King's Birthday honour (eye) roll

Coming up, more shenanigans at IDP Education. But first:

Nothing stirs my deep wells of republicanism like the King's Birthday honours list. One day every six months – for this parody of meritocracy takes place each Australia Day, too – I can only marvel at the gormless functionaries who pass for this country's finest. 

Scott Morrison was named a Companion of the Order of Australia on Monday. All former prime ministers receive the AC (except Paul Keating who has declined his on multiple occasions), but ScoMo is the first to receive one for holding the offices of prime minister, treasurer and the ministries of energy, health, home affairs and finance, secretly and all at the same time. 

The nation's highest civil honour also went to company director Kathryn Fagg for "eminent service to business governance". Now that is funny. Fagg's time on the board of Boral, including 2½ years as chair, was a debacle. She permitted CEO Mike Kane to join the board of Sims Metal while Boral was pretty much on fire. Then she handed Seven Group a quarter of Boral's board seats without a standstill or come-along agreement to protect minority shareholders. Ryan Stokes quickly snatched the company for a song. Fagg has never chaired a public company again. 

These are prosperous times for the Samantha Mostyn faction of Chief Executive Women, where shareholder returns are a distant consideration and pointing that out is inexcusable sexism.

As Governor-General, Mostyn presides over the opaque Order. It is now beyond all doubt that a fully-fledged professional industry operates behind the clandestine nomination process.

To be clear, I look forward to the day there are as many underwhelming businesswomen in the Order of Australia as there are underwhelming blokes, and recent progress has been headlong! But has anyone ever considered an exotic alternative: being a lot more selective?