Joe Aston

Sydney

Founder and Writer at Rampart

Columnist at Australian Financial Review

Founder of @rampart_news, former @FinancialReview columnist. My book on @Qantas, The Chairman’s Lounge, out now.

Featured in: Favicon

afr.com

smh.com.au Favicon

theage.com.au Favicon

brisbanetimes.com.au Favicon

watoday.com.au Favicon

abc.net.au Favicon

rampart.news

Articles

Planet Ark directors recycle their reputations

2 days ago | afr.com | Joe Aston

Jun 6, 2025 – 9.00am or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? This week in Rampart, I gave short shrift to the latest wailing from predictable quarters – David Gonski and his trade union, the Australian Institute of Company Directors – about the frightening liability risks that allegedly loom over public company boards.
The myths of David Gonski

4 days ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

On Thursday evening, the godhead of company directors, David Gonski, received a lifetime achievement award at the Australian Financial Review's inaugural director awards. Gonski's career is a triumph in the eyes of fellow company directors, all of whom aspire to emulate him, but certainly not to public company shareholders. Objectively, his track record is not great. Westfield has been the great success, which had sweet FA to do with him.
Star directors the masters of their fate

5 days ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Last Monday, Justice Michael Lee – yes, him again – was grappling aloud with the reasonable expectations of former directors of Star Entertainment, several of whom are in Federal Court defending civil penalty proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Those directors' defence, when it's boiled down, is that they couldn't have been expected to comprehend Star's dodgy dealings because they were buried so deep in the board papers.
Macquarie bonuses enter new dimension

1 week ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

After spending half of last week in Federal Court trying to follow the rococo English of senior counsel, I desperately needed some light reading. Macquarie Group's latest financial accounts – released nearly three weeks back – felt like the logical place to start. Two things stood out to me. The first was the remuneration outcome of Ben Way, the divisional head of Macquarie Asset Management, who earned $20.6 million in financial 2025.
Min Res charm offensive

1 week ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

At 10:30 on Wednesday morning, mining analysts and investors will set off from the port of Ashburton on a taut three-hour bus ride along Mineral Resources' infamous private haul road to its Ken's Bore iron ore mine.
Qantas' epic legal backsplash | Rampart

2 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Qantas' chief people officer Catherine Walsh joined the airline in February 2024.[[The position of chief people officer was eradicated by Alan Joyce in 2017 upon the retirement of Jon Scriven, when human resources was shoved under Rob Marcolina, then the head of corporate strategy, and industrial relations fatefully folded under general counsel Andrew Finch.
Computer says no Brian Hartzer

2 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Every so often, former Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer emerges from semi-obscurity to delight us with his child-like ingenuousness.
Qantas back in Federal Court

3 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

The Transport Workers' Union of Australia v Qantas Airways Limited returns to the Federal Court on Monday – and, specifically, to the courtroom of Justice Michael Lee. This is the final battle in the 4½-year legal war between the union representing 1,700 baggage handlers and the national carrier that used its "vanishing window of opportunity" – COVID lockdowns – to unlawfully discard them.
NAB goes Fargo | Rampart

3 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

March 17 was a day of high embarrassment for National Australia Bank and its relatively new chief executive Andrew Irvine. That morning, he was forced to announce the shock departure of his CFO Nathan Goonan to be Anthony Miller's CFO at Westpac.
The silence of Fortescue's Noel Pearson

3 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

In lingering grief more than schadenfreude, Indigenous leader Noel Pearson seethed in The Weekend Australian on Saturday over Peter Dutton's defeat of the Voice referendum in October 2023. "The problem for the Liberal Party was the remaining 6.2 million Australians who voted for the Voice included many whom Dutton needed (last) Saturday," Pearson wrote. "Only his black brothers and sisters, and their children, know anything of the pain that now consumes Dutton".