Fairfax gutted BRW but saved the Rich List, or at least the most high-profile part of it. It’s a journalistic exercise well worth preserving, as the nation has no more able chronicler of the vast private wealth some are able to build, lose or inherit.

There are few upsets this year. Most of the nation’s richest are who they’ve always been — old men who made their money in property development and investment. A staggering one in four richies made their money this way, almost double the next single industry to contribute to the nation’s private fortunes.

BRW used to produce a vast array of lists, like the recently introduced Rich Women, the Executive Rich, the Young Rich and the invaluable Rich Families, which tracked the family fortunes of some of Australia’s most private citizens. It’s an expensive and ambitious exercise, aided by the deep institutional knowledge BRW amassed on the issue over the decades. The Australian Financial Review has put out the Rich List, but as Stephen Mayne reports, it’s a shadow of its former self. We hope it’s just a bad year. The Rich List was one of Fairfax’s best gifts to the nation — one it has gutted too far.