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2022: Financial Review's 70 years of Australian business
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2022: Financial Review's 70 years of Australian business

The highs and lows of Australian business over the past 70 years, narrated by former Financial Review columnist Trevor Sykes.

  • Updated
Nick Greiner still recalls the Harvard Business School MBA ‘cold call’.

The leaders who answered the Harvard ‘cold call’

Nick Greiner, Tony Berg and Bill Ferris from Harvard Business School’s class of 1970 describe the terror and exhilaration of pitting themselves against the world’s best.

  • Updated
  • Edmund Tadros
Nathan Tinkler built a coal empire but it came crashing down.

The corporate collapse of the 2010s: from billionaire to bankrupt

Nathan Tinkler rode the coal boom during the 2010s to become Australia’s richest person under the age of 40 and then went broke in a blaze of publicity.

  • Andrew Clark
Zebediah Rice says Australia now employs many more people in its tech sector than in mining.

Why Australia became the VC lucky country in the 2010s

After many setbacks, Australia’s venture capital start-up industry started achieving critical mass – “the most important change” in our capital markets.

  • Andrew Clark
Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister after replacing Kevin Rudd in a party room vote, kicking off a decade of political turbulence.

How Australia became the ‘coup capital’ of the world in the 2010s

A political ‘Game of Thrones’ prevented Australia from having a credible energy policy and complicated its management of a souring relationship with China as tech companies led a corporate makeover.

  • Andrew Clark

The booms, the busts, the empire-builders, the fraudsters and the disruptors tell the story of the rise of modern Australia.

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March 2022

A new destiny built on the mining boom

AFR Classic | On July 20, 1973, AFR political correspondent Maximilian Walsh, who died last week, praised the Whitlam government for striking a blow against Australia’s protectionist history.

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china australia generic rowe

The ‘China effect’: how the resources boom galvanised Australia

Galloping Chinese demand for our resources transformed the Australian economy in the first 10 years of the new millennium, but the GFC and end-of-decade political turmoil put the country on edge. 

  • Andrew Clark
Morgan Mellish won a Walkley for his reporting on the tax affairs of Robert Gerard.

Financial Review in the 2000s: a brilliant journalist’s life cut short

Laconic, a beach lover, surfer, rock climber and adventurer, Morgan Mellish also had a rare gift for pursuing a story.  

  • Andrew Clark
The HIH implosion was arguably Australia’s most significant collapse. From left: Ray Williams, Malcolm Turnbull and Rodney Adler.

Why this was Australia’s most significant corporate collapse

The $5.3 billion HIH implosion wiped out more than many high-profile reputations. It cut a swath through the insurance industry, and overhauled the regulatory regime. 

  • Andrew Clark
Marius Kloppers was instrumental in the push for a spot price and managed to convince Chinese steelmakers to drop the annual contracts in favour of the price of the day in March 2010.

Fear and loathing at BHP and Rio Tinto

Spying, intrigue, fears over the safety of BHP’s CEO: welcome to the rough-house world of noughties iron ore price negotiations.

  • Andrew Clark
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AFR dinner attendees John Howard, Anna Bligh, Alan Joyce, Kate Howitt, Amanda Lacaze, Ann Sherry.

Who reads the AFR? Leading Australians share their memories

What influential business people and politicians at the AFR 70th birthday dinner in Sydney said about their history with the newspaper.

Does a black tie dress code freak you out? You’re not alone

We’ve spent two years in activewear and fleece. As we head back out, have the rules for dressing up changed?

  • Lauren Sams
The Financial Review’s commentary was welcomed in PM Bob Hawke’s office.

Champion of an open, competitive economy

The principles that The Australian Financial Review has argued for over the decades are once again under threat.

  • Craig Emerson

February 2022

The major media players went to battle for the future of Fairfax in the 1990s.

The death threats and secret meetings behind battle to control Fairfax

The media landscape was transformed in the 1990s as moguls reigned supreme and a nasty takeover battle for Fairfax played out.

  • Andrew Clark
John Howard on a walk in Sydney on Sunday 4 October 1998 after celebrating win at Election.

Aspiration nation: how competition, the GST and the internet changed Australia

After the ‘recession we had to have’, Australia went on to notch up the first of three decades of uninterrupted economic growth, writes Andrew Clark.

  • Andrew Clark
Development of its giant Olympic Dam at Roxby Downs in South Australia led to WMC setting records in the mid 90s in the production of nickel, aluminium, copper, and gold.

Why Australian miners ‘got big or got out’ in the 1990s

Iron ore miners became more profitable as China loomed larger, but the end of Japan’s post-war boom dented demand for Australian minerals.

  • Andrew Clark
Tim Marcus Clark.

The inside story of the big banking collapses of the 1990s

The spectacular unravelling of the state banks of Victoria and South Australia also destroyed two state Labor governments.

  • Andrew Clark

Investors’ interest left out of the public issue equation

AFR Classic | The stock exchange announcement of November 1965, reported in the Financial Review, resonates with us when we read about the cartel case now.

Newton was an extraordinary media force

AFR Classic | A great and idiosyncratic editor at two newspapers, Maxwell Newton brought informed scepticism to his role, the editorial of July 25, 1990 noted.

AFR

Press must leave Parliament to do better

AFR Classic | Donald Horne’s verdict on the Canberra press as the worst in 40 years is noteworthy, wrote Gregory Hywood in the Financial Review on June 15, 1990.

  • Gregory Hywood
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Rodney Adler (left) with his father Larry in 1988.

Larry Adler’s fatalist approach to life

AFR Classic | The HIH founder wasn’t worried about having “another” heart attack when Ruth Ostrow profiled him on July 29, 1985. He died of one three years later.

Peter Ruehl column in the Financial Review of 28 August 1989.

Having fun with a new Mercedes

AFR Classic | Columnist Peter Ruehl, a proud American, related the joys and high telecoms costs of fathering a daughter in August 1989. Now, his daughter has become a mother herself.

  • Peter Ruehl
Russell Goward, deputy general manager of IEL in 1983.

‘I’m a very greedy person’: Russell Goward before the fall

AFR Classic | Russell Goward was corporate raider Ron Brierley’s chief executive before he went out on his own. Joseph Dowling interviewed him in London in August 1987 before the fall.

January 2022

Corporate titan John Spalvins in 1987.

John Spalvins: ‘Everything was possible in the ’80s’

In the 1980s, John Spalvins was riding high. But by the end of the decade he was not celebrating.

  • Andrew Clark
Then prime minister Bob Hawke and treasurer Paul Keating on budget day, 1987.

The ’80s: the pivotal decade for Australia’s prosperity

The resounding lesson of the 1980s is that, with enough ambition and resolve, Australia can remain one of the world’s most prosperous and successful nations.

  • The AFR View

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/platinum70