The Sydney Power 100: The 100 most powerful people in Sydney — 100-81
It’s Australia’s answer to New York, the place you need to be to truly make it Down Under. As Sydney-born former PM Paul Keating said, if you don’t live in Sydney, you’re just camping out. So who are our most influential people?
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Dazzled by Sydney’s “superbly beautiful” harbour, American author Mark Twain told a local “God deserved the praise”. The local later said Twain had got it half right.
“God made the Harbour,’’ he said. “But Satan made Sydney.’’
Sydney’s beguiling beauty, broadcast across its harbour, snaking up its arterial rivers and dancing along its golden beaches on a blazing summer’s day, is the fuel that drives the ambition of our nation’s greatest city.
It’s what pushes its residents harder than elsewhere. It’s Australia’s answer to New York, our only truly international city. And it’s the place you need to be to truly make it Down Under.
As Sydney-born former Prime Minister Paul Keating said, if you don’t live in Sydney, you’re just camping out. Canberra may be our political capital. Melbourne likes to brag it’s our sporting capital. But the power capital is unarguably Sydney.
It’s where the big deals are done, in politics, in business, in sport, in media, in entertainment, in property. It’s all big. Bigger egos. Bigger grudges. Bigger mansions.
Hence there’s more at stake. The urge to win is that much greater here.
As Sydney’s biggest and brightest newspaper, The Daily Telegraph has been chronicling this endless battle for nearly 140 years.
So, it’s perhaps overdue that we enshrine that contest into our inaugural Sydney Power 100.
Yes, the rankings are entirely unscientific and prone to furious disagreement. There’ll no doubt be howls of condemnation of this omission, or that inclusion.
But that’s the point. This is a fierce city, its dynamism informed by the ferocity of competition. As with any great realm, power is not handed over on a platter. It is grabbed. Sometimes that’s a result of careful and methodical plotting. At other times, it’s a quick kill.
Either way, it’s interesting. And useful.
Knowing Sydney’s power matrix helps explain why some of our big names are pals, others not so much.
Above all it’s a celebration. Most the Power 100 are great leaders and passionate champions of Sydney. You may not agree with who’s on it and who’s not, but I’ll wager it’ll get you thinking about who really runs this city.
— Editor, Ben English
100. Matt Comyn — Commonwealth Bank CEO
Matt Comyn can thank Kenneth Hayne for making it onto this list of Sydney’s most powerful people.
Comyn was off the list until Hayne gave him a big tick for standing out among the big four bank bosses as showing contrition and understanding of the massive task ahead for the industry: changing the toxic culture under which bankers regularly ripped off their customers in the greedy pursuit of a bonus.
Comyn is a CBA lifer who was part of the culture which brought you scandals such as the Austrac disaster involving systematic breaches of money laundering and anti-terrorism laws.
But he made an impressive witness before Hayne late last year and had a paper trail to support his efforts to clean up the bank’s practices and get rid of dodgy products which were lining the pockets of bankers rather than being beneficial to customers.
As then boss of the retail bank he lost some of those battles, but now he’s in the big chair you can bet he’s using his expanded power for the better of the bank’s customers.
Hayne for his part pulled some punches on the banks, and because he didn’t hit them as hard as expected in his conclusion she got punted from our list of most influential people.
Hayne’s impact hit the industry last year — before his underwhelming final report — during 12 months of compelling car-crash evidence.
Stories of banks charging dead people fees had already triggered a regulator crackdown on lending practices, belt tightening on bonuses and, for all the big four but Westpac, selling of their stinking financial advice arms.
99. Lloyd Babb — Director of Public Prosecutions
You may never have heard of him but Lloyd Babb makes the big legal calls that can change the course of lives.
The low-profile Director of Public Prosecutions is the polar opposite of his predecessor Nicholas Cowdery, who was a fierce advocate and defender of his office.
Babb is seldom seen championing his prosecutors or explaining why he has decided to prosecute a crime or not.
He only made our list because we can’t ignore the power of the office, regardless of his record in wielding that power.
Babb has been embroiled in a string of controversies including a four-year delay in removing himself from any decision-making in the Lyn Dawson murder case because her accused killer Chris Dawson was a teacher at his high school.
The state’s chief magistrate also gave the DPP a serve, ordering him to get “his own house in order” and stop wasting court time on unnecessary adjournments.
Babb also had to apologise for the long delay in prosecuting two men over the 2011 manslaughter of a woman.
98. Eamonn Fitzpatrick — Adviser to NSW Labor Leader Michael Daley
It’s probably a sign of his influence as a backroom operator that Eamonn Fitzpatrick was once labelled an “agent of infection” by an opponent.
The lobbyist, media strategist and all-round fixer has been part of the Labor Party’s inner circle for two decades and has shared in some of its greatest victories.
When Luke Foley’s career crumbled less than five months out from the election due next month, Fitzpatrick was drafted in from his base in lobby firm Hawker Britton’s Queensland office to help Michael Daley pick up the pieces.
He plays the game of political spin better than most.
Liberal Tim Nicholls called him the “agent of infection” after he was parachuted into the 2011 Queensland state campaign and negative yarns about Liberals National Leader Campbell Newman began to leak out.
He was instrumental in Labor holding Longman in last year’s federal by-election that delivered then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull a body blow and has been a key adviser to Labor leaders Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Bill Shorten, as well as state party leaders including Morris Iemma.
97. Matt Kean — NSW Liberal moderate faction leader
Matt Kean’s grip on power in Sydney stems from his role as leader of the moderate faction of the NSW Liberals.
The position makes him a close confidant of Gladys Berejiklian — the Premier herself is a member of the faction and her role as party leader means she has to be in close contact with factional leaders to ensure spot fires don’t blow up.
Along with right faction leader Dom Perrottet, Kean is a steadying force in the NSW Liberals — after the dramatic dumping of lobbyist Michael Photios as leader of the moderates over conflict of interest concerns in 2017.
Last year Kean worked with Tony Abbott to craft the former prime minister’s Warringah Motion on preselection reform into something palatable for his faction.
It was Berejiklian who rewarded Kean’s loyalty with a promotion to Innovation and Regulation Minister in 2017, six years after he was elected.
Those who have known the ambitious former PwC accountant for years say he’s “Kean by name and keen by nature” — he’s always got some political move in the works.
96. Deborah Mailman — Actor
A trailblazer for indigenous women on stage and screen, Deborah Mailman is a national treasure.
The Mount Isa-born actor with the girl-next-door appeal has developed into one of the most sought-after performers in Australia.
The 46-year-old became the first Aboriginal actor to win an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress following her film debut in Radiance in 1988.
She has since won the equivalent AACTA award in 2013 for The Sapphires and bagged many more gongs, including four Logies for her impressive body of work.
Her credit list is long and her face ubiquitous on our screens — in some of the country’s most prominent and popular productions including Playschool, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Offspring.
But it was her role as Kelly in the hit TV series The Secret Life of Us that was a landmark, showing an indigenous actor playing a role that was not defined by race.
Mailman, who is also a playwright, was officially recognised last year for her services to the arts and as a role model for indigenous performers with a Medal of the Order of Australia.
95. Wendy Waller and Lindy Deitz — Liverpool Mayor and Campbelltown City Council General Manager
Wendy Waller and Lindy Deitz are two women integrally involved in grassroots government in the fast-growing southwest — soon to be home to the third city of Sydney.
What Waller doesn’t know about Liverpool isn’t worth knowing.
The 66-year-old was the first female mayor of Liverpool Council when she was elected in 2008.
“I know people talk about the glass ceiling, but I think it’s Perspex, you keep bouncing off it until you break a small hole in it and can get through,” she says.
The mayor is excited the council is now a major partner in the development of the region thanks to the new Western Sydney City Deal.
There are two university campuses in the CBD and four of NSW’s universities have joined forces to create a world-class institution in the new Western Sydney Aerotropolis.
Deitz is the first woman to hold the position of Campbelltown Council’s general manager, beating 69 candidates for the job.
The job entails running one of the largest employers in the Macarthur region, with more than 900 staff at various locations.
She has also played a pivotal role in Australia’s first complex City Deal proposal, working as part of a team across three levels of government for the new Western Parkland City focused around the airport.
A former nurse, she says swapping hospital wards for the council wards was a more natural progression than most people would realise.
94. Dominic Perrottet — NSW Treasurer
He’s talked of in some circles as a future NSW premier and if there’s one thing Dominic Perrottet is not short of it’s ambition.
Perrottet, 36, became NSW’s second-youngest treasurer when he was awarded the plum role in January 2017 and has burnished his economic credentials in two state budgets that have delivered surpluses and loosened the purse strings on the massive infrastructure programs to which Premier Gladys Berejiklian has pegged her government’s survival.
It’s been a rapid rise for Perrottet through the NSW Liberal Party ranks since his election in 2011, helped along by the hard-right faction led by Planning Minister Anthony Roberts.
