Peter Yates has already ordered a small plate of sashimi when I arrive, late, for our lunch appointment. It is not clear, when it is delivered to our table at Crown Sydney’s Japanese diner Nobu, why it appears to contain every second fish in the ocean. Could it be because Yates was once the chief executive of PBL Limited, the predecessor to the gaming giant that now owns the building, or is it because he ordered in fluent Japanese?

The years with PBL and in Japan, as one of Macquarie’s earliest bankers in the country, have long passed. We are having lunch to discuss Yates’ latest pursuit, “taking over” the NSW judiciary, as he puts it. The businessman has been at the centre of attempts to have Kathleen Folbigg released from the Grafton prison she first entered in 2003 after being found guilty of murdering three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth.