Don’t you feel like a bit of a fraud accepting this award when, at home, you screwed up the response to the worst massacre since Port Arthur? (Latika Bourke) (AUSTRALIAN LEGEND)
“Prime Minister, here in New York on Wednesday night, you will receive an award for being a global citizen. Don’t you feel like a bit of a fraud accepting this award when, at home, you screwed up the response to the worst massacre since Port Arthur? In the polls, you are taking Labor to one point shy of Julia Gillard when you rolled her, and your net negatives are worse than Scott Morrison.”
Latika Bourke AUSTRALIAN LEGEND (she should be knighted )
Graham Healy
Tue 22 Sep 2026
Amazing background **Latika M. Bourke** (born 9 March 1984) is an Australian-British journalist, author, and podcaster who specialises in politics, geopolitics, and national security. She is currently Writer-at-Large for *The Nightly* (based in London), an Expert Associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College, and from 2026 a co-presenter of ABC Radio National’s *Global Roaming*.
### Early life and adoption
Bourke was born in Bihar, India (Bettiah area). Her birth mother was 14; she was left at a Catholic orphanage run by nuns the day after she was born. At eight months old she was adopted by Australian schoolteachers Penny and John Bourke and arrived in Australia in December 1984.
She joined a family that already included two biological daughters (Melissa and Catherine) and two other children adopted from India (Rani and Damian; Damian came from the same orphanage). The Bourkes later had three more biological children (Dominic, Gabriela and Joseph), making a family of eight. They first lived on a farm outside Bathurst in central-west New South Wales and moved into town when she was seven.
Bourke has written about growing up visibly different in a large blended family in regional Australia and later becoming curious about her Indian origins. That search is the subject of her 2015 memoir *From India with Love*; she has said she donates half the book’s royalties to Indian orphanages.
### Education and early career
She studied journalism at Charles Sturt University (2002–2005). While still a student she worked at local Bathurst station 2BS, writing, producing and reading news and hosting talkback. She was hired by Sydney’s 2UE before graduating and moved into political reporting, joining the Canberra Press Gallery around 2008.
In 2010 she won the Walkley Award for Young Australian Journalist of the Year for her coverage of the Liberal Party leadership crisis that saw Tony Abbott replace Malcolm Turnbull. Judges noted her radio reporting and early, effective use of Twitter. She later became the ABC’s first dedicated social-media reporter, then moved to Fairfax (*The Sydney Morning Herald* and *The Age*) as a national political correspondent.
### Later career
In late 2015 she announced she was leaving the Canberra gallery and moving to London in early 2016. She has since reported from there on British and Australian politics and international affairs, first for Fairfax and later as Writer-at-Large for *The Nightly*. She also publishes independently at Latika Takes (newsletter and podcast) and appears on Sky News UK, the BBC and Monocle Radio. She moderates foreign-policy and security events for organisations including GLOBSEC and the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
From 2026 she co-presents ABC Radio National’s weekday *Global Roaming* programme alongside Geraldine Doogue, Hamish Macdonald and Kylie Morris.
She remains a prominent commentator on Australian politics and geopolitics, often from a London base. Wikipedia’s entry on her is relatively short and stops around her 2016 move; more recent profiles from *The Nightly*, ANU and her own site give the fuller current picture.
