Prime minister Anthony Albanese has been named Australia’s most powerful person, marking the return of the role of PM to the top of The Australian Financial Review Magazine’s Power List.
Albanese jumps from ninth on the 2021 Power List into the top spot in 2022. The premiers of the major states, who pushed Scott Morrison from number one to number two in 2021, have fallen out of the Power List as the COVID-19 pandemic lessens its hold over Australians.
The federal election has driven a complete overhaul of the Power List, with treasurer Jim Chalmers now second on the Overt List and foreign affairs minister Penny Wong third. The six new teal independent MPs as well as Greens leader Adam Bandt join the Power List for the first time, in 4th and 8th spots respectively.
AFR Magazine’s Power issue, now in its 22nd year, is the first comprehensive look inside the Albanese government, revealing the ministers in the PM’s inner circle as well as the most influential advisers behind the scenes.
The cover of the Power issue is a stirring portrait of the prime minister taken in the living room of the council house where he grew up in Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west.
The PM gave AFR Magazine a rare tour of the two-bedroom unit in which he was raised by his mother, Maryanne, and which he often references in speeches.
It marks the first time Albanese has been photographed inside the house. The backdrop inspired the shoots with other Power listers who were photographed with something that is special to them.
Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury, said: “The May election result suggests that the Power List panellists got it right when they voted, by the slimmest of margins, to put the premiers above Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the top of last year’s list.”
“Now a whole new power structure has been put in place around Anthony Albanese and the first federal Labor government in nearly a decade. As a Power List panelist, it was fascinating to be part of the conversation with Labor insiders about how that power is distributed.”
Albanese’s chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, takes out the top spot on the Covert List, joined by Glyn Davis, secretary of the department of the prime minister and Cabinet; Paul Erickson, national secretary of the ALP; trade and tourism minister Don Farrell; and Greg Combet, chairman of Industry Super Australia.
The Power List consists of three main categories – Overt, Covert and Cultural – which are debated at length by two separate panels of well-connected insiders drawn from Australia’s political, business and cultural spheres.
Panellists who decided the Overt and Covert Lists included Stephen Smith and Julie Bishop – both former foreign affairs ministers – company directors Nicola Wakefield Evans and Jillian Broadbent, teals adviser Anthony Reed and Labor insiders Dee Madigan and Lidija Ivanovski.
The panel that decided the Cultural Power list included Powerhouse Museum CEO Lisa Havilah, Warner Music Australasia president Dan Rosen, AFL commissioner Gabrielle Trainor and chair of Bangarra Dance Theatre Phillipa McDermott.
Leading the Cultural Power list is indigenous affairs minister Linda Burney who is at the centre of the push to amend the constitution to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. In second spot is Cathy McGowan, founder of the Community Independents Project and a mentor to many of the teal independent MPs.
The edition of the Power Issue also features the revealing story of how Morrison lost the federal election. Senior writer Aaron Patrick goes deep inside the 2022 campaign to get the Coalition re-elected, and the exact moment it unravelled.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese photographed in the living room of the council flat he grew up in after being named as Australia’s most powerful person in AFR Magazine’s Power Issue. Pic: Louie Douvis
OVERT LIST
1. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
2. Treasurer Jim Chalmers
3. Foreign Minister Penny Wong
4. Teal Independents
5. Defence Minister Richard Marles
6. ACTU Secretary Sally McManus
7. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe
8. Greens Leader Adam Bandt
9. Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes
10. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton
COVERT LIST
1. Tim Gartrell, Anthony Albanese’s Chief of Staff
2. Glyn Davis, Secretary, Department of the Prime Minister
3. Paul Erickson, National Secretary ALP
4. Steven Kennedy, Treasury Secretary
5. Don Farrell, Trade & Tourism Minister
6. Greg Combet, Chairman, Industry Super Australia
7. Sam Mostyn, President, Chief Executive Women
8. Tim Reed & Jennifer Westacott, President and CEO, Business Council of Australia
9. Jan Adams, Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
10. Cathy McGowan, Founder, Community Independents Project
CULTURAL LIST
1. Linda Burney, Minister for Indigenous Affairs
2. Cathy McGowan, Founder, Community Independents Project
3. The Kid Laroi, singer-songwriter
4. Baz Luhrman, filmmaker
5. Dylan Alcott, tennis champion and Australian of the Year
6. Hamish Blake, TV Entertainer
7. Sally Riley, filmmaker-producer
8. Daniel Boyd, visual artist
9. Ash Barty, tennis champion
10. Baker Boy, rapper, dancer, artist
The Australian Financial Review Magazine Power Issue is available nationally on Friday, September 30.
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Top image: Prime minister Anthony Albanese on the cover of AFR’s Power List