RiP Barrie Dunstan

Business and investment journalist Barrie Dunstan has died, aged 80.

Starting his journalism career at the Argus in 1955, Dunstan then moved to the Age in 1958 and was promoted to finance editor in 1963. In 1968 he became business editor of Melbourne’s Herald, eventually joining the Australian Financial Review in 1987, where he remained as associate editor, investment editor, and Melbourne bureau chief until 2012. Dunstan continued writing for online investment publication The Switzer Report until 2018.

Dunstan published four business books during his career: Understanding Finance with the Australian Financial Review (Wrightbooks), The Art of Investment (Financial Review Library), The New Art of Investment (Wiley), and Investment Legends (Wiley).

Major Street publisher Lesley Williams writes:

‘Barrie Dunstan loved writing about investing, whether it be about superannuation or shares, or about some of the world’s greatest investors, whom he was lucky enough to meet over the years. His workload as a finance journalist must have been onerous but he was always happy to meet (over lunch usually) to discuss possible book projects and he somehow found the time to write four books as well as meet weekly press deadlines in his busy day job.

‘I edited his first book, Understanding Finance with the Australian Financial Review, published by Wrightbooks in the 1990s and I commissioned his fourth book, Investment Legends, published by Wiley in 2009. Barrie had the gift of writing about finance in interesting, layperson’s terms—and he was a lovely author to work with. I was very sad to read that he died last week.’

Category: Obituaries