Who's that successful and visionary business leader again?

I had to remind myself about Roger Corbett, who is getting a lot of attention for having criticised Rudd and Labor (and praising Tony Abbott) on Lateline last night.

Oh that's right: he would be the Chairman of Fairfax who in 2004, as Eric Beecher told us last year, was confident the company would be the media "envy of the world":

After listening to my prognosis that the company faced a potential collapse of its traditional business model — I sketched out what I described as a “catastrophe scenario” under which The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age would lose much of their classified advertising in coming years — the Fairfax board studiously ignored my plea to implement overlapping strategies as “insurance” against that possibility.

One director, in particular, became quite agitated about what I was saying. “I don’t ever want anyone coming into this boardroom again,” he told his colleagues as he held up a copy of one of Fairfax’s hefty Saturday papers, “and telling us that people will buy houses or cars, or look for jobs, without this”. He then dropped the lump of newsprint onto the boardroom table with a thud.

That board member was Roger Corbett, now the chairman of Fairfax. He spent 40 years as a retailer, never worked in media or journalism, holds a handful of shares in Fairfax, and was paid $412,000 last year by the company. On the day he was appointed Fairfax chairman in 2009, Corbett presented a glowing picture of the way his company was handling its task. “The decisions taken in the last few years by management and the board have, I believe, put Fairfax in a position which is envied by media companies around the world,” he said.

 Gina Rinehart.doesn't like him either.  How easily I forget these things.  I wonder how she feels about him today after last night's performance?

Update:  the fact that Corbett worries about the ABC "crowds out" Fairfax, and thinks Workplace laws are holding up the economy, does make him more likely a Coalition sympathiser.  At least he does acknowledge a need for greater tax revenue, though.   But my real annoyance with him is the inappropriateness of expressing his highly partisan views as member of the Reserve Bank Board in a crucial part of the election campaign cycle.

Update 2:  so, he's actually a member of the Liberal Party, but it wasn't mentioned last night?  And the story ran this morning without that being mentioned?  Great job, media.

Update 3:  Actually, it occurs to me that it was also an obvious failing on Kevin Rudd's (or his team's) part too.  When asked about it yesterday morning, the first thing Rudd should have said "well he's a member of the Liberal Party, what do you expect him to say about me?"