Ten questions: John Singleton

AFTER Singo’s spray against Fairfax executives Greg Hywood and Roger Corbett, we asked him to let loose on other topics.

AFTER Singo’s entertaining spray against Fairfax executives Greg Hywood and Roger Corbett, we asked him to let loose on a range of other topics.

You say Hywood and Corbett are shockers. Which other execs of public companies don’t you rate?

Who are good ones would make it a lot easier question. I assume whatever business I go into, the CEO will be incompetent and he will have hired a lot worse than him so he is never at risk of losing his job. They are f. king idiots. Absolute idiots. The board has to be people who don’t have a clue and there has to be two women.

You don’t agree with having two women on boards?

No. It’s silly. Two short people. Two fat people. Why have two women? It’s a rule that is denigrating to women. It’s not as though I’ve ever been accused of being a chauvinist. All my career, from the time I ran my first business 50 years ago, I’ve always had at least 80 per cent women employees and still do. My horse stud is run by a woman. My real estate is run by a woman and my stadium and bars and hotels on the central coast are run by a woman. When I’ve had three women who were either CEOs or could have been, like in my advertising days, in each and every case they chose family over the top job. They didn’t want it. They said they’d rather have a lesser job. Is that a criticism of them? No, it’s a choice. I didn’t say bugger that. It’s their choice. And none of them regret it now. It’s just the way nature designed us. If I was a woman I’d say we don’t like this, it’s an insult. I’d rather look at a quota system towards Aborigines for companies that have a government licence.

How do you rate the Abbott government?

Better than the last one. The Gillard government was up there with Gough. No, no it was far worse than Gough. Gough got us out of Vietnam and introduced Medicare.

What do you think of Stephen Conroy?

Appalling. He is absolutely out of his depth. Accusing a general of being Liberal Party stooge. I don’t think so. Those Senate inquiries — why do we have a Senate? So we can compromise good legislation. In the case of Liberal and Labor parties, it’s the place to put people who can’t get elected in their own right and now it’s an easy way for others to get in and fringe dwellers to get in and to hold Australia to ransom.

Speaking of holding the country to ransom, your thoughts on Clive Palmer?

He needs to lose some weight.

What about the Greens?

They’re discussing economics and taxes. The Greens are just now some obstructionist party. They’ve lost their whole reason d’etre. As did the Democrats as did the ALP. If Julian Burnside spent less time on Q & A and more time on practicalities, he could have had a power base in the Senate which could have allowed humane processing of refugees into the Australian community. We need them — not all gathered together in clusters on the visas where they’re not allowed to work so the only way to survive is to go and steal cars. Wouldn’t it be easier to send them where there is work?

So what is your view on the asylum-seeker debate?

I have the opposite view of Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, which shows editorial independence in action, even though we don’t have a charter. We haven’t built a dam since Warragamba. If we built another 10 or 20, why not 100, we would need all the refugees we could get, working. The refugees have to go where the work is. If they’ve been here for five years and no troubles, then they become an Australian and they have to live where the infrastructure or mine projects are. These f . . king idiots who say the refugees should get in a queue in Iraq, in Afghanistan, well, where do they think they should go? To the “Don’t get shot and go to Australia” department? They are risking their lives to get here. Why don’t they get planes? Because they don’t have a passport? We drop bombs on wherever America tells us to because there’s goodies and baddies but we don’t let the goodies in because they don’t have a passport and if they do, they get shot. Funny life. Australia could feed the whole of Asia, instead we’re now shooting our starving cattle and we tell Indonesia how to kill cattle. Tell me why it is? What thrives in drought? Kangaroos, emus, camels, donkeys, buffaloes. Why don’t we eat them instead of cattle? Get rid of the cattle. Bloody ridiculous.

Are you a fan of Alan Joyce?

No. I worked with Qantas very closely for a long time with Geoff Dixon and there were two world-class execs under Geoff, John Borghetti and Peter Gregg. And they chose Alan Joyce. It’s not his fault. He’s doing his best, he’s just nowhere near as good as Peter Gregg who left to run Leighton or John Borghetti who runs Virgin.

What’s your view on Bill Shorten as Labor leader?

Terrible. Terrible.

Will he ever be prime minister?

Never.

Tell me a secret.

