Joe Aston

Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics. For 12 years he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders with his must-read column Rear Window in the Australian Financial Review. He interrogated some of the country’s biggest business stories including Rio Tinto’s Juukan Gorge scandal; CPA Australia and its Naked CEO Alex Malley; and the decline and fall of both Magellan Financial Group and Qantas. In 2023, Joe and his AFR colleagues won a Walkley Award for their coverage of the PwC tax leaks scandal. AFR editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury says Aston ‘turned a gossip column into a form of journalism like never before seen in Australia, and arguably the world.’ Joe resigned from the AFR in October last year. He lives in Sydney.