She has ADHD.

Sallyanne, who began her working life as a journalist, became curious about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder after reading so much about it in the news, and upon further investigation thought, “hmmm, this sounds a bit like me”.

Now – almost 40 years to the day since she began blazing a trail as Brisbane’s first female lord mayor in 1985 – Sallyanne is still motivated by making a difference.

“The reason I am happy to speak about it, and the reason I got myself diagnosed, is that I became sick of everybody talking about this terrible, crippling disease that is costing society all this money.

“I don’t want to make light of it, particularly for children, but it seems to me if we talk about it and then manage it, that’s great for the person who’s got it.

“Medication may help – I’m on medication – but management is the key, instead of treating people as somehow disabled.”

Sallyanne displays trademark candour when talking about her experience with the condition.

“I have always jumped around a bit, I lacked concentration at school and university, and I’m disorganised in a day-to-day sense,” she says.

“And I knew I could never be in a meeting for longer than two hours, so I am lucky because the lord mayor’s job was perfect – I could have ideas, set policy, set direction and other people could do all the nuts and bolts stuff.

“I want people to know you can live a rich and full life with ADHD.”

A rich and full life it continues to be, and Sallyanne is brimming with enthusiasm about the future.

Over lunch at Rich & Rare in West End, Sallyanne shares opinions on many things.

From Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to 50 cent bus fares, from cardboard coffins to fake greenies, she doesn’t hold back.

And why should she? Crashing through glass ceilings to land high-level public roles, she’s well placed to speak her mind.

Asked if she has any advice for Dutton ahead of the May 3 election, Sallyanne is resolute: “No! As I say to my children, I give you my opinion but not my advice.

“I like Peter Dutton personally, I think he is very strong, and I don’t mind the backflip on the public service policy and now letting people work from home.

“It’s OK to change your mind, nothing wrong with that at all.

“I find (Prime Minister Anthony) Albanese soft and dithering so I would be happy to see a Coalition government.

“I am a member of the Liberal Party, very deliberately, because I believe people should be doing things for themselves and not relying on handouts; they have to take personal responsibility.”

Sallyanne, whose marriage to prominent surgeon Leigh Atkinson ended in 1994, has lived in the same South Bank apartment for 25 years.

There, she has morphed into “a proper greenie”.

“I still drive sometimes but I’m a proper greenie, unlike the Greens. I don’t have a clothes dryer, I don’t use my airconditioning, and I use the ferry and buses so I’m doing my bit,” she says.

“Unfortunately, many people who vote Greens aren’t doing anything themselves; there’s no use telling the government to do something, we have to work out what we can do.”

That extends to Sallyanne’s funeral – which she hopes is not for a long while yet.

“I am absolutely obsessed about the terrible waste in cremations when coffins are burnt up,” she says.

“I was at a funeral recently and said to the funeral director, ‘could you not take the body out and reuse the coffin?’, and he was very shocked, but getting rid of somebody’s coffin is such a waste – I hate waste.

“When I die I want a biodegradable cardboard box, hopefully painted by my children and grandchildren. I’ve got my whole funeral planned.

“I don’t want the kids (Nicola, Damien, Eloise, Genevieve and Stephanie) fighting over it after I’m gone.”

Sallyanne brings three documents to lunch.

Handing them to me, she says she is a “terrible hoarder but a keen recycler”.

On the reverse of one A4 sheet – a medical consultation receipt from 2018 – she has jotted an abbreviated list of her roles over the last 50 years.

They include her current positions on the University of Queensland Senate and Queensland Brain Institute and her 1994 move to Paris to be Australia’s Senior Trade Commissioner to France, Belgium, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

There are her stints as Queensland Government’s Special Representative to Southeast Asia, a board member of the Australian Ballet, and chair of ABC Learning Centres (which collapsed in 2008 owing almost $2bn).

And then there are two words, “Olympic stuff” … but more on that later.

