The public face of a non-hedonistic rebel with many causes

IN PUBLIC life, Graeme Samuel has been a merchant banker, investor, corporate regulator and self-styled public sector executive. On the face of it, he is a poor fit for the hedonistic, rebellious, self-centred baby boomer archetype.

And so it proved when Samuel, who turns 65 in May, subjected himself to a boomer generation word-association test. For Woodstock he responded: No idea, for both surfing and marijuana he offered: Zero, and for Neil Young: Outstanding lawyer.

Neil Young, QC, corporate law specialist and former Federal Court judge may appreciate the accolade, while Neil Young, Canadian singer-songwriter can take solace in a body of work extending back 45 years.

I have been brought up on classical music so popular music has never really meant that much to me, Samuel offers.

I never took part in that 60s rebellion . . . I think its fair to say that my more independent public policy thinking didnt really start until the late 70s, early 80s.

Perhaps unusual for his generation, too, is that rather than rebelling, Samuel was consciously influenced by his parents in his taste for classical music, engaging with society, and even cars. Having ridden in his fathers Rollers in his youth, a Rolls-Royce became his signature style during those merchant banking days.

As a kind of remedial word-association test, I later offered up Bob Dylan, but the creator of several baby boomer anthems also drew a blank.

Of all the descriptors that could be applied to Graeme Samuel the most apt is change agent. Perhaps more than any other boomer, he has helped to shape Melbourne, challenging establishment interests in planning, health, business and culture, both popular and highbrow.

He has trodden on toes and hurt those who stalled. And in this one sense he has been a true boomer: he pursued his own path. As you get older you learn more about trying to take people with you, but in the end there will always be those who will simply oppose, and you have then just got to drive through.

Samuel has been a prominent public figure because he managed what most boomers have not: making so much money as an investment banker in the rambunctious takeover wars of the 1980s that he does not need to work for remuneration for the rest of his life. Trained in corporate law, he was BHPs key defence strategist when the mining giant was besieged by the late Robert Holmes a Court and architect of an extraordinary seven-hour Dutch auction of the Nicholas Kiwi empire.

It is supposed to be a characteristic of boomers that they are financially ill-prepared for retirement. Samuel made his fortune early and even the estimated $50 million paper loss his family interests reportedly sustained in the collapse of the DFO chain this year has not dented his or their comfort.

For a decade and a half he has worked in the public sector, implementing policy.

So what does his scorecard look like?

Docklands Stadium is what it is and where it is because of him. The Australian Football League is expanded and expanding because of him, its suburban roots abandoned for a national vision. Waverley Park is a housing estate and no longer a stadium, largely because of him. He had a role in the revival of The Alfred hospital, and the expansion of the Olympic Park precinct, including the updated tennis centre.

There were failures, too. Notably he was unable to force a restructuring, or relocation, of St Vincents Hospital under the Kennett governments privatisation program.

As chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission since 2003, he pursued criminal charges against price-fixing billionaire Richard Pratt. In his time the ACCC has prevented mergers, investigated companies and prosecuted businesses. He says the repercussions were generally fleeting, except concerning Mr Pratt. The episode has split the Jewish community.

Thats been the only area where there have been repercussions which have been very disappointing. Two, well three, very close friends will not talk to me any more.

As professionals they should know better the checks and balances that underlie a prosecution. I cant do any more about it. Its their problem, its not my problem. Thats part of the cost of public office.

In the Melbourne Jewish community there is a level of ostracism about this. Not other cities. What people still dont appreciate is that in areas of criminal prosecution the ACCC and ASIC, the ATO do not act on their own. There is a very important checkpoint in place called the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Samuel is also remembered, and largely unforgiven, for his role in merging the Victorian State Opera into Opera Australia, the Melbourne cultural institution being moved to Sydney.

Mostly the ill-feeling left from forced and unwanted change dissipates over time, he says. That is not so with the opera crowd, 14 years after he trod on their toes.

Ive had directors and I wont name them who to this day say it was a terrible thing, but . . . what was done for the opera was right because the Victorian State Opera had gone broke.

Samuel said the then premier, Jeff Kennett, asked him to resolve the mess. What we should have done was let the VSO go broke . . . but we chose in the interests of opera generally and at the request of premier Kennett to, quote, merge. We pretended it was a merger. It wasnt a merger at all. It was a rescue.

I did that in the public interest to try to ease the pain of the Victoria State Opera [but] people say you took em over. We didnt take em over, theyd gone broke . . . lost $11 million.

Like every boomer, Samuel grew up in the shadow of nuclear war. Like every Jewish boomer, there was the other cloud: the Holocaust.

His family was sufficiently entrenched in Melbourne not to be affected directly by events in Europe. But at a visceral level the Holocaust touched him. I find it very difficult to watch a film showing what happened. I break down. I wont drive a German car. I wont have anything German in the house.

I used to drive, as is well known, Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. The moment they became German-owned I got out of them. Sold them, wouldnt buy them again.

Part of what drives Samuel is relevance, doing things that matter. If you are given a public responsibility, he says, you have to listen, weigh up all the issues, but ultimately you have to form a view of what you genuinely think is in the public interest . . . put the public interest above vested interest.

There is, however, some apparent inevitability about the outcome when Samuels economic rationalist mind is involved. The AFL had already shifted South Melbourne to Sydney when he joined its commission, but if anything, the pace of change increased as the competition introduced and modified player drafts and a salary cap and continued to encourage club mergers and relocations despite broad opposition.

Samuel perhaps offered the intellectual rigour and deal-making ability the AFL needed. He stayed for 19 years, remaking a game he appeared initially not to understand. Enemies were made.

In the football arena there were things the commission did which made people angry, but they are also good mates now, people who for a year didnt talk to me and now we entertain each other . . . No, no names.

You cant feel the need to be liked in public life, because if you do you will compromise the principles that are so important to the public having confidence in your ethics and integrity.

Part of his legacy will be the AFLs ownership of Docklands Stadium in 15 years, at a cost of $30 million. Land value alone, it will be worth maybe $1 billion, he suggests.

His term with the ACCC expires a few weeks after his 65th birthday, and if his term were not extended it would not end his stint on the public stage.

Each step in life has been another step in an area that was a challenge, that is highly satisfying and that gives you a great sense of pride afterwards. The only question now is what do I do in the remaining years of my life, he said.

I just want to continue doing something thats relevant. I reckon theres probably another five to 10 years of useful mental ability.

If I knew I had six months to live, I dont think I could think of anything Id like to do than carry my life on as it is at the present time. Life has been very good to me.