This will be the last regular Rear Window column of the year, both your columnists taking what we in the business call a Well-Earned Break until January 21. While we idle the days away, Kenneth Hayne and staff will be frantically penning the final report of the financial services royal commission.

And some of those who've spent most of the year covering the hearings will also be hard at work, breaking the back of manuscripts on the whole shebang owed to their publishers shortly after the final report lobs in February.