195? Do they think they won’t make 200 years? That’s an event you’d go all out for. Not 195.
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The series of articles on SMH’s 195th anniversary is now available online.
Tonight’s Media Watch had a report on Racing NSW pulling a $1.5 million dollar deal to sponsor The Sydney Morning Herald’s racing pages last week. It came one day after Racing NSW CEO (and NRL chairman) Peter V’Landys complained to the paper, saying an article on NSW auditor-general’s report on Racing for the Regions was inaccurate and unfair.
The original SMH article
From The Age’s Watchlist email newsletter:
Next month, The Age’s iconic Green Guide turns 50. It has been around in various formats before that, starting out as The Age Radio Supplement on March 10, 1949 (it began printing on green paper in 1952), before going through a couple of name changes (The Age Radio and Television Supplement, The Age TV and Radio Guide and The Age TV-Radio Guide and Record Reviews).
Finally, on May 13, 1976, it was renamed The Age Green Guide TV Radio Records, the first time the masthead “Green Guide” appeared. (For our Sydney Morning Herald readers, The Guide was first published on May 3, 1982.)
So, to celebrate, we’re resurrecting the infamous Green Guide letters page for our May 14 issue and I want to hear from you, our keen TV watchers and Green Guide readers. All you have to do is write to me at lrugendyke@smh.com.au by May 8 (with “Green Guide letters” in the subject line) and we’ll include the best, brightest and funniest letters. Tell us what you’re watching and why you love it, or what your favourite show or TV moment has been over the past 50 years.
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The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald Unveil the Top 50 Australian Movies of All Time – with Fan Favourites Streaming on Stan
From Chopper to Samson & Delilah: The ultimate guide to our cinematic heritage – and where to stream it
Australians have always had a penchant for the underdog, the larrikin, and the haunting beauty of the outback. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald celebrate that unique spirit with the release of The Top 50 Australian Movies, a definitive countdown of the films that have shaped our national identity.
Whether it’s the savage comedy of Chopper, the gritty devastation of Gallipoli, or the heart-wrenching journey of Rabbit-Proof Fence, this project honours the films that have stayed with us for decades.
Led by The Age Spectrum Editor Lindy Percival and the Visual Stories Team, the judging panel includes acclaimed directors Warwick Thornton, Gillian Armstrong, actor and director John Polson, as well as legendary critic Margaret Pomeranz.
The feature offers a highly immersive journey through our cinematic history. Beyond exploring the chosen films, subscribers can engage directly with the content through a custom-built voting feature to crown their own favourite Australian film and see where to stream winners like Samson & Delilah. Some of the most popular movies are available on Stan in a specially curated rail on the platform.
“In an increasingly globalised culture, it has never been more important to cherish those films that tell our own stories”, says The Age Spectrum editor Lindy Percival. “This tribute to Australian cinema reminds us of the vital role our filmmakers play in entertaining, inspiring and enlightening us about the place we call home.”
“Putting together this list really highlighted the range of styles and genres the Australian film industry has produced over its lifetime,” says Nathanael Scott, a member of the Visual Stories Team. “The challenge was creating a story that felt like this huge group all belonged together. Picking the right clip, finding common categories and showing the faces of the jury and their recommendations meant you can have cultural monoliths that loomed large internationally as well as some smaller, quintessentially Australian stories that don’t feel out of place.”
“This interactive project proudly explores 120 years of Australian cinema as told through the lens of our most innovative creators,” says Julia Naughton, Head of Life – Culture, Lifestyle & Travel. “It is essential reading – and viewing – for anyone who values the sheer creativity of our local storytellers.”
The digital feature is available online now, with a dedicated print souvenir appearing in the Spectrum section of the metro mastheads this Saturday. Films available to stream on Stan will also be showcased on a bespoke rail on the platform.
Winners of the 45th Age Book of the Year Awards Announced
Authors Moreno Giovannoni and Kate Wild led an esteemed field of writers at The Age’s annual Book of the Year Awards tonight during the opening night of the Melbourne Writers Festival.
