Rogue Corporations: Inside Australia's biggest business scandals

by Quentin Beresford

Crown Resorts, the Bond Group, James Hardie, HIH Insurance, Geoffrey Edelsten's Allied Medical Group, 7-Eleven and Rio Tinto, the list goes on...

Australia has suffered from the continual sting of business scandals since corporate cowboys like Alan Bond and Christopher Skase wrought so much damage during the 1980s. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Australians have been affected, with many left traumatised when corporations collapse due to gross mismanagement and profits being put before people.

Award-winning author Quentin Beresford takes us inside corporate Australia's highest-profile scandals and the factors that drive them — the rise of celebrity CEOs, timid regulators, inept boards, the murky links between big business, governments, banks, media and lobby groups — and explores a path towards higher ethical standards from organisations. It's a wild ride into the heart of corporate Australia.

'There have been too many Australian corporate scandals to keep up with in recent years, which makes Rogue Corporations so compelling —Quentin Beresford ties them all together in a powerful narrative.' —Stephen Mayne, journalist, publisher, shareholder activist and founder of Crikey, the online newspaper

Genres: History, Business, Nonfiction

430 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2023

Reviews

[Mitch Frankland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does exactly what it says it does on the box.

[Sam Proietto · Rating 5 out of 5]

(8.5/10) In terms of analysis, this book is rarely revelatory and a bit repetitive (unsurprising considering all of the stories revolve around the same principle failures, basically). However, I found it very valuable as a recount of seminal stories in modern Australian history, many of which have plain relevance to everyday Australians as much as they do to corporate 'elites'.

I found the stories in this book quite entertaining in their own right; beyond that, I think this book has two potential great uses. Firstly, in its blending of approachable Australian journalistic style with sound anti-capitalist rhetoric, I think this book would be really useful to show to your mum and dad - i.e. layperson Gen-Xers - to radicalise them a bit using stories they'll remember well. For that reason alone, I would love to see this book selling in Kmart and the like.

Secondly, speaking as someone born in the late 90s, I think this book will be really useful in future conversations with Gen-X coworkers. I have come away with a far greater knowledge of the significance of infamous characters in Australian history - Bond, Edelsten, Skase, Williams in particular - and found it very illuminating as a broader time capsule of what Australian civic life was like in the 80s and 90s and how that informs the views of AFR/The Australian readers in my day-to-day life.

EDIT: It's a week later and I just remembered something that bugged me. I really dislike this trend of diagnosing famous villains with mental pathologies, usually narcissism or psychopathy, based on secondhand accounts and surface-level speculation. It's never very convincing, and if anything it confuses the point of the book - what matters is that these corporate cowboys did bad shit because the regulatory landscape encouraged them to, not that they all shared the mysterious 'bad capitalist disorder' that we need to find and eradicate or whatever. Fortunately, this is not a huge theme of the book, but the book would have been fine without ever alluding to it.

[Dwight Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a quite long winded book on rogue corporations in Australia from 1980s till 2020s. I learned heaps about 7-Eleven, Westpac, Bupa aged care dreadful service, Crown casinos and crime and Rio Tinto blowing up artefacts to make more money. The book was very thorough and opened up many insights into how state capture by corporations is a common thread where companies control laws so they benefit themselves and they increase their profits endlessly. Many times the company culture is corrupt (yes men) and CEO is a psychopath. The sad bit is there is no change and there will be more rogue corporations unless laws are tightened up and regulators are not toothless tigers. Neoliberalism is a disaster for social side of a country.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirteen corporate collapses/scandals in Australia since the 1980s. Very easy to read - doesn't get bogged down in accounting detail. Analyses how big companies get away with murder because the governments and corporate watchdogs are asleep at the wheel or deliberately look away. Big companies are too powerful. Also, many governments (usually Liberal) are ideologically opposed to tight regulation of corporations.

[Shing · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jane (Avid reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and depressing insight into corporate malfeasance in Australia and the key factors that contribute to it.

[Brenda Rosser]

v. interesting

[Tim Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crisply written & zeroes on in the salient points. Very engaging & accessible for non-corporate readers.

[Nez · Rating 4 out of 5]

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