On the Wednesday morning before Easter, Bill Kelty, a director of the Linfox transport juggernaut and its chief negotiator, entered the Reserve Bank’s dilapidated headquarters at the top of Martin Place. He was flanked by Peter Fox, executive chairman and son of Linfox founder Lindsay Fox, and Mick Cronin, chief executive of Armaguard, a Linfox subsidiary.

The RBA building is being renovated; it’s been falling apart. During a tense discussion in the large meeting room in the library on level 15, with blinds obscuring the view down Phillip Street to Chifley Square, it soon became apparent that six months of robust negotiations between the cash transit monopoly and the country’s biggest banks and retailers were falling apart too.