His rise has not been without its missteps, such as the humiliating backdown he was forced to take after bringing on a preselection fight with fellow minister Ray Williams.
The failed coup to contest Williams’s seat of Castle Hill at the March election left Perrottet red-faced, but he won’t be the first or last MP to overplay his hand.
There are also economic headwinds to navigate, including the sharp downturn in Sydney’s housing market that will send stamp duty lower.
For now, Perrottet is a committed team player declaring himself “focused on the job at hand” at treasury rather than any higher office.
“I am honoured to be serving alongside Premier Gladys Berejiklian,” he said.
“We haven’t shied away from the big projects that will guarantee NSW remains the best place to live, work and raise a family for generations to come.”
93. Rodd Staples — Transport of NSW Secretary
Transport boss Rodd Staples has been compared with John Bradfield, the visionary engineer who oversaw the design of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Staples, now responsible for 25,000 workers across the state’s vast transport network as Transport for NSW Secretary, already had a stellar career in the bureaucracy before taking on the job of transport tsar.
As an engineer — whose grandfather worked on the original Sydney Harbour Bridge — he knew well the challenges in delivering the Sydney Metro, the nation’s largest public transport project.
Along with Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins — a hard-hitting Brit tasked with making the city’s sprawling train network cope with a booming population — Staples will be one of NSW’s key movers and shakers to watch.
92. Nick Politis — Sydney Roosters Chairman and businessman
No one who is anyone in Australian sport, business or politics would underestimate the enormous influence of the man affectionately known as “The Godfather”.
Nick Politis has made his fortune via a thriving motor dealership empire and commercial property investments.
But those close to him will tell you it is his position as chairman of the reigning NRL premiers the Sydney Roosters that is his greatest love.
Politis celebrated his 25th season as chairman of the Roosters last year, the foundation club he first began sponsoring back in the 1970s.
He has turned the Roosters into an Australian sporting powerhouse that has won four of the past six NRL minor premierships and two grand finals.
Politis is admired by the sport’s biggest stars, along with heavy hitters in business and politics, including James Packer and David Gyngell.
91. Graham Richardson — Labor powerbroker
These days Graham Richardson flexes his political muscles from a wing chair in his lounge room rather than on the Senate floor or in the backrooms of NSW Labor’s Sussex St headquarters.
The former numbers man for the NSW ALP’s dominant right faction and “kingmaker” at state and federal level remains a formidable political force as a media commentator with his take-no-prisoners critiques.
Richardson’s uncompromising assessments of politicians of all stripes resonate.
Who can forget his description of former Labor leader Mark Latham as “king rat” and a “shyster”.
Health problems since his 1999 diagnosis with a rare bone cancer have been tackled with the same dogged determination he displayed during his political career.
They have certainly not dimmed his willingness for the fight.
Recently he issued a blunt assessment of Bill Shorten’s shortcomings.
90. Dave Hudson — NSW Deputy Police Commissioner
Every terror plot and every “Mr Big” of the Sydney crime world falls under the gaze of one man — and most people would not even recognise him.
Deputy police commissioner Dave Hudson lost by a whisker to Commissioner Mick Fuller in the 2017 race to be the state’s top cop but was immediately consoled with the force’s most coveted portfolio.
A Pink Floyd fanatic and keen golfer, Hudson is the head of counter-terrorism and in charge of the State Crime Command which houses specialist units like the Homicide Squad and bikie-busting Strike Force Raptor.
Mr Hudson, with more than 35 years as a cop, has fronted the media dozens of times on everything from sex crimes to major weapons seizures but is not known for courting public opinion.
His immense investigative powers are barely matched by his profile, making him one of the most quietly powerful and respected officers in the force.
Hudson joined the force in 1981 and climbed his way through the ranks to assistant commissioner in 2008, where he restructured the State Crime Command.
89. Stephen Page — Bangarra Dance Theatre Artistic Director
As the Artistic Director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre for the last 27 years, Stephen Page has reinvented indigenous storytelling, taken the company to the world stage and won international recognition.
Once a performer with the Sydney Dance Company, Page is a descendant of the Nunukul People and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh Nation from Queensland.
He directed the indigenous sections of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games opening and closing ceremonies, and created a new dance work for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast last year.
He has been artistic director of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts and has worked with the Australian Ballet.
In 2008, Page was named the NSW Australian of the Year and in 2016 was recognised for his broader contribution to Australia with a Lifetime Achievement Award from NAIDOC.
He has also received several Helpmann awards.
Page’s critically and internationally acclaimed works at Bangarra include Bush, Corroboree and Walkabout.