James (Packer) and I made his first $100 million deal together. He did make his first $100m on his own with me. It was when Kerry was still alive. It’s never been publicised before. I’m telling you that because I like you but I’m not going to tell you anymore because I like James. It was private so we don’t have to disclose it. $100m is probably now petty cash to James but at the time it was a wonderful deal, very clever. And we still have private business together which I’m not going to discuss either because its called private.

You have such strong views, why don’t you run for parliament?

I’m unelectable. I know that much. I can’t stand meetings. I meet with people and ask for their opinion but I don’t want to sit around and have a meeting about things. Never could, never would, never will.

What should we do to get Australia on track for the future?

We should be doing everything to lower our taxes in mining so every country in the world wants to get their minerals off Australia. I hope Joe Hockey is as good as I think he is. I hope he gives massive incentives to mining, agriculture and infrastructure, not discencentives.

You’ve been married more times than most. What’s your view on it?

A partnership with someone would be a wonderful way to share the load and burden — and it’s not a subject I should be allowed to discuss. I feel very jealous of those who are able to share a partnership with someone for life. I would just say I’d be a dud choice. I’m obviously no good at it. I’ve had two CEOs in 50 years, two PAs in 50 years, my staff turnover is the lowest of any industry, and yet I’ve not been able to, despite having a couple of wonderful marriages.

Do you think you’ll marry again?

At my age I’ll be lucky to do anything again. But I’m not very hard to get along with if you do the right thing, very, very easy.

What do you think of the new health taxes proposed by the Abbott government?

I’m 72. Every two years I get a medical check up and I get free X-rays. Why should I get free X-rays? I can afford to pay.

What do you think about gay marriage?

I think they should have to get married for 20 years and heterosexuals are not allowed to. If people want to be together, it’s a bit of paper love. Now you can walk away two years after divorce. Why should homosexuals have the same bloody terrible system of law that the heterosexuals have?

Who are the best executives you’ve come across?

Rupert (Murdoch) is without doubt the greatest businessman Australia has ever, ever, ever created. Ever.

Terry Davis at Coca-Cola Amatil was extraordinary but because he’s been there 12 years he has to step aside. He’s only mid-50s. Crazy.

David Gonski has the best mind of anyone I’ve met and knows how to get things done. A great intellect. But he’s not as clever as Mark Carnegie but Mark has no manners or pretentions so he will never be accepted. When you do get great executives, they are owners or major shareholders like Gerry Harvey or Katie Harvey. Katie would be probably the best executive in Australia.

James Packer is taking massive risks and isn’t that great? Doing business in China, in Macau.

I did business in China and I lost everything. I did business in Indonesia. Unfortunately, as I got older, I couldn’t do as much travel. James has got the guts to do business overseas.

Gina Rhinehart, what does she have to do to show people how brilliant and persistent she is?

I think persistence is a far more important attitude than genius — the persistence and courage to take Lang’s dream. Lang was the world’s greatest discoverer and the world’s worst businessman. He got up and thought how can I make my dream impossible today and who can I alienate today.

If she was given government encouragement instead of obstacles she could probably single handedly save Australia from the next recession.

Should the Qantas Sales Act change?

We don’t need Qantas for the same reason we don’t need an Australian car industry. The reason we built Holden is because in World War II the old pommies sent us off with no rifles, so we thought we better build a rifle factory. They can make cars in the meantime. General Motors got a contract. Everyone forgot that and thought, ‘Ah Jesus, we better keep paying for these cars’. Think of the dams we could have built and the agriculture we could have had if we did not build cars. Why did we have our own airline? When there is war, the airline becomes part of our defence force. That’s based in antiquity 100 years ago. These days these jumbos aren’t going to be much good fighting any kind of war.

Eighty per cent of your newspapers are controlled by Rupert Murdoch in America (even though Rupert is as Aussie as they come). We don’t need Australian newspapers, we need news about Australia. So why should Qantas be Australian owned? All airlines go broke, history will show you that. I think we should be an economic state of America.

What do you think of the stoush between The Australian and Media Watch host Paul Barry?

I find Media Watch great entertainment actually, I just wonder whether they’re going to go after News Ltd or 2GB or be boring. I just assume he’s from Fairfax, they don’t check their facts.