New media money? Hannah Ferguson and The Daily Aus’ Zara Seidler hit the Sydney property market

OpinionCBD columnistNovember 5, 2026 — 5:00amNovember 5, 2026 — 5:00amQuestions over the success of Australia’s social media-focused news aggregators and commentators have become a source of intrigue in media circles ever since they arrived in Canberra to cover the federal budget for the first time last year.Just how viable these businesses are – the most prominent being The Daily Aus and Cheek Media – remains an open question. But at the very least, business appears to be going well enough for their founders to crack into the Sydney real estate market.Zara Seidler (left), co-founder of The Daily Aus, and Hannah Ferguson, founder of Cheek Media, have both cracked the Sydney property market this year.Among the nation’s new media property owners is none other than Hannah Ferguson, the 28-year-old founder of Cheek Media and political aspirant, who bought in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s seat of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west this year.Ferguson and her partner settled on a humble one-bedroom apartment in the electorate for $775,000 in late May, according to title documents seen by CBD. Ferguson, a former unionist, has become one of the most influential young voices in Australian politics. She declined to comment.Cheek Media has about 264,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 subscribers on Substack. Ferguson herself has an audience of 160,000 on Instagram, and also co-hosts the Big Small Talk podcast.Not a bad built-in political base, if you ask us. Earlier this year, Ferguson told her fans she’d step back from Cheek sometime next year to start campaigning for Albanese’s seat. But that hasn’t stopped her posting to her loyal supporter base in the meantime. At least now she can look forward to hitting the pavement for votes in her electorate as a bona fide local.Ferguson, though, wasn’t the only member of the new media set to crack the Sydney property market this year. Another was Zara Seidler, co-founder of The Daily Aus, the social media news outfit that reaches more than 657,000 people on Instagram alone.It looks like business at TDA can’t be all that bad because Seidler and her husband, Oliver Hoffman, settled on a beautiful four-bedroom home in Bondi for $4.1 million in August, according to title documents seen by CBD. Seidler declined to comment.One Nation NSW leader Mike Newman spotted on the street in Sydney’s CBD on Wednesday afternoon.But that isn’t to suggest that TDA is a money-printing machine. Hoffman hasn’t done badly for himself: last year, his start-up was acquired by the link-in-bio platform Linktree for an undisclosed sum. (Our guess is the terms were OK.)All in, the house has space for two cars, open living, and a granite gas kitchen. Congrats to the happy couple!Spotted: Roving Mike NewmanFor a man who is meant to be based in the Hunter Valley, One Nation’s NSW leader Mike Newman seems to be spending a lot of time in Sydney’s CBD.Regular readers may recall it was only last month the unelected candidate for Cessnock was kicked out of the chamber during a visit to parliament.Well, Newman was back in the area again on Wednesday, spotted loitering outside 52 Martin Place, phone in hand, fitted with what appeared to be an orange case.When asked about the appearance, a One Nation NSW spokeswoman told us the leader was just having lunch with One Nation’s federal member for Farrer, David Farley.“One Nation NSW Leader Mike Newman is meeting today with the Member for Farrer, David Farley, to discuss critical water policy facing NSW,” the One Nation spokeswoman told CBD.“Mr Farley, One Nation’s federal spokesman on water with decades of experience in the agricultural sector, is right now providing Mr Newman with a detailed briefing on the challenges confronting regional communities, irrigators and systems across the state.”Anthropic’s data centre whispererIt looks like AI data centre backlash has become so intense in Australia that Anthropic is now on the hunt for a “community engagement manager”, who will be tasked with surfacing “concerns before they escalate” and peddling the “clear local benefits” of the company’s plans.“We are looking for a Community Engagement Manager in Australia to join our Public Policy team and serve as Anthropic’s on-the-ground presence in the communities where our data centres are sited, built, and operated,” reads a recent job posting. Anthropic declined to comment.“This is not a communications role or a government affairs role, though you will do elements of both. It is a relationship role: your job is to make Anthropic a trusted, visible, and valued neighbour, from the earliest stages of site selection through construction and long-term operations.”A valued neighbour! Godspeed to whoever gets that gig. After all, it wasn’t that long ago residents of Lane Cove were up in arms over a major data centre project proposed by the ASX-listed Goodman Group. That failed project would’ve erected a data centre just 20 metres from the nearest house.The backlash isn’t unique to Australia. The politics of AI have become a live electoral issue in the United States, where Anthropic’s rival, OpenAI, even has its own celebrity whisperer to improve public perception around the technology.Anthropic, meanwhile, is eyeing Australia as a key market in its plans to build more data centres and is closing in on a hotly anticipated public market debut. No doubt the Claude maker will take all the help it can get.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.From our partners