• Full Power lists out this Friday, October 2
• Six of the top 10 on this year’s Cultural Power List are women, with a woman occupying the number one spot
• Two of the top 10 are indigenous

Susan Kiefel, the first female Chief Justice of the High Court, has topped The Australian Financial Review Magazine’s Cultural Power List for 2020.

And in a significant development, the inclusion of Shane Fitzsimmons and Celeste Barber on the list marks the impact of the summer bushfires on Australian society.

The Cultural Power List is published today on www.afr.com ahead of the release of the Overt and Covert Power Lists in the special Power issue of AFR Magazine, available in The Australian Financial Review on Friday, October 2.

“It’s fitting for the 2020 Cultural Power List, in a year of bushfires and the coronavirus, that the list is dominated by people who kept calm in a crisis,” said AFR Magazine Editor, Matthew Drummond. “This is our 20^th Power Edition, and the variety of people on the Cultural List speaks to how power can be found in many different aspects of our society.”

Pat Turner is second on the AFR Magazine Cultural Power List (LOUISE KENNERLY)

The Power issue of AFR Magazine offers in-depth analysis of the trends behind the lists and profiles of Australia’s most powerful people.

Cultural power, for the purpose of the Power issue, is measured by a person’s ability to shape Australia’s view of itself, crystallise an overarching issue in any given year, or reflect us back to ourselves.

The 2020 AFR Magazine Cultural Power List was decided by an esteemed panel of decision-makers from Australia’s creative, sport and media industries. The panellists were:

• Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director, Sydney Festival
• Graeme Mason, CEO, Screen Australia
• Kim Williams, Chair, Copyright Agency
• Gabriel Trainor, Chair, National Film and Sound Archive
• Matthew Drummond, Editor, AFR Magazine
• Fiona Menzies, CEO, Creative Partnerships Australia

Shane Fitzsimmons is considered to be the face of the response to Australia’s terrible bushfire season last summer (LOUIE DOUVIS)

Topping the Cultural Power list, Susan Kiefel was recognised for leading an investigation into former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon’s sexual harassment of six former associates who worked at the court as young women. She named Heydon in announcing the outcomes of the investigation and said she was “ashamed that this could have happened at the High Court”, setting a new standard of disclosure in the #metoo era. The panellists agreed that no Chief Justice has ever used the latent cultural power of the High Court so overtly.

Melissa Leong is fourth on the Cultural Power List (KELLY GARDNER)

Second on the list is Pat Turner, an active Aboriginal voice and chief executive officer of the National Association of Community Controlled Health Organisations (NACCHO). Turner is recognised for her work on the redesign of the Closing the Gap scheme established by the Rudd government in 2008. It culminated in a draft agreement with states and territories to bolster community-controlled indigenous organisations across Australia, so they are capable of doing the work currently done by government agencies and non-government organisations dominated by non-Aboriginal people. Turner also advocated for Aboriginal communities during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, urging all to be shut down to prevent the spread of the virus.

Coming in at number three on the list is the former Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Shane Fitzsimmons. While he stepped down in April 2020, Fitzsimmons is considered to be the face of the response to Australia’s terrible bushfire season last summer, providing a voice the Australian public could trust as they watched while the country burned. Fitzsimmons now leads a new government agency, Resilience NSW, and is also the state’s Deputy Secretary for Emergency Management.

In fourth place is Melissa Leong, one-third of Channel 10’s new judging trio for the reality cooking contest, MasterChef. As its first female judge, and the first from a Singaporean-Chinese background, Leong was upfront with her own experiences with mental health battles and a key part of MasterChef’s ratings resurgence at a time when more people were cooking at home as a result of COVID-19 restrictions.

The boss of the AFL, Gillion McLachlan,and his counterpart, Peter V’Landys NRL Chairman, claimed  fifth and sixth place respectively. As a result of COVID-19 both football codes had to suspend play, with the television networks using the stoppage to renegotiate their broadcasting rights deals. McLachlan and V’Landys’ fight for their codes to return to the field, and to television, earnt them their places on the Power List.

Celeste Barber earnt her place on the Cultural Power List after uniting Australians to raise money for the NSW Rural Fire Service (PAUL HARRIS)

Director Rachel Perkins is number seven on the list in recognition of her landmark speech to push for renewed action on indigenous recognition. The film maker, known for Bran Nue Dae, Jasper Jones and Radiance, called on Australians to strive to create a “more holistic national identity” in her Boyer Lecture delivered on the eve of the 250^th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival in Australia. Her approach to storytelling in framing contemporary Australia from a uniquely First Nations perspective, as evidenced by the ABC drama Total Control, enhanced her place on the Power List.

At number eight on the Cultural Power List is the philanthropist and Sydney Myer Fund chairman, Carrillo Gantner,who advocated for a privately led philanthropic fund to support arts workers left in unemployment as a result of venue closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Comedian and media personality Celeste Barber took ninth place on the list, thanks to her rallying cry for Australians to unite and donate money to the NSW Rural Fire Service at the height of the deadly bushfire season. Her fundraising effort, which attracted millions of donors from around the world, raised a phenomenal total of $51 million – 1,700 times her original $30,000 target. The panel noted that she may have been higher up the Power List but for the legal fight that emerged over how the funds could be disbursed.

Rounding out the 2020 Cultural Power List is Nicole Kidman, who was eighth on the previous list. This year she was recognised for her work in bringing the $100 million Hulu-commissioned production of Liana Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers to Australia.

The full Cultural Power List is now available online at www.afr.com. The Cultural Power List, along with the Covert and Overt Power Lists,will be available inside the Power issue of AFR Magazine, available in the Financial Review this Friday, October 2.

The full Power issue also ranks and reveals the key movers and shakers across politics, business, investment banking, property, law, consulting, technology and education. 

For more information:
Caitlin Lynch
Communications Manager
clynch@nine.com.au

Thursday, October 1, 2020