From the AFR comes Treasury Secretary John Fraser:
Fraser is treading cautiously and is self-deprecating about his role, yet associates say he’s already been quite rigorous in stamping his authority on the Treasury. Colleagues say he is tough, focused and demanding. “He doesn’t suffer fools,” one official says. “He can be pretty brutal with what he says.” Fraser concurs: “I am a prick. I really am.”
He showed during his years at UBS that he gets what he wants. His record there indicates a strong sense of probity. UBS was taken to the brink of collapse by its exposure to subprime lending, which caused it to write down its business by more than $US50 billion and sack more than 11,000 staff. The company’s chairman and chief executive also resigned.
Fraser says he learnt some big things from working in investment banking through the greatest financial crisis of modern times. “I learnt to be very, very cynical about people. You know, when you put a big bucket of money in front of people, it can do strange things. All the systems under the sun won’t save you from a malevolent person or a foolish person.
“The best system of compliance and risk management is to get to know people and to look them in the eyes. You have got to be very careful about giving people your trust. That was a big change for me because I had generally tended to take people at face value. But equally, you have got to be sensible. Everybody is not a turkey. Everybody is not a crook.”
Let’s hope Fraser can rub off on the RBA and APRA, neither of which is anywhere near a big enough prick.
