Colleen Egan, of The Sunday Times in Perth, for an investigation over eight years in which Colleen spent hundreds of hours of her own time hunting for fresh evidence to prove that a man convicted of murder was innocent. In November last year the High Court finally overturned the man's conviction and he was released after serving 12 years in jail.

As a result of her work, which she says took her from being an objective researcher to a committed campaigner, five senior police officers, including two assistant commissioners, have been suspended following an inquiry by the Corruption and Crime Commission.

Colleen is writing a book about the case.

Michael McKinnon, The Australian's Freedom of Information editor, for his Herculean battles against our Freedom of Information laws to break a portfolio of stories, including the government's secret workings towards a flat tax and a top rate of only 30 per cent for Australia's rich and the revelation that the lives of Australian diggers in Iraq and Afghanistan were being put at risk by defective or broken armour and other equipment. The story prompted the government to set up an inquiry which led to the equipment being fixed.

In his fight against government secrecy, Michael has taken 34 cases all the way to the Federal Court and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal where he has won 90 per cent of them on the basis of public interest.

He currently has another 130 FOI investigations underway.

Michael has the distinction of having worked for no less than six of News Limited's mastheads in four different cities since starting his career with the company 19 years ago.

Caroline Overington, of The Australian, whose investigations exposed that the Australian Wheat Board had paid almost $300 million of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq, making them the single biggest source of illicit cash to the regime.

Although the Federal Government dismissed her as a ridiculous and hysterical liar, Caroline continued to break more than 100 stories on the scandal, which led to a Royal Commission, severely embarrassed the government and wiped 6o per cent off the value of AWB shares this year, jeopardising their monopoly on our wheat exports.

Caroline was formerly a New York correspondent who caused a publishing storm two years ago when she exposed the best-selling author Norma Khoury as a hoax who fabricated her memoir Forbidden Love.

She is writing a book about the AWB scandal and is the mother of young twins. (Winner)

Shortlisted:
Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail, Brisbane