Australia's population is also very digitally savvy, with very high smartphone penetration population and the third-highest proportion of social media users in the world. These characteristics make Australia a very attractive destination for us. And in fact, HuffPost already receives 2 million unique visitors each month from Australia, which is among the highest audiences for any country without its own edition. Q: Why did you pick a partner here instead of going solo–was it to get immediate access to agency briefs from existing and established ad sales teams? JM: Our ability to partner with established local players has been critical to the success of our rapid international expansion over the past two years. We have created a very effective repeatable model that has enabled us to enter new markets and establish strong positions very quickly. It also allows us to combine our global expertise and resources with a genuine and strong local editorial voice and deep understanding of the local market.

Q: You have a 51 per cent stake. Is this a common approach with all of your international joint ventures and why? JM: Yes, this is a common feature of our international joint ventures. It is a sign of our commitment to the markets that we enter. We have had great success partnering with very strong local brands, but we also maintain active control in those partnerships to ensure that the HuffPost DNA is replicated throughout our international editions. It has been a very successful strategy. Q: You spoke to several organisations here, including News Corp. Why did you go with Fairfax? JM: We were fortunate to have had a great deal of interest from several major news organisations in Australia. Having spent a great deal of time getting to know the team at Fairfax, we believe that they will be a very strong partner both from a journalistic and operational standpoint.

In particular, their independent values, proud journalistic heritage, existing digital capabilities and strong commercial relationships make them a great partner for The Huffington Post. Q: What is the scale of the commercial opportunity here? JM: Australia is a very attractive destination for us from a commercial point of view. It is a very established digital economy with a still-emerging digital media landscape. Australians are very well-connected, with the sixth highest rate of internet penetration in the world, and 85 per cent smartphone penetration. At the same time, Australia's digital media transition has been somewhat slower than other similar economies. For example, print revenues only began to decline in 2008, three years later than we saw in the United States, and still only five out of 10 news consumers regularly consume online news, so there is a great deal of audience upside there. Similarly, there is also a significant shift under way in Australia's advertising landscape, with online advertising spend forecast to considerably outpace all other advertising, particularly from mobile spend, which is still significantly under-indexed with considerable room for growth.

Altogether, this makes us very excited about the scale of the commercial opportunity in Australia. Q: The Nielsen online ratings show HuffPo is not currently in the top 10 news sites in Australia. What number do you think you can get to within two years? JM: We only launch in a market if we have a realistic expectation of breaking even within three years, and we expect to be able to build a top-five player in the category in three to five years. Q. What can HuffPost offer in Australia editorially that existing players here do not?Australia is a relatively small country with 23 million people and has already seen the arrival of The Guardianand the Daily Mail. Isn't the market here getting crowded? Arianna Huffington: Well, first of all, we don't think of any new market, region or country as a zero-sum game. Even though there are challenges on the business side, we really are living in a sort of golden age for journalism.

There's no shortage of great journalism being done by, as you say, The Guardian, Daily Mail and dozens of smaller, niche outlets. And there's no shortage of people hungering for it. We also believe The Huffington Post is a unique product, offering people a singular combination of Pulitzer prize-winning journalism, storytelling and tools for engagement and connection. So there are always going to be more and more great digital media players, journalism outlets andsites that create engagement in ways that people respond to. I say the more the better. Q: What will be your editorial direction and/or raison d'etre? AH: As we expand, we're careful to do it while staying true to our core DNA, and HuffPost Australia will be no exception. For us that means engagement, connection, relentlessly staying on stories we care about, shining a light on what's working, helping people live thriving lives full of more meaning, purpose, and with less stress and burnout.

Plus, of course, encouraging a two-way conversation with our platform, where people from all walks of life can tell their stories for themselves. Q: What mix of local and international content can we expect? AH: The range we'll offer for HuffPost Australia, as with all our other editions, will be as big as possible –from global stories and trends, to hyper-local stories about what's going on in people's communities, workplaces, backyards, and even in their inner lives. That's about as local as it gets! Q: Will you carry a local version of the "good news" page and can we expect a similar focus on topics such as mindfulness, compassion and well-being? AH: Absolutely on all counts. On the first, it's not just "good news" per se, but more about giving our readers the entire picture. Not just violence, corruption and disaster – we'll certainly cover those – but also how people are responding, rising to the challenge and coming together to create solutions.

By shining a light on these people and what they're doing, we can help scale up their efforts, create a positive contagion and broaden the reach of what's working to connect with more people. And, yes, we'll also be covering how people can use mindfulness to enhance their well-being. In recent years we've covered the ways in which meditation and mindfulness have finally stopped being seen as alternative and have fully entered the mainstream. Across the world, more and more people, as well as companies, schools and organizations, are realising that our definition of success – based on burnout, stress and overwork –is broken. So we'll continue to cover all the ways in which people are thriving in our modern world. Q: Do you see any need for more counterbalance to the right-leaning Murdoch press and if so will HuffPost seek to provide it? AH: We don't really think of ourselves in left-right terms, and I think putting everything into that zero-sum framework doesn't really work any more. It often leads to thinking that the solutions to all of our problems are found by splitting the difference in the middle.

So no matter what other outlets are doing, we're going to be covering our core political and economic concerns as we always have, which, for us, include the declining middle class, jobs, economic growth, inequality, social mobility, and accountability and transparency from our government and our leaders. Q: Will you encourage local bloggers and contributors here (presumably contributing for free as elsewhere)? AH: We'll definitely encourage Australians to use our platform to make their voices heard. This will include not just bloggers, but local and national government leaders, teachers, experts, activists, entertainers, athletes, entrepreneurs, religious leaders –in short, anybody from any background who has something to say, a story to tell, a solution or idea, and wants a platform to get it to as many people as possible.