Barnaby Joyce is hardly the first person to profit from a paid interview in Australia. The $150,000 (reportedly to be held in a trust for his six-week-old son Sebastian) isn’t the highest we’ve seen, and his circumstances (a working politician cashing in on his private life) aren’t the grubbiest.

Nevertheless, we’re marking this story by taking a look back at some of the most memorable Australian cases of chequebook journalism.

Stuart Diver

The sole survivor of the Thredbo disaster in 1997, Stuart Diver’s story was highly sought-after by the networks. Seven won the television rights to tell his story, for a rumoured $250,000, and the Australian Women’s Weekly mopped up the rights for a print interview. He was also made a commentator for Seven’s coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics.

Todd Russell and Brant Webb

One of the biggest payouts for an interview, the Beaconsfield mining disaster survivors Todd Russell and Brant Webb were paid $2.6 million by Seven for a two-hour special interview called The Great Escape.

Bob Hawke and Blanche D’Alpuget

The former PM and his now-wife told the story of their affair to Woman’s Day in a memorable interview and photoshoot (in their bathrobes) for a reported $200,000 in 1995.

Sally Faulkner

Even before the millions of dollars Nine spent on legal fees when its 60 Minutes team was arrested in Lebanon while covering (and conspiring in) a botched child-snatching, the current affairs program was forking out. Rather than paying the children’s mother Sally Faulkner directly, the program had paid $69,000 and promised a total of $115,000 to the agency planning to bring her children back to Australia.

Lindy Chamberlain

After Lindy Chamberlain was acquitted of her baby Azaria’s 1980 murder at Uluru, she was reportedly paid $250,000 by Nine for the rights to her story. Twenty years on, in 2000 she again spoke to Nine (60 Minutes) for another reported $250,000, and she went back to the same network’s A Current Affair in 2012 after the most recent coronial findings into Azaria’s death. ACA shared a 2004 exclusive with Woman’s Day, paying Chamberlain between $75,000 and $150,000 for a story about allegations Azaria was buried in a Melbourne backyard.

Schapelle Corby

The family of Australia’s favourite drug-runner Schapelle Corby has raked it in since Corby’s arrest in Bali in 2004. As well as the proceeds of her book (some of which was seized by authorities under proceeds of crime legislation), Corby and her family have sold various parts of their stories over the years, including magazine and television interviews. Mercedes appeared on the cover of men’s magazine Ralph magazine in 2008 for an undisclosed sum. In just the first year after Corby’s arrest, it was reported that her mother and sister were paid $130,000 for exclusive interviews. Rumours of a $2 million deal with Seven on her 2014 release were scuppered when the interview was canned and replaced with her sister Mercedes.

Michelle Leslie

In 2006, Nine reportedly again forked out for an Australian facing drugs charges — $600,000 for an interview with model Michelle Leslie, who was arrested and convicted on drugs charges in Indonesia. While she was still in prison, New Idea paid more than $50,000 for an interview and photoshoot.

Gordon Wood

Nine’s 60 Minutes paid $200,000 for an interview in 2012 with Gordon Wood, the man acquitted of killing his girlfriend Caroline Byrne. That interview followed an infamous exchange with the current Media Watch host Paul Barry in another paid interview on Seven’s now-defunct Witness program in 1998, where Wood asks: “Do you think I did it?”.  Wood also gave a paid interview to The Australian Women’s Weekly.

Wayne Carey

In an especially grubby effort, New Idea paid footballer Wayne Carey and his then-girlfriend Kate Neilsen $180,000 to speak about him assaulting her — cutting her face with a wine glass he threw at her. Quotes included: “Wayne isn’t violent — not at all… That’s not to say our relationship hasn’t been volatile, but that’s (only) at times.”

Douglas Wood

In 2005 and better days for the Ten Network, it paid a reported $400,000 for an interview with Douglas Wood, an Australian engineer held hostage in Iraq for 47 days who saw his Iraqi assistants executed in front of him.

NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the date of Bob Hawke and Blanche d’Alpuget’s appearance in Woman’s Day.