With Giovannoni’s novel The Immigrants taking out the fiction category, and Wild’s investigative novel The Red House awarded best non-fiction, the winners each received $10,000 thanks to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
Both authors were praised by the judges – author and critic Bram Presser; essayist and critic Beejay Silcox; The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Canberra Bureau Chief Michelle Griffin; and author, reviewer and mission director of Caritas Australia, Michael McGirr – for their deeply human stories.
Giovannoni’s novel draws heavily on the experiences of his late parents, Italian immigrants who came to Australia in the 1950s, and was described by judges as a masterclass in migrant fiction and “the combustible art of telling Australian stories.”
Journalist and author Kate Wild won the non-fiction award for her investigation of the fatal shooting of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker by a white police officer in the Northern Territory in 2019. Judges described The Red House as an “important book but it gives us no sermons, only a compulsively readable story.”
Presenting the awards in the Athenaeum Theatre, The Age deputy editor Orietta Guerrera said: “It’s a great pleasure for The Age to be a partner of the festival, and to back tonight’s awards: the 45th Age Book of the Year. We are proud of *The Age’*s long history covering books, supporting writers across the country, and equally importantly, encouraging reading.”
The Age Book of the Year Awards has been running for 45 years and has honoured some of the most celebrated writers in Australia including David Malouf, Thea Astley, Tony Birch, Tim Winton, Elizabeth Jolley and Robbie Arnott.
Happy 50th birthday The Age Green Guide 
The Australian Financial Review’s Jennifer Hewett filed two columns this week from the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide, discussing the government’s plans for a domestic gas reservation policy and a gas tax.
Labor’s plans for a reservation policy were “creating tensions with the industry” and there was “general confusion and alarm on full display at the conference”, she wrote.
But somehow the paper forgot to disclose that Hewett’s trip to the conference – where she moderated sessions with the CEOs of Santos, Shell and Woodside and interviewed Peter Malinauskas and the US shale revolution entrepreneur Bryan Sheffield – was paid for by the gas and oil lobby.
After we contacted the AFR, the following note was added to both pieces: “Jennifer Hewett attended the energy conference courtesy of Australian Energy Producers”.
A clarification was also added to acknowledge the late disclosure: “This story has been updated to acknowledge Jennifer Hewett attended the conference courtesy of Australian Energy Producers.”
FINANCIAL REVIEW RICH LIST IS NOW ALMOST ALL BILLIONAIRES; ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MAKES ITS MARK ON WEALTH CREATION
A surge in wealth for Australia’s top entrepreneurs means the Financial Review Rich List almost entirely consists of billionaires. The top 178 rankings on the 2026 Rich 200 list - almost nine out of ten Rich Listers - carry estimated fortunes of $1 billion and above.
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has topped the Rich List for the seventh consecutive year, with an estimated wealth of $39 billion, up $900 million from last year. The rich are still getting richer, with this year’s list revealing the country’s 200 largest fortunes have collectively leapt by $39 billion to a total of $707 billion. This is the 44th Rich List, first published in the Business Review Weekly magazine in 1983 when the total worth of Australia’s wealthiest people was only $4.6 billion.
But while total wealth is up, there have been some notable falls in the technology sector as a result of the billions of dollars wiped off the value of listed software-as-a-service companies.
Mike Cannon-Brookes has fallen from 13th ranking on the list to 22nd, losing nearly half his estimated fortune from $12.18 billion in 2025 to $6.71 billion. His Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and wife Kim Jackson who leads Skip Capital, have dropped from 4th to 13th and seen their wealth plummet from $21.4 billion to $11.7 billion. WiseTech founder Richard White has gone from 15th to 17th after his wealth dropped by nearly $2 billion to $8.8 billion, while some tech founders have fallen off the list altogether.
Mining and property remain the largest sectors for wealth creation. Property scion Harry Triguboff is No. 2 on the Rich List, worth an estimated $32.29 billion, up from $29.65 billion. The third wealthiest is Anthony Pratt & family with $25.19 billion, followed by former Glencore CEO (and cycling apparel brand Q36.5 investor) Ivan Glasenberg, who has seen his wealth explode from $13 billion last year to $22.38 billion in 2026.
Mining magnate and Trumpet of Patriots frontman Clive Palmer is ranked No. 5 with an estimated wealth of $19.56 billion, while Canva founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht have increased their wealth by $3 billion to be ranked No.6 with $17.56 billion. At aged 39 and 40 respectively, the couple remain the youngest Top 10 Rich Listers this year.