“People keep asking me when I’ll retire … right now, I feel like I have just started,” he says.
88. Clover Moore — City of Sydney Lord Mayor
With her black spiky hair, collection of chokers and wearing the aura of power like a cloak, Sydney’s Lord Mayor is rock-star recognisable by just one name: Clover.
Since becoming the city’s first female leader in 2004 when the City of Sydney and South Sydney councils were amalgamated, Clover Moore has been both praised and pilloried for trying to fashion the nation’s biggest city in her own image with green-tinged politics and off-leash dog parks.
She has created what she calls a globally-acclaimed city by championing small bars and the late-night economy, and has transformed Kings Cross from a wild, red-light district to a mild residential suburb.
87. “Jim” Shang Jin Lin — Aqualand founder
“Jim” Shang Jin Lin heads a property development giant with a Sydney apartment pipeline worth more than $6 billion — but you have probably never heard of him.
At just 28, he is the low-profile boss of Aqualand, which has 23 developments on the go including the ultra-luxurious 46-unit The Revy in a heritage-listed waterfront property at Pyrmont and others at Lindfield, North Ryde and Lavender Bay.
Aqualand is backed by Shanghai-based property group Shenglong Group, which Jim’s father Yi Lin heads, with $25 billion in investments and development across China, Europe and the US.
The family migrated to Australia 16 years ago and father and son speak three to four times a day.
Unlike other Chinese developers, they don’t splash their money around or make high-profile political donations.
Instead Aqualand has subtly been extending its property portfolio and putting its label on some of Sydney’s most sought-after sporting and cultural sponsorships.
These include a three-year deal with Sculpture by the Sea and a deal with the South Sydney Rabbitohs as its major home corporate partner for the 2019-21 seasons.
“(We) believe that accessible public art is a key element of vibrant and engaged communities,” Jin Lin said of Sculpture by the Sea.
Aqualand also became the second biggest shareholder in leading listed estate agency McGrath last year, taking a 15 per cent stake worth almost $14 million, in an investment that highlighted its Australian property ambitions.
Jin Lin’s low profile was only shattered when he hit the headlines in 2015 after the family acquired “Villa Igiea”, a $52-million mansion at Vaucluse.
The magnificent European-style villa was built for the Grace retailing family in the 1920s.
86. Steve McCann — Lendlease CEO
The influence of Lendlease boss Steve McCann is everywhere in Sydneysiders’ lives thanks to the projects on the books of his giant building and infrastructure company.
When you are collecting your bags at Western Sydney Airport in the future and marvelling at the layout and construction of the terminal, Steve McCann’s Lendlease will be the one to thank. Or blame.
Checking out a book at the new bird’s nestlooking library at Darling Harbour; working in a tower at Barangaroo or the Circular Quay Tower; attending a conference at the new international Convention Centre, or moving into a new apartment at Darling Harbour: think Lendlease.
McCann, an Adelaide-born former investment banker, has run the international company for the past 10 years and in that time dealt with powerbrokers at all levels of business and government.
“I never underestimate what I don’t know. Resilience is the vital ingredient,” McCann has said.
One of his first jobs out of university was as a bookmaker’s clerk, which gave him a head for numbers and fostered an ability to analyse a balance sheet in double quick time today.
McCann was appointed Lendlease CEO in 2008 and now oversees a workforce of 13,000 and a pipeline of developments valued at $71 billion.
He is a champion of gender pay equality and has been a member of the Property Male Champions of Change group since 2015.
Under his stewardship the Sydney-based company has operations all over the world including the US, UK, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Italy, Japan and Malta.
He recently paid more than $8 million for a two-hectare property at Duffys Forest that was formerly used to film the TV reality show The Biggest Loser.
85. Leanne Pilkington — Real Estate Institute of NSW president and Laing+Simmons managing director
Leanne Pilkington came reluctantly to real estate, getting her start answering phones on weekends at her father’s agency at the age of 12 before joining his business as a teenager.
She now wields the influence of the most powerful group in an industry with almost 38,000 workers and worth an estimated $107 billion annually, as the president of the Real Estate Institute of NSW.
She’s been an activist leader unafraid to take on government, saying “they don’t really listen to industry”. She has led a battle over agent licensing after accusing regulator Fair Trading of tardiness and negligence. Better Regulation Minister Matt Kean fired back that Pilkington and her institute may not be fit to train agents.
The general manager of Laing+Simmons since the late 1990s has championed women in leadership roles, and her drive to improve agent training helped her to win the industry’s Thought Leader of the Year in 2017.
