Joe Aston

Sydney

Founder and Writer at Rampart

Columnist at Australian Financial Review

Former @FinancialReview columnist. My book on @Qantas, The Chairman’s Lounge, out in October 2024.

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Articles

The silence of Fortescue's Noel Pearson

3 days 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".
L1 Capital's history boys

6 days ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Regal Funds Management chief executive Brendan O'Connor told the Macquarie conference on Tuesday that Regal walked away from its proposed acquisition of Platinum Asset Management in December because "they wanted too high (a) price for the business, which frankly is a falling knife or a melting ice cube in terms of funds under management". This was Regal seeking to portray itself as a disciplined acquirer at a beauty parade of public companies hawking their equity. No surprise there.
Steve McCann's drag Star act

1 week ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Star Entertainment's December-half accounts were finally released last month, just as soon as the failing casino group clinched a (temporary) rescue deal with its largest shareholder Bruce Mathieson and US gaming giant Bally's.
Westpac sinks to Carolyn McCann

1 week ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

I'm sure you're all excited for the election to be over and for Australia to continue its terminal decline under the leadership of someone deeply unqualified to meet the moment. We don't know who that person is just yet, but we can already be confident of their determination to underwhelm us.
We are being led by numpties

1 week ago | afr.com | Joe Aston

May 2, 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? After tomorrow, we’ll be left alone. Clive Palmer’s SMS spamming will cease. The Instagram feeds of marginal seat residents will be un-besieged by political advertising. Network television – for the boomers still watching – will return to normal programming, as will Australia’s inexorable economic decline.
The travel perks of company directors

2 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

I made my way to the Mornington Peninsula on Anzac Day – conveyed by Qantas without incident – for the Sorrento Writers Festival. The writers' festival circuit is a new world to me, and its inhabitants strike me as well ensconced. In my first five minutes in the bustling lobby of Sorrento's InterContinental hotel, I clocked Barrie Cassidy, David Marr and George Megalogenis, like I'd stumbled onto the set of Insiders in 2005. Then came Kerry O'Brien, Norman Swan, Virginia Trioli and Kim Williams.
ASX explains itself. Poorly

3 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

The extraordinary tedium of the federal election campaign continues and, for the maintenance of sanity, is best ignored. In a moment of exasperation last week, I overrode my best instincts to lament the lack of scrutiny being applied to Anthony Albanese. Anecdotal evidence is hazardous to extrapolate, but it was interesting to me that this piece resonated especially with my Labor friends.
Regal now blind and unfashionable

4 weeks ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

Clients of Regal Funds Management are digesting the carnage across its latest performance numbers, released on Wednesday. In the three months to March 31, Regal's global absolute return fund was down 40 per cent; its global tactical opportunities fund was down 22 per cent; its Australian small companies fund was down 19 per cent; its global market neutral fund was down 18 per cent; and its Australian long-short fund was down 11 per cent.
Le grand tour d'Albanese

1 month ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

I've always subscribed to George Orwell's definition that "Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations". In that spirit, there are three profiles of Australian political leaders that stand out in my memory. The first, published by The Australian in 2008, was John Lyons' lifting of the veil from prime minister Kevin Rudd's anarchic office seven months into his reign as prime minister.
ASX marks the spot

1 month ago | rampart.news | Joe Aston

In the lather of another demented week in Trumpistan, I remembered Malcolm Turnbull's (very Malcolm Turnbull) observation on the 2015 night he snatched the Australian prime ministership: "There has never been a more exciting time to be alive than today". It just gets truer and truer every year – though I'd probably swap "exciting" for "bracing".