairs coverage. Her work has influenced corporate policies and parliamentary inquiries.

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More About Calla Wahlquist

Bio

Calla Wahlquist: A Career Dedicated to Amplifying Marginalized Voices

Calla Wahlquist is an award-winning journalist at The Guardian Australia, renowned for her incisive reporting on Indigenous affairs, environmental crises, and social justice issues. With a career spanning over a decade, she has become a pivotal voice in Australian journalism, blending rigorous investigative methods with a deep commitment to ethical storytelling.

Career Trajectory: From Regional Roots to National Impact

Wahlquist began her career in regional journalism, covering grassroots stories in Tasmania and Western Australia. This foundational experience honed her ability to navigate complex community dynamics and institutional accountability. Her 2014 move to The Guardian Australia marked a shift toward systemic investigations, particularly on Indigenous rights and environmental policy.

Key Articles and Investigative Work

  • Deaths Inside: Indigenous deaths in custody This landmark 2018 investigation tracked over 400 Indigenous deaths in custody since 1991, exposing systemic failures in Australia’s judicial and correctional systems. Wahlquist and her team analyzed coronial reports, court documents, and government data to create an interactive database that became a critical resource for activists and policymakers. The project’s impact led to renewed calls for implementing the 1991 Royal Commission’s recommendations, which remain largely unaddressed.
  • The methodology combined data journalism with narrative storytelling, humanizing statistics through personal accounts of affected families. Its publication sparked national protests and influenced parliamentary debates, earning the 2018 Walkley Award for Innovation.
  • Rio Tinto’s Destruction of Juukan Gorge Wahlquist’s 2020 exposĂ© revealed how Rio Tinto prioritized profit over cultural preservation by detonating 46,000-year-old Aboriginal rock shelters. Her reporting, based on internal company documents and interviews with Traditional Owners, showed that alternative mining plans could have spared the site. The article triggered investor backlash, parliamentary inquiries, and a $1.4 billion corporate write-down.
  • This work exemplified her ability to dissect corporate governance failures while centering Indigenous perspectives. It earned the 2020 Walkley Award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs.
  • Unpaid Veterinary Placements A 2025 social media investigation highlighting how Australian vet students undertake 52 weeks of unpaid clinical work, exacerbating financial inequities in the profession. Wahlquist used Freedom of Information requests to reveal universities’ reliance on this unpaid labor model, sparking discussions about education reform.

Beat Analysis and Pitching Recommendations

1. Indigenous Rights and Heritage Protection

Wahlquist prioritizes stories that expose systemic inequities affecting First Nations communities. Pitches should focus on underreported issues like Native Title disputes, cultural heritage management, or gaps in Closing the Gap initiatives. For example, her Juukan Gorge coverage demonstrated how corporate compliance with heritage laws often prioritizes technical adherence over meaningful consultation.

2. Environmental Policy in Regional Australia

She frequently examines how climate change and industrial expansion intersect with rural communities. Effective pitches might address invasive species management (e.g., her fire ant reporting), drought resilience strategies, or conflicts between mining projects and conservation efforts. Data-driven proposals with local stakeholder voices are preferred.

3. Social Equity in Education and Healthcare

Her recent work on veterinary education reflects a growing interest in institutional inequities. Pitches could explore topics like rural healthcare access, vocational training gaps, or disability support systems. Solutions-oriented angles that highlight community-led initiatives are particularly compelling.

Awards and Achievements

Walkley Award for Innovation (2018)

Wahlquist’s Deaths Inside project revolutionized data journalism in Australia by creating a publicly accessible database of Indigenous deaths in custody. The Walkley Foundation praised its “meticulous research and innovative presentation,” setting a new standard for accountability journalism. This award is particularly prestigious given the competitive field of 500+ entries annually.

Walkley Award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs (2020)

Her Juukan Gorge reporting was described by judges as “a masterclass in investigative rigor.” It underscored the role of journalism in holding multinational corporations accountable, leading to significant policy changes within Rio Tinto and broader industry reforms.

“Projects like this take a huge amount of work. We are all incredibly grateful to Guardian Australia for giving us the time — months and months of time — to get it done.”

Top Articles

Deaths Inside: Indigenous deaths in custody

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