Marriage breakdowns continue to re-shape the top Rich List rankings, with miner Andrew Forrest falling from Australia’s second-richest person in 2023 to No. 8 this year - worth $15.93 billion - overtaken by his former wife Nicola, who is ranked No. 7 at $17.32 billion.
Michael Dorrell, who founded infrastructure investment giant Stonepeak, is ranked No. 9 worth $13.82 billion. Rounding out the Top 10 is Chemist Warehouse founders, siblings Mario, Marcello and Adrian Verrocchi worth $12.76 billion.
This year’s Rich List is the first where artificial intelligence and data centres have truly made their mark. Among the 15 debutants on the 2026 Rich List are Swipejobs founder Katrina Leslie (No.67) who is worth $2.5 billion, Firmus co-founder Oliver Curtis (No.146) who is worth $1.25 billion and Grafana Labs co-founder Anthony Woods (No.194) who is worth $881 million. Brothers Daniel and William Roberts, former Macquarie executives who founded Iren in 2018, debut at No.200 with $853 million. All four fortunes are built on AI and data centres.
Female representation has increased from 42 last year to 48 this year. Among the debutants are White Fox founder Georgia Contos, her husband and co-founder Daniel Contos and family (No.140) with $1.3 billion, and 91-year-old Pamela Wall, who is ranked No.149 and worth $1.2 billion. Her husband Ian Wall, who died in 2022, founded electronics company Codan, which recently doubled its share price propelled by a rise in gold prices and defence spending.
Rich List editor Hannah Tattersall said: “Along with the incredible fortunes amassed by Australia’s entrepreneurs are the stories of how they built their wealth and where their ideas came from. Mining, property and tech always dominate the Rich List but this year’s list shows there’s money to be made in waste management, in chicken restaurants, in hoodies and of course AI.”
TOP 10 (worth a collective $215 billion)
- Gina Rinehart – $39.01 billion – Mining
- Harry Triguboff - $32.29 billion - Property
- Anthony Pratt & family – $25.19 billion – Manufacturing
- Ivan Glasenberg – $22.38 billion – Mining
- Clive Palmer – $19.56 billion – Mining
- Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht – $17.56 billion – Technology
- Nicola Forrest - $17.32 billion - Mining
- Andrew Forrest - $15.93 billion – Mining
- Michael Dorrell - $13.82 billion - Investment
- Mario, Marcello & Adrian Verrocchi - $12.76 billion - Retail
NUMBERS BY STATE AND COUNTRY (WHERE THEY ARE BASED)
- NSW – 78 Rich Listers
- VIC – 52 Rich Listers
- QLD – 21 Rich Listers
- WA – 19 Rich Listers
- SA - 5 Rich Listers
- ACT – 0 Rich Listers
- NT – 1 Rich Lister
- TAS – 2 Rich Listers
USA 8 Rich Listers
NZ 2 Rich Listers
UK 3 Rich Listers
China 3 Rich Listers
Switzerland 1 Rich Lister
Argentina 1 Rich Lister
Bahamas 1 Rich Lister
Cyprus 1 Rich Lister
Hong Kong 1 Rich Lister
Dubai 1 Rich Lister
NAMES MOST LIKELY TO BE A RICH LISTER
There have been 37 Johns that have appeared on the Rich List in its history; 23 Andrews and 21 Peters.
The full Rich List will be available on www.afr.com and will appear in a special edition of The Australian Financial Review Magazine in tomorrow’s Financial Review. High res images of AFR Magazine cover story featuring an interview with Gerry Harvey HERE
And every high school teacher says thank you for giving us one hell of a case study. 
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The Nine newspapers had another run in with AI this week, publishing a graphic about the South Australian election in the Australian Financial Review that invented several political parties.
According to the piece, parties in the SA election included the “Liberal Catholic Party” and the “Family Guardian Association”. The Labor party was absent.
The AFR told Weekly Beast: “The graphic has been removed and the story updated to note the use of Gemini in data analysis. The mistakes in the graphic should have been picked up in the production/editing process.”
It was featured on the ABC’s Media Watch tonight.
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