Charity, it seems, continues at home for Andrew Forrest, who has embarked on an intriguing new effort to help his fellow Fortescue directors buy shares in the iron ore company.

For most billionaires, the idea of having anything much to do with politics is about as attractive as flying in economy class. The rich love governments most when they get out of the way.

Recent coalition victories in NSW and Victoria have been a boon for lobbyists with conservative credentials. Now a new Peter Costello-backed lobbying firm has entered the fray.

If you run Australia's biggest home-grown investment bank, as Macquarie Group's Nick Moore has been doing since June 2008, you are a powerful man in so many ways.

Model and former escort Madison Ashton is taking legal action against Richard Pratt's widow, Melbourne socialite and arts patron Jeanne Pratt, in a bid to score a slice of his $5 billion estate.

HELP! HELP! A tsunami is about to hit Australian real estate. Sell your house at once and buy US dollars.

It's not just money that equals power, it's the power over other people's money that gives someone real influence.

When a CEO, board or government wants to wheel and deal, they go to CJ. The Goldman Sachs head of investment banking is one of the top corporate deal makers going around.

Gordon Fell, founder of the Rubicon Property Group, was one of the brightest and the best: a former Rhodes Scholar, a director of the Smith Family, chairman of Opera Australia and a trustee of Sydney Grammar School.

Powerbrokers stood their ground on opposing sides of the productivity debate, Gina Rinehart's legal woes hit the headlines and 35,000 public service workers protested in Sydney: these are The Power Index's top picks of people who mattered this week.