84. Marise Payne and Stuart Ayres
From Western Sydney to the world. Between them, political power couple Marise Payne and Stuart Ayres are responsible for Australia’s diplomatic relationships, the construction of the $16.8 billion WestConnex tunnel, the divisive $2 billion Sydney stadiums strategy and the birth of an entire city around Sydney’s second airport.
The latter is being spearheaded by Ayres through the ambitious City Deal, a project that brings the state and federal governments together with eight councils to build the “aerotropolis” that the NSW Government is promising will transform Western Sydney.
It’s the region where the couple have their greatest clout — they have lived there for a decade and he is the state minister for the region — although Payne’s day job is on the world stage. She is the most senior woman in the Australian government, having been appointed Foreign Affairs Minister in August 2018 after Julie Bishop resigned.
The Liberal party brought the couple together: they met at a fundraiser 11 years ago.
And it was Payne who encouraged Ayres, 38, to enter politics in 2010.
He scored a nearly 26 per cent swing to defeat the Labor incumbent in a by-election for the seat of Penrith.
He is now in charge of some of the government’s most challenging projects including WestConnex and stadium builds.
When he’s not overseeing the 33km of tunnelling underneath Sydney and she’s not providing carefully worded commentary on Donald Trump and other world leaders, the couple can usually be found trackside. Both are avid racegoers.
83. Tony Perich — Billionaire, developer and farmer
From tomatoes to townhouses, the Perich family is arguably southwest Sydney’s greatest self-made success story.
Tony Perich’s Croatian parents started a dairy at Liverpool in 1951 where they also grew tomatoes to sell at Sydney Markets.
Tony and brother Ron are now estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.8 billion.
The Perichs are still milking it in the dairy business through their Leppington Pastoral Company.
Investments range from property, transport, mining to wood shavings and fertiliser manufacturing but the empire’s base is still firmly in southwest Sydney and very much family-run.
Tony’s son Mark runs Greenfields Development Company, which is selling more than 12,500 lots at Oran Park, while his brother Michael runs Leppington Pastoral.
82. Joel Edgerton and Christine Centenera — actor and influencer
Film and fashion elite combine perfectly with newly revealed power couple of Joel Edgerton and Christine Centenera.
The Hollywood star, who was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2017 for Loving, went public with his romance with Vogue Australia fashion director Centenera at the GQ Men of the Year awards in November.
He took home that title on the night.
Despite his relatively low profile, Edgerton is one of our most bankable actors with a string of hits including Star Wars, The Great Gatsby and Red Sparrow.
Centenera is one of Australia’s biggest fashion names.
She is besties with the Kardashians and styled the likes of Cate Blanchett.
81. Nicole Kidman — Actor and producer
Since the early days of her breakthrough movie Dead Calm 30 years ago, Nicole Kidman has come a long way.
She’s an Oscar-winning actor who has regularly featured on Hollywood’s most bankable stars lists, has her own production company Blossom Films, founded in 2010 with her friend Per Saari, and is the powerhouse behind massive hits such as Big Little Lies.
She made her mark in movies but her ability to move between film and TV and to make things happen is where her power lies.
“I’m at a stage where I’ve got a little bit of — I don’t like the word ‘power,’ because what is power? — but ability to get things done or move things forward.”
Blossom Films last year signed a first look deal with Amazon under which Kidman will develop theatrical and series content for the digital company.
Amazon Studio boss Jennifer Salke describes her as a “force of nature as both an actor and a producer.”
Blossom’s first venture Rabbit Hole was nominated for an academy award and Big Little Lies won eight of the sixteen Emmy Awards for which it was nominated in 2017.
She has been nominated for an Oscar four times, winning for The Hours, and fourteen times for a Golden Globe, winning the gong five times
But it is Kidman’s down-to-earth everywoman persona, her love of family and husband, singer Keith Urban, which can be credited for her power, as much as her talent.
With strong links to Sydney, where she grew up, Kidman has been a supporter of Sydney Children’s Hospital for 20 years, as well as advocating for the end to violence against women.
► TOMORROW: Sydney’s Power 100 — 80 to 61
► WEDNESDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 60 to 41
► THURSDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 40 to 21
► FRIDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 20 to 1
— Additional reporting: Matthew Benns, Janet Fife-Yeomans, Rose Brennan, Jonathon Moran, Anna Caldwell, Fatima Kdouh, Edward Boyd, Sheradyn Holderhead, Danielle Le Messurier, Jonathan Chancellor, Mark Morri, Julian Linden, Fiona Wingett, Lydia Pedrana and Paul Crawley.
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