From the SMH:
Andrew Forrest knocked back a chance to acquire a key stake in Fairfax Media in 2011, paving the way for billionaire Gina Rinehart to emerge as the single biggest shareholder in the publisher, according to an unauthorised biography of the mining magnate.
It also reveals the Fortescue Metals Group chairman has chatted informally with Tony Abbott in joining the Liberal Party with the prospect of entering Parliament. Although unnamed friends say playing a back seat to the prime minister would slowly kill the mining magnate as he would ”only ever have aspirations to become prime minister”.
Twiggy: The High-Stakes Life of Andrew Forrest, by Perth-based journalist Andrew Burrell outlines a figure of contradictions from the a rebellious student whose business drive was deeply influenced by the fast money Perth stockbroking scene of the 1980s to the Church going Christian that more recently made what is believed to be the largest single philanthropic donation made in Australia.
…An unnamed former Fortescue executive is quoted as saying that while Forrest genuinely believes in the various causes he champions – including indigenous development – that his philanthropy is also good for commercial interests.
”Seventy per cent of what he (Forrest) says is correct, the other 30 per cent is froth,” a former Fortescue executive said.
There are enough miners in Canberra already.
