Big bumbling boy of Western civilisation classes up the AFR business awards

This morning we’ve been treated to The Australian Financial Review‘s coverage of its own annual Business Person of the Year awards, which “recognises Australia’s top leaders, builders, pioneers and CEOs”. The criteria appear to be “already be stonkingly rich and getting richer”, as evidenced by the winner: low-profile philanthropist and WA’s Person of the Year, Gina Rinehart. According to the Fin, the list of nominees

demonstrates how entrepreneurial mavericks have been able to ride some of the big themes in the global economy: the critical minerals race, the energy transition, and the ever-increasing use of data in a world that will be increasingly powered by artificial intelligence.

A global economy dominated by billionaires grasping for ever-larger shares of our attention and data to feed increasingly powerful artificial intelligence? What could possibly go wrong?

Among the glamorous photos of the evening, we see the cream of business and political figures — and also Boris Johnson. We get why it would be awkward for Nine chairman Peter Costello not to invite former high-ranking Liberals such as Josh Frydenberg and Julie Bishop, but what the hell was the disgraced former UK PM doing there?

What insights was Johnson there to provide? To demonstrate via his time in government — the relentless calamity of which, following a landslide victory in 2019, continues to publicly grow and grow — how to trash a successful brand? To give AFR journos inspiration with the litany of fabricated stories he produced pre-politics? What possible reason could there be to continue our national pastime of convincing him he’s still relevant?

The other lesson of the awards is a simple and sobering one: no matter how successful you get, you can’t escape the rendering of David Rowe: