Hi, everyone, Welcome to conversations. Now. Look, it's no exaggeration to say that my next guest was at one time the most powerful man, most powerful influential person in this state. But he wasn't our premier. He had the role as deputy premier or assistant premier I'm not sure what the exact term is. And he was our state treasurer. Then he retired thirteen fourteen years ago, maybe twelve years ago. You probably recognized the voice one and only Kevin Foley. How are you? Thank you?
Graham? Sorry I shouldn't have cut in. Bad habits come back pretty quickly.
I've had the introduction sort of almost bad. You've been very quiet. We haven't heard much of you.
Well I'm happy with that, you know. I think I've burned up about three lifetimes of publicity and media, good, bad and ugly, so I live a quiet life.
Do you think it was an exaggeration to say at one stage you're the most powerful person in the state.
Well, I'm not sure whether Mike Grant has gone back to it Italy. He spent six months in Italy and months in Adelaide.
So what was.
Incredible with Mike? And I mean this sincerely and not just a spin. Mike and I worked like a hand and a glove, and you get power or you assume power through the support of the premiere, and rarely did we have a disagreement. And if I ever had to exercise power, I did it with the backing support of the premiere, because if you don't have that your power, you might get away once with stepping out of the which I did in the end with the Adelaide Oval. But no, I had a lot of responsibility.
Sure we'll come to the Adelaide Oval, but did you ever get a tap on the shoulder? Did ever ring and say, keV, you've gone a bit too far here? Mate?
On a microand you met a couple of times, certainly Adelaide Oval was one of them.
We can chat about that a bit later. But now there were times.
I mean, Mike and I spent eight years in opposition together. We knew each other before I got into Parliament, but not well. And then of course he was in. Mike and I serve teen years in cabinet, nine as Deputy Premier, police Minister, treasurer and a whole host of other portfolios.
But now there were times, Yeah, it's intriguing to me. And maybe it only happens in Australia, perhaps over but I'm in Australia. You're a young fellow who leaves school at sixteen, and then I don't know, thirty or thirty years later, you're assuming the responsibility of a state treasurer and it's a deputy premier. Depinitey premier, deputy premier. How little happened? I mean you left school at sixteen? Yeah?
Why, Well, I thought I was an expert and there was nothing more that education could give me that I didn't already have. I was a bit of a smart ass. Were you that?
Did you have that most self confidence?
Well, what it was was I saw my report cards would always you know, he could do better if he tried harder, you know type of thing. And for those listeners who think I'm being arrogant, that was sort of a joke about me being thinking I was smarter.
Than I was.
But as an advert in the paper for a stock records clerk for a company called A and I Hostral Steal, a big steel distribution company that would supply the industrial sector in South Australia. My dad was in that type of business. Dad told me, or gave me one of his ties, made me wear a tie, and I got the job. And the person who hired me said, you got the job because you're the only kid that walked in with a pair of shoes on the restroom flip
flops or sandals. It was nineteen seventy six. You could get a job pretty easily in those days. And I was, you know, I was a shit kicker when I went into that office. I was the dog's body, didn't have a seat, didn't have a chair. After two weeks of having to be it's work at eight o'clock in the morning, fifteen minute smoker, mid morning, thirty minutes for a lunch, and I had to work till five point thirty. You couldn't answer back, You couldn't be a smart alec had
to do what you ever told. At that point I realized that I really wasn't very clever, and I went scrambling back to the school to see and whether I could be readmitted. I had stepped way out of my comfort zone. I was faced with having to repeat the year if I did come back or go back, and I said, oh well, buck of that.
I to what school? Was it?
Royal Park High School. It was a school down It was only open for about fifteen years.
I heard of Royal Park.
Yeah, I changed its name to West Lakes, as it all did. It's down a Nearport road end of It's actually what is now called West Lakes was always Royal Park. West or Royal Park used to be honest. But that education I got working in steel for a still company in an old traditional office, you know, the credit department, the human services, the accounts, payable, accounts receivable in those days. It was an old, traditional, pre computer, big office. And
I learned discipline. I learned to ask questions, don't you know, try and.
You know.
Fudget, Don't ask the same question too many times, but ask questions if you don't know something.
And discipline.
I learned a lot of discipline that was hammered into me pretty quickly, and I excelled to be honest. I enjoyed being a sales rep. I became a sales supervisor, assistant product manager, so to speak. And I had this corporate career and that's when I got a bit itchy in the feet and politics seem quite interesting and I got involved in the local party branch.
You mentioned your dad what was his background?
Dad Mum was from Tasmania. They both passed. Dad passed a couple.
Of years ago, three years of four years ago now ninety four, ninety four years of age. But Dad worked in the steel industry.
Dad imported steel into Australia well for BP, in competition to BHP, because back in the day BHP didn't supply companies directly, only the big ones. They would use companies like where I work to distribute steel like a wholesaler would. And so Dad was importing steel.
And the hew would have gone about that.
Oh, he started for a company called Golan and Company. Back in the seventies, Graham, we had trading houses, Japanese trading house style companies Marabini Mitsu. So if you wanted to sell your wine or your timber or that overseas, you went to these trading houses and that's where Dad worked. And also if you wanted to bring in steel into Australia you would go through a trading house. So Dad
bought steel in for Robert hill Ling hills Hoyst. Remember mister ling hill Ling putting the close line up at our house. We've got a freebe out of it and that's where I let my cricket.
And you know where would the steel come from? Overseas? Korea, Japan, China in those days. But that intrigues me, like your dad would have been of an era where World War Two? Did he live through? Dad? He serve?
Yeah, he served for about ten days at the MCG on a stretch of bed, you know, been on where the troops.
Because that was as a holding center, wasn't it. Yeah, the mcgah they acquired it for.
He would always tell me he spent more time at the on the mcg pitched or field than you know, half the AFL footballer. So he enlisted, yep, right at the very end, at the end the Japanese War in the Air Force. But he got a war service loan out of eight weeks.
The point I'm making there is that there's some of those World War two vets they were so anti anything to do with the Japanese and that took them a long time. And look, let's for instance, a lot of them wouldn't buy a toy Toyota things like that. With your dad's doing business.
Oh yeah, they Dad supplied fifty percent of Chrysler who Mitsubishi later took over. But when it was Chrysler, Dad was bringing steel in for that from Japan. He was bringing pipe in from Japan and for a whole lot of companies traveled there frequently. But Dad, the company he's working for was embezzled at the top level and was
put into administration. My father bought the steel importing side of that business from the receivers and tragically some years later, and this is why I got into the Labor Party. Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, and he's doing what Trump is doing now. He massively increased tariffs and put my dad family out of business and lost our family home.
So that's when I decided family. Yeah, I hated the libs. Sounded sounded like you were quite wealthy for a while, middle class, middle class asbestos home, big block, up seating, dirt rode out the front, every fruit tree known to mankind out the back. You know.
He used to shoot my slug gunner.
Hit the what a life.
I used to shoot the next door neighbors flying pigeon their pigeons. He used to raise pigeons, And I shot this slug aut this pigeon and it fell off the roof of the neighbor's house on broken's neck, and.
The neighbor came around and my dad.
Came out, whacked me over the backside more times than I could count, took my chop at my slug down to the shed in the vice, broke it in half.
And that was it. That was it. Did you have a sporting background when you're a kid? Well I did. I played cricket.
I played school cricket, primary school, high school. Then I played eighteen years out at what was then the West Lakes Cricket Club previously Semaphore Park. I was a secretary, treasurer and president for those eighteen years. I ran all the running of the stage.
Like you're the type of person I realized early in life he had to be in charge.
Well I did, because I was able to make sure. I became captain of the B grade and we went one season undefeated, top and my contribution was about zip. But that was the price I wanted to extract for doing all the you know, the fundraising and all the gritty stuff.
Kevin Foley's my guest is I loved delving into these early years. I wonder which footy Teamy back for. I'll come back and talk about that. But surely, folks, my guest on conversations today is Kevin Foley, our former deputy premier and had so many different portfolios, but if you just tuned in, he's a young fellow. Growing up at Royal Park.
Well, we lived in Seaton, Brent Avenue, Seaton. It was I remember dirt right out the front. I remember, you know, the the lawyer's truck would come around. Our former Port Adelaide footballer. Some of the listeners will remember Zuker, Lloyd
Lloyd Zuker was driving the trucks. I remember that. And but dirt roads, you know, kicked the footy out on the road and the dirt and when it got picture of minds, that was our where we kicked the foot We had a big front yard, a big backyard in those days, but very you know, like it was a it was a five class home.
It was nothing and it was home.
But we always played cricket out the front yard. I don't know why we did that, but I'd broken a few windows in that I played football for school.
Or who at Royal Park High went on to play for Port Adelaie. There would have been.
Someone someone, but you'd know one of the names, Ralph Hillman. Does that name ring a bell?
Doesn't ring a bell?
He coached Henley, He coached a lot of the state sides over the years. He was my history teacher, and I was in the high school footy team. And I remember we had to do a history exam one year and Ralph was the coach and my teacher, and I couldn't be bothered writing the paper. So I got my friend and she gave me her paper and I copied it word for word. She got a CEE and I got an A. It was word for word the same. That's you're a nasty footballer. You're admitting to plagiarism. Oh totally.
But I went on to play footy. I was pretty ordinary. I played one a gray game aim for the West Lakes Football Club on the bench, just because they were one short. I played about thirty or forty games in the B grade and maybe sixty or seventy in the C grade. I was a terrific kick. I was a good marker, good you know, I had good hands. I was terrific, excelled at non competitive circle work because well, I just.
Lacked one important ingredient. What was the courage?
I had no courage. So whenever the ball would come and I was in a contestant, you know, a contested moment, I shipped myself and.
I was allows in football. He said, your mum was from Tasmania and tell us about your mom. How did they meet?
Oh? Well look, mum had moved to Melbourne working for TATSLS in Melbourne CBD and Dad met her there and then day got a job here in Adelaide and they came across to Adelaide. So from Melbourne Oridgely Yeah, yeah, so he lived grew up in Hawthorne. Wow, so Glenn Ferry Oval used to go to as a kid and yeah he was a mad Hawthorne supporter and then he became a mad Crow supporter, a mad Crow yeah yeah later in life for it. Yeah, but local South Australian.
You know I got to bed No.
Well, of course the Crows got him, but you know, you stole a lot of our decent potential support base by getting such a head start, tried to break all the rules and yeah, people like my father just drop Dad actually barrack for Woodville or West Tyrans and Woodle
really before they merged. But I remember when my Dad had dementia in the end when he passed at ninety four, and I knew that he had zoned out completely because he would always watch football, you know, the TV for sport, cricket, football, anything. I walked into his room one day and it was a Crows playing Hawthorne or something. He wasn't watching, so he'd lost it all.
So it was sair. Dad was one of these people. He loved his cricket.
He would turn the TV volume off or down to zero and listened to it on the radio, you know, one of those old timers, and he just I just loved his sport. He was a passionate lawn bowler. He established the West Lakes Bowling Club. But no in sport. I've let my sons. I think it leaked a generation fairly. You must have, you must have grown up, you must have bear it for Oh yeah, yeah, yeah you have.
Did you have heroes?
Oh yeah, Eric Freeman, I had seventeen on my Duffel coat. And when Fritzy got booted for Max James, I remember because Max James was living down.
The street at that time.
It took me a while, but I ended up following Max, who ran against me in Parliament once as an independent.
Years later, decades later, I didn't realize he's a great guy. Max James and I really underrated. I don't think he gets the accolade, no sort of.
It was a strong, solid South Melbourne.
I think from memory he is a local guy. But he went to South Melbourne.
Yeah, I think it's Southeast.
I think it was Mount Camby. We was down that way somewhere. I'm not only it's it doesn't get the accolades that he should South Australia.
But I remember going as a football I remember Port Adelaide playing North Adelaide. I don't know if it was a Grand final or may it might have been a Grand final, would have.
Been a Grand final.
In the back of Max he had a Manaro and Brian Cunningham was in the front seat and I was sitting next to Brian's then fiance and that or girlfriend.
I think it wasn't that.
And I got into the chained rooms and I liked the circle. Oh yeah.
I always been a passionate for Port supporter always. So your family loses their house.
How old were you then? By then I would have been a late teens, early twenties, so what happened. It's a bit of family history. It was by my dad's business was sort of destroyed by Malcolm Fraser. The lifting massive you know, like one hundred percent tariffs. It was just terrible. And my I had a brother who's now passed as well, half brother. Mum and dad foolishly also went guarantee her on a hotel for him at Freeling, Okay. And he was a drinker and a gambler, and what was left went down.
Parents guarante her for.
The Yeah, it it was foolish.
I was just I don't know.
I wasn't aware of what was going on with my brother and my parents, but yeah, it was.
It was a tough period. And did he recover? Did they recover? Oh yeah, yeah he had.
In the end, he got enough to buy a retirement village home and in one of the villages down at north Haven actually and lived there and would come out all the time and watch my oldest son Ryan, who plays who's played around four different clubs. He's probably playing close to three hundred games off and on through his career. And my younger son Ben, and Ryan was a very good tennis player, but Ben was exceptional tennis player. He'd always come out and watch and he'd have his ear
piece in listening to the AFL whilst he watched my son. Yeah, it was he was a good man. So how who cruited you into the Labor Party? Well, I I just I was aware of politics, probably because I was working when a lot of my mates were doing apprenticeships or you know, even I don't know if anyone went to university, but you know, we'd be playing pinball down at the local Delhi and I'd be reading the advertiser a bit of a nerd, or the news. But I was into politics.
I liked it.
When my father was, you know, a phraser, did what he did, I just took it. I was sort of middle of the road and I said, Noah Hawk and Keating got elected. For a young person, it was like, just grab me. I wanted into me down in Port Adelote, and I got an introduction through a friend's father and Mick got me selling meat trays down at the Kolak the following fortnight, the Thursday and Friday night and Mick had to tell me, mate, take your bloody tie off
and your suit jacket. You're in the cola and the Labor Party owned it in those days down in Port Adelaide, and I raised thousands and twenty thirty forty grand over three or four years for the local branch. So are you volunteering or totally volunteering? I did all the You know, there was no easy road and there is no easy road into politics. You know, you don't just get picked off the street and put in on occasionally Malcolm Turnbull does, I guess, and there are people that that does happen to.
But I had to, Yeah, I had to strategically place myself in a queue which I knew I could get to the head of. In my local area can.
Become very ruthless. So did you have the Macavelian instinct where it was you know there were no rules and if you've got them away or stamp on your ground.
Richardson once said, you know whatever it takes it, I mean, you know yourself grown. I mean politics is a brutal, brutal, brutal game, and you've got a yes, you've got to have a fixed skin, but you've also got to know that you can't get your own way all the time. That you've got to be able to, you know, cop it and accept that you're not going to get your way all the time, and some people can't do that. It's the art of the compromise.
Your first attempt at standing you were defeated. Yeah, what was that experience?
Like, Well, I thought I was going to win. I do not just about every seat, but as a next deputy premier in w A once told me there's a lot of bloody liars out there in the electorates because everyone said they liked me and I just took it.
They're going to vote for me. But you were standing against an independent.
Yeah, normally Peter he was off the wharf and he was the local independent and in the end norm supported me when I ran when he retired in ninety three and I went into parliament then and.
Then you were successful.
Well, we had two terms in opposition. I thought I'd spent all my life in opposition.
Successful and being in.
Your second term, yeah, it was a very safe labor seat. I think I took it from twenty six percent margin down to about ten what time I exited. It was very hard to do these jobs if you're not in.
A safe seat.
I have to be honest with you to be an effective minister.
It's very ard. Kevin Foley is my guest, folks. His political career is just starting so much more to come back shortly. Welcome back, everybody who had just tuned in. We're chatting with Kevin Foley, who had such a long, illustrious, distinguished political career here in Adelaide. It's been quietly retired these days. I haven't heard from him much. You've been You have been pretty quiet, haven't you. Well.
I guess it's probably like you Graham, although you're never quite I mean that in a nice way. I didn't sound like it'd probably bit like when you gave up football. You're able to go on to your coaching career, but that at some point it's all over, it ends, and
it's it's a very hard adjustment. So in the early days when I retired, I'd be on the phone ringing up five double A or you know, with my opinion, until I realized that my opinion doesn't matter, and why am I bothering to subject the listeners to my opinion? Now it was just a bit with the head.
I understand that there's this time drive off and driving in the car when when the boys are talking and I want to ring up there. But yeah, he got to put yourself.
Did you ever ring your you know coaches that went after you at the Crows, did you ever get the urge to ring them and tell them.
How they should do their job? Grature this advice when Nixy was going through the really tough time. So I used to text some just words of encouragement. You've got to persevere so that not everybody thinks it's it's a failure.
So I think I I've had a bit of trouble with that. I sort of used to don't do it very often now, but send to the odd message or two to Malley, until I realized that he doesn't in politics.
He don't give a damn about the last lot. And your job's done, gone behind buried, So we'll do it our way. So you enter as a local member, did you you? So you're in opposition for eight years, and you know that was the Brown Olson years. So they were just riven with, you know, tearing each other. Now
the Liberals eat there young. You know Dean Brown who won the ninety three election with the biggest majority in the state's history, bigger majority of Mike Graham would say than league one you in Singapore, but he didn't see out the full term. John Olsen rolled him after three years and.
So for an opposition that was a bit of fun. And you know, we nearly won the ninety seven election, the one straight after the State Bank election, and then scraped in in two thousand and two.
So what's it like you company, all of a sudden you've gone from opposition to being in power. Do you immediately have a portfolio? Yeah? Yeah.
What happens is you go to bed and all of the things that you had done for the previous eight years where you've just been you know, throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the opposition, and you're you know, you've been really sometimes just really nasty and upsetting people and maybe abusing and you know, all the horrid things you had to do to help your way into You have to do that, Yeah, because doesn't the public see through that, don't you?
No?
Well, I don't think Peter Melanaskis has been Peter is an exception because I was surprised when he won that he ran largely a positive campaign.
That is not the norm.
The norm is is that governments don't lose, Sorry, oppositions don't win government. Governments lose, so to get a government to lose, you go very negative. And it worked for us. But when you like the morning after you you've won the elections, as if you walk through some sort of car wash, and all of the nasty barnacles and horrible
nature that you have is just you're a saint. You know, people who wouldn't talk to you across the street if they saw you walking towards them, all of a suddenly you're best friends.
You know.
The very first call I got when I became treasurer an urgent meeting request from Lee Wicker and Max Bashier. Lee had my private number to lobby me because he was about to do a deal with the South Adelaide footy club to give him some obscene amount of money to.
Upgrade Solade no longer.
Yeah, did you give it to him? Not as much as they wanted and a bit later than they wanted. Had it been Port Adelaide that would have got it the next day.
No, No, it was. We're very ethical. I mean, I you did suffer by from criticism some boy. Sometimes your behavior would anger people. But if you look back on your record, I think there's a lot to be proud of. So when you look back, one of the things that satisfy you, well, the.
One that satisfied many of the most was what probably you know, angered the majority of my colleagues. But labor was in such a hole after the State Bank. We had no financial credibility and we had to at least get neutral in the public's mind on economics. So I ran a very hard budget for nearly ten years. We've got state debt down to three billion today it's probably in excess of forty.
I'm not sure this question, and nobody's ever answered it satisfactorily. When we have state debt of three billion dollars to who do we owe that money?
We will have borrowed that money from well, we offer we issue what we call bonds, where retail investors will buy a bond. You know, you'll give me ten thousand dollars for ten thousand dollars worth of bonds, which I then pay you a return on that and in just return on that, and we go to the foreign markets. We go we'll borrow maybe from West pack or or through some of these larger banks, to the global market. What was the biggest amount of money you ever negotiated
to borrow our financing authority. Well, it would have been somewhere between one and three billion at any given sea negoti A lot of this stuff. It rolls over.
Some might be for five years, some might be for twelve months, some might be ten, ten years. At one point.
There we paid all of our state budget dead off. We had zero We actually had one hundred and seventy a million in the bank. But those were days when.
You see some answer, whod I borrow it from? Well, you said Westpac, or well, no, we would use a lot of the major banks and advisory arms of these banks.
Borrow. So if I go to the global markets and I've got a triple A credit rating, that's what's called just about zero sovereign risk. That is that you know people will lend you that money at a very cheap rate relative to the other retail rates or wholesale rates.
I should say, but you'd.
Go to Forum, we'd go to Japan and the mirror banks of Japan. So we've got to borrow from a bank.
Yeah, we borrowed a billion dollars. Let's say, let's I borrowed a billion dollars from this mirror bank yep, okay, how do I pay it back? What are my repayments and what are the interest rates? Well, it depends on the terms of the borrowing. It'll be for a term. We'll give me an example.
Well, you would service the debt and then the principal. You would either pay the principle down or at the end of the term, so it's a ten year term, you would refinance it for another ten years from the same bank or another bank. You shop around and but that was a different time and we had to get our credentials and come the two thousand and six election, we outpolled the Liberals on economics and.
Finance and we run. You know, we had a huge landslide. So that was my best achievement.
People sort of talk Adelaide oval, but tech port you know, the I micran and I kicked that off for seven or eight nine years. It wouldn't be there today. We wouldn't have.
The same to explain that. That's the well we.
First got to office, it was to build what's called the Hobart Class three a warfare destroyer ships naval ships. The Commonwealth government had built them somewhere in Australia. Who chose to build them somewhere in Australia and the Australian Submarine Corporation put a bid in and we wrote a big check, initially about one hundred million. In the end I think it was closer to five hundred million, out of which Marshall Government in fact, from memory or whether
or currently call the Commonwealth bought those facilities. So we recovered a lot of that money because the Commonwealth wanted to wear in the assets. But we wouldn't have UCST today, or the submarine projects or the now seven or six or seven Hunter class naval vessels being built if we hadn't Microran and I hadn't have built and operated and
upgraded that facility down at Osbourne. You know, Adelaide Hospital topped a lot of criticism for that, but it was the right decision at the right I think.
So we disappointed Marjorie our government wouldn't agree to having her name on it.
Yeah, that was probably not the best decision making process for all of us.
That was unfortunate. The problem was.
The Governor Marjorie just didn't like it because she was getting criticism.
Radio. Did you ask your first? Did she asked? Was she asked? I am not sure she was to be perfectly frank, Well, look, I know you're dying to tell me about the Adelaide Oval thing where you shafted the sample and the crow shaft of the sandful and the crows. You did absolutely back door. I got a statue of view there at all. I've got a Deck Graham statue, although I think the river front or riverside wherever that name is couldn't.
Look. It was the right thing. We know, we have never been a city big enough to hold to have two world class stadiums. We're just not rich enough and we're not population wise big enough. We had to consolidate. The location of the Adelaide Oval was brilliant. Nobody supported me, nobody really in my cabinet or caucus other than Pat Conlin. And in the of course Mike ran in the end, although he was, you.
Know, quite rightly.
He wanted to see all the ducks in the line and tease and ies Donald and crossed. But I had a caucus party room that was largely against me. The Liberals were against me.
Why were they against it?
Because politics is they didn't want me spending money on sport, on sport, and if we were going to spend money on sport half a billion or more. It should be at grassroots. Well you know you can walking tough gum and government. But I had a big backlash from the Crows in particular.
Of course.
I took phone calls left, right and center from you know, people that you know very well, either close friends or you've had run ins with it. It was you know, I was barely finding a friend in Adelaide. Andrew Demetro would ring me and just say, keep the faith, keep the faith. We'll get there. So okay for you over there in Melbourne. But as it turned out to the same decision, didn't you.
Did well sampy the contract and had you spent the money in Footy Park to upgrade which was promised and then withdrawn I extended the railro line down so the transport wasn't issue. We would still have a great.
And we wouldn't have this drama when you're still wanting West Lakes rather than Adelaide.
At the time, it would have been a better decision. It's been great now, Well there you go.
It was the right decision because you know, remember Port Adelaide were broken, and don't blame the Crows, and I sat with Mike Fitzpatrick as chairman and Andrew Demetrio in the Sofa Tell Hotel in Melbourne and they made it clear to me that they couldn't. They would just tear up that contract with the Essay NFL and they'd play games of Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval without the redevelopment
because they believed it would get a larger crowd. And they had no intention, well they had every intention of you know, sticking it right up the jumper of the Essa NFL. But in the end it's been a savior for Port Adelaide financially, it's been a big boom for the Crows, and Sack has done pretty well out of it as well, and it's lifted our city.
Okay, so right, I'm going to break Kevin Foley is my guest. Folks, bake surely. Kevin Foley and I are just arguing. When the microphones were turned off, you can't see how he shafted the crows and the sandfill, but anyway, we moved on Adelade.
I don't forget shafting the crows was just like you know, when I was a kid at Christmas, I loved it.
There's many put Adelaide people in positions of power actually and probably still are, so just quickly, I mean Adelaide ovals and achievement. The submarine precinct is the Royal Adelaide.
Hospital Desalination Police. Mike and I had to make that call.
In the end.
Carleen maywater as well.
But I don't worry about surely that must increase the concentration of salinity down there if.
You, oh, yeah, it's out there in the ocean floating off somewhere. But we had that drought in o seven. None of our reservoirs were connected at that point, so you could have a full can Gorilla and an empty Barossa. So we got those connected, but there's only one year of water stock of water in those dams when they're full. The Murray, we were sucking up sand from the Murray. There was no water there and we had to make that.
There was no other decision that nobody around that table could have or would have made a different decision than what we did. And as it's turned out, okay, fifteen years later. We always knew it would start raining the minute it finished construction, but I only talked to the head of SA Water a few weeks back, and it's saying that it's pumping out a lot of water.
Now, can I maybe you don't know the answer that it was a drought where there were all the reservoirs were empty. Say how much of the state's water or the city's water could that desalination plant supply.
It's a good question now it we get about I think we get about ninety percent of our water, eighty percent of our water from the Murray. It was down, you know, it was very low in that drought. I think she's got capacity probably to do fifty sixty percent something like.
We'd have to have severe water water, wouldn't it. Yeah enough to drink and yeah, maybe washing.
But it can pump out enough water that you wouldn't unless it was the end of end of time or something.
There'd always be water coming in the Murray. At some point, you had an illustrious career in different portfolios and clashed with members of your own party and members of the faith of them. The trade unions didn't like you that much.
It was funny in my early years, you know, I'd go to an office of one hundred people and the bosses all thought I was a commo because I was in the Labor Party, and then I'd go to a Labor party meeting in my suit and tie and they all think I'm a fascist, Like it was funny days.
So the incomes were you shafted? I think you were shaft the right fact, the right faction.
Or yeah, look both Mike and I. But I'll talk for myself. Yeah I was tapped on the shoulder.
I don't know.
Did you play one season too many? Or did you retire when you thought you had more and you just faded out?
Just didn't tell you to just know. Well, I was the coach I was playing.
You go, no wonder you played on?
Just thought of But how did that conversation?
Doc Farrell came in to me and that was appropriate because it is probably a cricket It might be a better analogy, but you know most cricketers at elite levels they always think they can go another year or you know, coaja.
Now and tell me how the conversation went. He's a very tactic.
I should have just been up fromt like that. But I don't think it's a secret anywhere. It wasn't just done. When we won our third election, I brought down what I considered to be my best budget ever. It was a shocker, like I was cutting because I wanted to bring that what bit of debt we had and the yearly I didn't want to run any deficit. So I was cutting public servants. I was reducing superannuation benefits to public servants.
I was.
I was doing some pretty ugly stuff and the union because I want to do it in the first budget and then you know, sweet and talk our way for the next three years.
But I went far, and it was you know, a pretty what was the step too far? Just the quantum and the type of budget cuts I was.
I had put in the budget of public servants and yes, and I also we got rid of permanency, so public servants there was a mechanism by which, you know, you could be sacked as a lengthy process, unlike most private sector companies where you get sort of lined up and a pullet through the head. The government. I got all that in there. So the public sector against me, The
fieries were against me. I was walked into that convention when I was given the word with six armed police officers because it was six thousand angry unionists screaming at Micrane and I. But at the end of the day, I went too long in that job. I think if I needed to be taken out where you were angry, Yeah, of course I was, And you know I was probably used a few people.
I think the current premier got a fair old ear full for me as well. But had you moved to the point of view, to the point where you thought you were invulnerable, that you were bigger than the party.
I think it was a little bit of that, to be honest, a lot of arrogance. Probably I didn't see it coming because we'd only just won an election, third election, but that was ten years, and not many politicians ever get to serve ten years.
See Steve Brats.
I think I only did five years and voluntarily retired. Jeff Gallup in WA. I reckon six years and you're as treasurer, and see how long Stephen Mulligan stays in the job. But they're very draining and you've lost your rich There's nothing new I could do. I was bitter. I was a bit twisted. I guess I was worn out. I was tired. Everyone could see it except myself, and.
I had taken a toll in your personal life, your marriage and relationships. Can you talk to that?
Oh, well, you know, my wife, Kathy, the mother of our children's a beautiful person. She's a fantastic mother of our children, our grandchildren. Now we've got four with a fifth on the way. But we got married young, similar stations in life, and we just grew apart and that was a mutual decision. And it must be hard for a politicians, whatever policy. So the wife of a policy
with such a high status. I was never a home and you know, Kath had young kids and I wanted her to come with me to functions, but we had to get babysitters and it was very difficult. It's no there's plenty of politicians who do it today and they know what it's like. But being a public figure, you know, I a fair bit of you know, salacious sort of rumors and seeing having a coffee with a friend, you know who was that woman and all of that nonsense.
So that sort of went off and I went a little bit off track there, a bit single guy on my own. We drank more than I should have after work when I got home at midnight or something. That was a period, not a long period, but eighteen months, two years probably tops. But I am somebody who says what is in my head, and I don't have a filter, a very good filter. My sons remind me with the grandkids.
You know, like Dad, you haven't got a filter.
And I you know, I once accused South Australians at a business lunch and for four hundred people that the problem with South Australians were all a bunch of winges, like you know we are we just winge in South Australia. I thought.
Everyone laughed and clapped.
I get a phone call from Mike Ran about five point thirty in the morning when he got the advertiser off the front lawn. There I am on the front page. You're all a bunch of wines, screams folly yeah. And then when I got out of my show car in front of the State Admin, some couple of young guys went past at Afolia nothing but a winker, And I.
Said, rest my case. You went into the profession of lobbying when you left. And he's strange enough you're working with people who were you bitter end of it.
Oh look, I don't use the word lobbying. I think that's a bit low rent strategic advisor. It's lobbying. Oh you may call it that. Yes, Well, when I got out of politics, I work with Alexander Downer, Nick Bolkis, John Olsen joined us for a period and Ian Smith a good friend and yeah, we looked after the interest of a number of companies. When that dissolved, alex went off to London as High Commissioner. As you know, Ian
did most of his business out of Melbourne. Then I started just doing it myself and now I've just got a couple of clients. I do quite a bit of work with the Hick and Boffin group, Michael Hickenboffam.
Well, he could go on.
Michael terrific man, a terrific person. The family, his sister, Roof.
And his time have not done a conversation with him.
He's a very knowledgeable person. He reads a lot. He yeah, he's and it's just back from the US where he did some studies. He's a very smart person. Had a really good blow. Who else are a couple of other companies just that you wouldn't know the names.
It's been great catching up Kevin. That's thanks for sharing those stories and those memories that you didn't tell us the David Granger's story.
Oh well, double wicket competition. Whenever there was a naval ship in, we.
Would have a two people would bat for two overs. We'd invite the Navy. We'd play the Navy and we get a couple of port Adelaid players out. Clifford comes out with Granger on outside. You know.
We were running some raffles and drinks afterwards, a bit of a fundraiser as well. The Navy would send down twelve six lots of too and I had bought a brand new Gray Nichols back, a absolute crack, cost me a lot of money, hadn't used it. And where we had our cricket gear up, you know, inside the fence. I had my bat leaning up against the wall and before I knew it, Granger's.
Pat it up.
He's grabbed me bloody back. I said, okay, I wanted to be the first one to.
Get an edge, a red edge on the side of it.
I can get too many in the middle.
And so he's out there with my bat something that living daylights out of the ball, out of the bat and the ball, and then he gets bold and out so that both of them were out, so they're.
Walking off and Granger has tossed in Anger.
He's tossed my bat one hundred.
Meters in the air, might be twenty ten. It's come down on the handle and split it on you know today it would be a four or five hundred dollars bat. And then my brain I hadn't touched it. And I was furious, because you may notice from time to time I have a bit of a temper at times. And I said, bug at this, and my mates looked at me because I went out to have a crack at him, not physically, but have a go with him. And I just looked at him, and his eyes stared at me, and he's, what's your problem?
Lad? I wasn't much older younger than them. Is what's your problem? Lad?
Or he might have said, p R I pre course, I don't know, but it was pretty aggressive. And again, you know, like my football career, all of a sudden, no courage. I said, oh that's okay, Dave, not a problem, mate. I just came out here to pick up my bat and my handle, and you know, I just buckled under Granger and he never.
Apologized, and he never forgot it.
No no, so we both got Granger stories. I think yours is a little bit more sensational, but over the days.
Thank you so much for coming mate. Thanks, thank you folks.