Politico Launches Australia Operations, Targets Policy Insiders
Politico enters Australia with Canberra Playbook newsletter targeting policymakers and executives. First Asia-Pacific operation addresses media ownership concentration gap in political coverage.
Politico announced on February 24, 2026 that it will expand into Australia, marking its first Asia-Pacific operation and its third continental launch after the US in 2007 and Europe in 2016.
Canberra Playbook Targets Policy Insiders With Q3 2026 Launch
The publication will launch its "Canberra Playbook" newsletter in Q3 2026, timed to coincide with Australia's Federal Parliament returning from winter recess. Editorial and business teams will expand following the initial launch.
Ryan Heath, the journalist who built the Brussels Playbook from its 2015 launch, will serve as Launch Editor. His appointment signals that Politico is applying its proven European expansion model directly to Australia.
"Australians need journalism that both explains power dynamics and connects the dots globally," Heath said in a statement. "In this era of great power and technology upheavals, Politico's ability to examine Australia's most important security and trade relationships is unrivalled."
The Canberra Playbook will focus on security relationships, trade, energy, and critical minerals. These are issues central to Australia's role in the broader Indo-Pacific.
A Market Gap Driven by Ownership Concentration
Australia's political media landscape is dominated by two companies. News Corp controls approximately 50% of newspaper titles, with Nine Entertainment controlling much of the remainder. Research has documented a 34% shift in coverage bias following Nine Entertainment's acquisitions, illustrating how ownership concentration shapes political reporting.
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Politico CEO Goli Sheikholeslami identified this gap directly. "No one is doing exactly what Politico is about, which is policy, intelligence, and covering politics and policy from a vertical perspective in a really deep way," she told Semafor. "It also made me think: We should fill the space before someone else does."
Politico's editorial model targets policymakers, advisers, lobbyists, and executives rather than general audiences. This mirrors the Politico Pro subscription model operating in the US since 2011, positioning the Canberra Playbook as a professional intelligence product rather than a general news site.
Indo-Pacific Context and the Competitive Information Environment
Politico's entry arrives as English-language political media in Asia-Pacific faces growing competition from state-backed sources. Xinhua had established content-sharing agreements with at least 12 Thai media outlets by 2019, alongside partnerships in Indonesia and the Philippines. Freedom House has documented Beijing's media influence across 30 partly free countries.
Despite that investment, a 2021 ASEAN elite survey recorded high distrust of China among regional decision-makers, pointing to unmet demand for independent political intelligence in the region.
Politico is backed by Axel Springer SE, the German media company that acquired the publication after 2021. That financial backing gives the Australia launch significantly more runway than independent digital political media startups.
Timeline and Next Steps
Mediaweek reports that the editorial and business build-out will follow the initial Playbook launch. The Brussels Playbook precedent suggests the Canberra product could become a primary channel for policy narrative placement within two to three years of launch.
The Q3 2026 launch date gives organizations with Indo-Pacific interests approximately six months before the publication reaches its initial operational scale.
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