The second document is on letterhead from 1993 when Sallyanne ran (unsuccessfully) for the Liberals in the federal seat of Rankin.

Flip it over and she’s photocopied a page from a biography she thinks I will like.

It’s of a female newspaper editor, Connie Robertson, who shook up the male-dominated world of journalism in Australia until her death in 1964.

“Marvellous to think what this woman achieved,” Sallyanne says.

Finally, there is a booklet spruiking her own 2016 memoir “No Job For A Woman” – the words her grandfather used when Sallyanne told him she was leaving her arts degree at the University of Queensland after six months to take a cadetship with The Telegraph in Brisbane in 1960.

As you might imagine, there are myriad anecdotes from Sallyanne’s journey smashing stereotypes.

Like the time prior to being elected a Brisbane City Council alderman in 1979 when a male rival publicly asked, “how could a woman with five children possibly represent us on the council?”.

“’You’re keeping a good man out of a job – you’re a doctor’s wife from Indooroopilly,’ he would say, and I’d say, ‘I’m not running because I need a job, I’m running because I believe in the future of Brisbane’.

“And I still do. I feel what’s wrong with a lot of politicians today is they don’t have any purpose. My purpose was clear and it was always to make Brisbane a better place, in all kinds of ways.”

Presiding over the city during one of its most transformative periods anchored by World Expo 88, Sallyanne isn’t surprised by the Brisbane of today.

“Brisbane has developed in a way I thought it would develop,” she says, matter-of-factly.

“There are a lot more parks, we’re using the outdoors much more than we used to, including the river.

“I have no complaints other than there is too much traffic, which is why I like 50-cent fares on transport.

“I went to the Gold Coast the other day for a dollar – 50 cents on the train to Helensvale and then the tram the rest of the way.

“In fact, I’d be quite keen if we made public transport free. We lose a lot of money already so we might as well lose a bit more. What people don’t understand is that it saves money on the wear and tear on the roads, and helps save the environment.”

As for the 2032 Games, Sallyanne is itching to get involved.

She has form. Previously a representative of the Australian Olympic Committee, she supported Brisbane’s bid for the 1992 Games, Melbourne’s for 1996 and Sydney’s for 2000.

While living in France she was the European representative for the Sydney Olympic Committee and later became deputy mayor of the athletes’ village.

“I want to be involved in the 2032 Games, though I’ve not been asked by anybody, and I’ve been to four – Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney – and I believe in the Olympics and Paralympics, implicitly,” she says.

With Brisbane second time lucky, Sallyanne is pumped.

Last month, walking to The Courier-Mail‘s Future Brisbane lunch at Howard Smith Wharves where Premier David Crisafulli announced Games’ infrastructure, Sallyanne stopped to address protesters opposing the Victoria Park stadium proposal.

“I said to them – and (artist and former Labor councillor) David Hinchliffe was there and I like him, we’re middle of the road people, not ideological extremists – ‘Look, you can’t stop it, so shape it’,” she says.

“I didn’t know then what the decision was – and I hated the idea of The Gabba (rebuild) – but my main point was to have input into the implementation of the Premier’s decision.

“I backed Crisafulli to the hilt – he didn’t have all the facts and figures when in Opposition – so changing his position (on no new stadiums) was justified,” she says.

“The main function of leadership is to make decisions and be accountable for them. Once the decision has been made and you get on with it, you can tinker with aspects of it later.”

As we finish lunch with coffees – hers a flat white, “three-quarters full” – Sallyanne wants to impart a message.

“You can be 82 and still be active,” she says.

“People are starting to offer me their hand to go upstairs, which is very nice, but am I suddenly being seen as old, but I don’t feel old, and I still want to be involved.

“One of my theories about life is that everything you do, even the down sides, is contributing towards the next stage of life. Nothing is a waste. We are always learning.”

RATING

Rich & Rare, West End

Seared scallops, caramelised cauliflower purée, jamón crumb

8/10