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Clay Lucas

Clay Lucas

Clay Lucas is an investigative reporter at The Age who has covered urban affairs, state and federal politics, industrial relations, health and aged care. Email him at clucas@theage.com.au or claylucas@protonmail.com, or via Signal +61439828128.

The completed first stage of the West Footscray data centre.

West Footscray data centre bids to double in size amid ‘nightmare’ construction

One of the biggest facilities in the city is eyeing a $750 million expansion, as the company seeks fast-track approval to meet booming demand.

  • Gemma Grant and Clay Lucas

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Data centres have sparked an intense debate in Victoria over the long-term value.

The energy vampire next door: Life next to an AI mega-factory

Billions of dollars are pouring into data centres to fuel the AI revolution but residents and experts warn the state is ignoring the hidden cost to power, water and peace.

  • Clay Lucas and Daniella White
Con Christopoulos at his venue, The European restaurant.

It took me months to interview the man behind Melbourne’s laneway culture. Few people even know his name

For 40 years, Con Christopoulos has run dozens of the city’s most recognisable venues - yet few Melburnians have heard of him. In the third instalment of an Age series profiling the city’s restaurant tycoons, we look at how he built a dining empire.

  • Clay Lucas
Premier Jacinta Allan with NextDC CEO Craig Scroggie in one of the data centre’s Melbourne premises.

$1b data centre given planning tick in just 75 days as state gets cosy with big tech

Victoria fast-tracked a $1b data centre in Port Melbourne through planning in 75 days, as its jobs minister met technology chiefs 16 times in 2025, as the state goes all in on big tech.

  • Clay Lucas and Daniella White
A licensing assessor working for Victoria’s building commission took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

The building official undone by sniffer dogs and $707,000 in hidden cash

A Victorian licensing assessor who helped 69 builders pass testing for cash has pleaded guilty to being part of a bribery ring.

  • Clay Lucas
Jarrod West is an Indigenous man and former firefighter who received tens of thousands of dollars of CityLink fines in the immediate aftermath of 2009’s deadly Black Saturday bushfires. A book, Footsteps in the Ash, and our own reporting show that Jarrod at age 19 was the main firefighter involved in a very traumatic rescue in Strathewen of a badly burned young girl, whose mother, father and sister all died of burns.

Thousands face imprisonment over ‘zombie warrants’ from repealed fines law

Thousands of Victorians face imprisonment from “zombie” arrest warrants for unpaid fines under laws repealed in 2017 after parliament admitted they were unjust.

  • Clay Lucas
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The West Gate Tunnel will open Sunday.

Troubled until the end, West Gate Tunnel to open Sunday

The West Gate Tunnel is three years behind schedule and billions over budget, but it is finally opening to motorists.

  • Kieran Rooney, Clay Lucas and Patrick Hatch
The TGA has concerns that the loopholes offered by telehealth have fueled an explosion in cannabis prescriptions.

There’s a loophole in telehealth – the industry ‘drove a Mack truck through it’

Telehealth has turbocharged several Australian medical sectors – including cannabis. The regulator has warned it’s also enabling unchecked prescribing and unsafe care as oversight struggles to catch up.

  • Clay Lucas
Colin Waters and partner Rae at home in their Avondale Heights retirement villa on Wednesday.

‘Avoidable failures’: Government defies watchdog on compensation for flood victims

Residents in one of the worst hit areas of Melbourne’s 2022 floods should get compensation, the Victorian Ombudsman has said in a scathing review.

  • Clay Lucas
John, who was autistic and whose family asked that his surname be withheld, choked to death on a piece of banana bread.

Spike in food choking deaths exposes systemic failures in residential care

Choking deaths more than doubled to 38 in Victoria last year, exposing predictable failures in mealtime care for vulnerable residents.

  • Clay Lucas