By Kishor Napier-Raman and Liam Mannix
Boot-scootin’ Peter Dutton.Credit: John Shakespeare
Deep down, we’ve always suspected what Australia’s richest people really want is to be loved.
The “anxious billionaire” thesis explains much of Gina Rinehart’s recent behaviour, from fostering a cult of personality among our swimmers that would make the Kim family blush, to waging a proxy war with fellow mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest for control of the True Blue Aussie apparel market.
In some countries, billionaires buy football clubs. For our resource moguls, tapping into the public’s misty-eyed love of nostalgic Australiana is a far cheaper form of image-laundering.
And so, the bushwear arms race kicked off when Twiggy picked up RM Williams in 2020. It went next level when he added hatters Akubra to his stable last year.
Rinehart, meanwhile, acquired both Driza-Bone coats and the more budget friendly bootmakers Rossi in late 2023. The trouble for Australia’s richest person is that Forrest’s RMs already have a lock on the feet of the country’s ruling class from the cabinet table to the High Court bench.
But what Rinehart does have is far better traction with the federal opposition than Forrest, who is long suspected by conservatives (and some of his rival big miners) to have “gone woke” when he started talking about renewables all the time.
Barnaby Joyce has ditched his RMs to protest against Twiggy’s latest windfarm: he was spotted in a $500 Rinehart-sponsored hat recently. While traditionally an RMs man, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who this year flew to Perth and back just to spend an hour at Rinehart’s 70th birthday party, has gone full Rossi bootfluencer of late.
He donned a pair at Beef Week in Rockhampton in May, and he wore them during a recent trip to Israel. And earlier this month, while at the Mt Isa Rodeo with Bob Katter and Akubra chief executive Natalie Culina, Dutton flexed his Rossis even while wearing a Twiggy-owned headpiece.
What Rinehart doesn’t have that Twiggy does is a boot made in Australia. Since Forrest’s acquisition, RMs have been reshoring manufacturing. Although Rossi’s website proclaims the boots are “made in Australia since 1910”, they’re actually made in Indonesia. That even goes for those infamous lurid gold Rossis that Rinehart gifted to Olympic medallists during an exclusive cruise on the Seine in Paris.
Local manufacturing of Rossis was already winding down before Rinehart bought the brand. The final pair was made in the Adelaide factory last year. Luckily for those remaining employees, their CFMEU reps were able to find them new jobs ... at RM Williams.
POLITICAL COMEBACK
Every federal election campaign features “That Guy”, the candidate whose prospects of victory, however slim, are blown up by some embarrassing, and often totally avoidable scandal.
In 2007, That Guy was Andrew Quah, who was dumped by the Family First party after decidedly family unfriendly photos of his penis started appearing on adult websites.
Quah’s response turned what could’ve been another non-story about a goofy minor party candidate into national news.
“But that’s not my penis,” he said, claiming images of him might have been photoshopped.
“I might have been drunk off my face or my political enemies might have drugged me.”
Fair play to Quah, because 17 years later, he’s having another crack at elected politics. The self-described entrepreneur, music teacher, “western Sydney zealot” and “champion bonsai artist” is running for Cumberland Council as an independent, after a stint on the local planning panel.
And when contacted by CBD on Monday, he was quite candid about his past campaign.
“I woke up one day and discovered interviews I’d supposedly given I’d never given, photos purporting to be of me that weren’t me were all over the internet,” he told CBD, claiming the photos were the result of a high school-style prank from a former colleague.
“The reality is that back then we didn’t have the capacity to deal with revenge porn, both legally and as a society,” Quah said.
“Quite frankly, it’s time people got over it, and instead of going after the low-hanging fruit, start talking to me about how to improve the community.”
In fairness to Andrew, at least he managed to get his forms in on time. Unlike some.
TIRED TO WIRED
“The truth is I’m tired. Extremely tired. In fact, I’m exhausted,” Mark McGowan said as he abruptly stepped down as West Australian premier last May.
Clearly, the man Westralians once called “State Daddy” for keeping those yucky virus-ridden hordes from the east coast out is feeling rested. On Monday, McGowan landed his fifth job since leaving office: non-executive chairman of renewables company Frontier Energy. It’s a tough life!
In WA, where the revolving door between politics and the fossil fuel industry moves at breakneck speed, McGowan’s first roles came, naturally, at BHP and Mineral Resources. The Frontier job balances the ledger somewhat in favour of renewables. In between those gigs, the former premier picked up jobs at workforce service provider APM and former federal treasurer Joe Hockey’s Bondi Partners.
And he’s been popping up more and more in Parliament House, we hear.
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