Politico announced on Tuesday it will expand to Australia later this year, pitting the Virginia-based outlet focused on politics and power against a media ecosystem long dominated by the Murdoch family.
Politico will launch a new edition of its marquee “Playbook” newsletter series out of Canberra, Australia’s capital. The outlet has rehired Ryan Heath as its Australia Launch Editor, tasking him with writing the newsletter for its debut and fleshing out the organization’s team in the country.
“POLITICO’s expansion to Australia is natural,” CEO Goli Sheikholeslami said in a statement. We will deliver the same essential U.S. and European coverage that our audiences in the Western Hemisphere depend on. And we will be even better positioned to help readers around the globe understand important economic and geopolitical developments in the Indo-Pacific, from trade and defense to energy and critical minerals.”
Semafor first reported on the Australia expansion.
Heath, who left the outlet in 2022, previously worked as Politico’s editorial director for global growth. He launched a “Playbook” edition in Brussels and wrote editions of its Global Insider, U.N. Playbook and Davos Playbook newsletters. Politico said Canberra Playbook will launch in 2026’s third quarter, once the Australian Parliament returns from its winter recess.
“In this era of great power and technology upheavals, POLITICO’s ability to examine Australia’s most important security and trade relationships is unrivaled,” Heath said in a statement. “We take politicians and policy seriously – it’s all we do. We will bring that depth and new angles to political journalism in Canberra, just as we have everywhere else we operate.”
While the newsroom already has a robust international operation through Politico Europe, the outlet’s decision to enter the news market down under represents a significant expansion into a market long dominated by Rupert Murdoch’s legion of newspapers, including The Australian, and Nine Entertainment, which owns the Sydney Morning Herald. The New York Times expanded to the country in 2017, and touted subscriber growth when it hit 2 million international subscribers in 2024.
Politico has also faced its own changes in recent months, laying off 3% of its staff last month and offering buyouts to several newsroom divisions. Global editor-in-chief John Harris also transitioned from that role to a chairman title, beginning a search for a new top editor.