Mellish won a Walkley Award for business journalism in 2006 for a series of articles he wrote in November 2005, which revealed the details of former Reserve Bank of Australia board member Robert Gerard's 14-year battle with the Australian Taxation Office.
In 2006, Mellish also became a foreign correspondent for the Australian Financial Review in Indonesia, based at the publication's Jakarta bureau.
Morgan Mellish was one of 3 Australians, 2 Americans and 16 Indonesians killed when Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 crashed at Yogyakarta airport on 7 March 2007.
On 13 June 2008, the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) launched the Morgan Mellish Fund, a scholarship to train Indonesian journalists in business and economics.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd inaugurated the memorial fund during a luncheon at the JW Marriott Hotel.