About two weeks after The Australian Financial Review Magazine’s Power list panel met to finalise the 2024 lists, teal independent Allegra Spender walked into the paper’s Canberra bureau seeking a favour. She was not on either the covert or overt lists and, technically, she should not have known who was.

Our panellists are asked to keep the lists secret until they’re published. The same is asked of those who make the lists and are approached for fresh portrait photos. Spender was visiting the Financial Review’s press gallery office on behalf of Simon Holmes à Court, founder of Climate 200, the funding powerhouse behind the teal movement.