{"id":585238,"date":"2026-04-04T15:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585238\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T15:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:32:26","slug":"they-got-away-with-australias-own-watergate-the-west-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585238\/","title":{"rendered":"They Got away with Australia&#8217;s own Watergate | The West Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor water scandal is back in focus, seven years after Michael West Media helped expose the $80 million water buyback linked to a Cayman Islands company. The deal, signed off under Barnaby Joyce, involved water rights sold at a record price through a company connected to Angus Taylor, with questions still unresolved about who ultimately benefited and why taxpayers paid so much for assets critics argued were of little environmental value. <\/p>\n<p>As the issue makes a brief mention in parliament, so do the unanswered questions about secrecy, political protection, and why no serious investigation has followed.  \ufffc<\/p>\n<p>Happy 7 year anniversary of the story<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/michaelwest.com.au\/barnaby-joyce-angus-taylor-australia-and-the-caribbean\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barnaby Joyce, Angus Taylor, Australia and the Caribbean<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Support us \u2764\ufe0f patreon.com\/thewestreport<br \/>Our Journalism \ud83d\udcf0 michaelwest.com.au<br \/>Merch \ud83d\udc55 https:\/\/lonelykidsclub.com\/collections\/michael-west<br \/>Linktree \ud83c\udf10 https:\/\/linktr.ee\/michaelwestmedia.com.au<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"m-a-box-avatar-url\" href=\"https:\/\/michaelwest.com.au\/author\/michael\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Michael-headshot-400x400.png\" class=\"attachment-200x200 size-200x200\" alt=\"Michael West headshot\" itemprop=\"image\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor water scandal is back in focus, seven years after Michael West Media&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-585238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}