In its ninety-year-plus history, Who’s Who has had several challengers, all of whom soon fell by the wayside. A rival of the same name, which included photographs of its worthy notables, appeared in the late twenties and early thirties. A similar photographic who’s who was published in 1978, while the bastion of English biography (and snobiography), Debrett’s, issued an Australian biographical guide in the 1980s that ran to four editions but could not defeat its rival.

Who’s Who in Australia would be purchased – usually by standing order – in its thousands by government departments at all levels, public libraries, and companies. Every Chief Executive had one above his cocktail cabinet and, for some, it was just as important as the contents of that cabinet. One could quickly look up another chap’s background, see what school he went to, what clubs he belonged to, and decide quickly whether they were the right clubs before doing business with him.

A bit flippant perhaps, but not too far off the mark as Who’s Who has always been a biographical guide to the male dominated establishment in Australia. So much so that ALP members of parliament often refused to complete the appropriate biographical questionnaire from which Who’s Who is assembled so their entry appeared simply with their name and the seat they represented. A few still follow this practice. Women were so poorly represented that a Who’s Who of Australian Women was published in 1982 – but it only appeared once.

When the Murdoch empire acquired the Herald and Weekly Times the new management sold off some of its non-newspaper assets. These included Who’s Who in Australia. It was bought in 1990 by Michael Wilkinson of Information Australia who cleverly turned the publication into an annual. Although the sales may have dropped for each edition, the returns from three annual volumes would be substantially more than that for one triennial volume. Because the number of potential entries had grown so large, Information Australia also began a Who’s Who in Business in Australia. So, as Arthur Daly would say, it’s a nice little earner.

Of course, an Arthur Daly is unlikely to be included in a Who’s Who style publication. And this is still one of the criticisms one can make of the latest edition of this standard reference work. To the publishers’ credit they have extended the range of entrants. Popular cultural figures such as Kylie Minogue, John Farnham, and Kevin Sheedy are now included amongst the 10,800 entrants. This change one suspects was due partly to the appearance of another rival, Contemporary Australians, 1995–96 published by Reed Reference in 1995 and its companion volume Contemporary Australian Women (1996). However, due to Reed empire carve-up, Reed Reference no longer exists, ensuring that Information Australia will continue to have a virtual monopoly on this style of biographical reference volume. The question of who is in and who is not is as much personal opinion and bias as objective assessment. These inclusions and exclusions make good dinner party arguments. So here is one person’s list of Shoodabeens and Coodabeens. The following certainly deserve an entry: Peter Coleman (editor and former politician); R.W. Connell (sociologist and educationalist); Robert Gottsliebsen (editor of Business Review Weekly); and Eddie McGuire and Rex Hunt (national sports media personalities). Possible contenders are Tim Costello, Col Joy (especially as his brother Kevin Jacobson is in) and former flamboyant Whitlam Government Minister, Al Grassby. If publishers Sophie Cunningham and Michael Heyward get a Guernsey, then so should John Iremonger and Bob Sessions.

There is a concocted entry for Helen Darville but far more important writers such as Humphrey McQueen, David Martin, Shirley Hazzard, Charles Osborne, Peter Conrad, and Peter Porter are not included. The fact that the later four are expatriates should not make them ineligible, especially as figures such as Conrad Black or Sir William Heseltine (former private secretary to the Queen) are included. This tendency for ‘title and position’ criteria means that most University Professors are included as are Emeritus ones but important Associate Professors (such as historians Henry Reynolds and Tom Stannage) miss out.

Others miss out, in effect, because of house style. Singer Slim Dusty is under his real name – David Gordon Kirkpatrick – but who would know this. Publisher Richard Walsh is listed under his full name, John Richard Walsh, and so appears a page back from where one would automatically look for him. Of more importance is the obviously deliberate omission of those who were once kings but have now fallen into disgrace. Alan Bond, Christopher Skase, Brian Burke, and Sir Terence Lewis (former Queensland Police Commissioner and the last Australian to be knighted) have been excluded from Who’s Who in Australia. Is this because they are no longer chaps one could possibly do business with?

The inclusion of people with ‘AO’ after their name but no details of career, just a contact address, seems to defeat the purpose of Who’s Who as a source of information. The same could be said for the entry for racing driver Dick Johnson, whose is listed as a ‘racing driver’ but with no details of his achievements in that field. The entry ‘L. White, Executive Director, Sydney Children’s Hospital’ tells us nothing about who he/she is other than the position he/she holds. Finally, Rosemary Sorensen has not been editor of the Australian Book Review for three years. As this was the rationale for her entry, should Helen Daniel now be included?

These criticisms aside, Who’s Who in Australia is still an essential reference for contemporary and living notable Australians.