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Hi, I'm Mark Boris, and this is Straight Talk.
In your life, you can achieve anything you want to achieve, providing you...
Arthur Laundie, welcome to Straight Talk.
Thank you very much, Mark.
That's a lot of wealth and a lot of assets. What drives someone like Arthur Laundie?
Mark, the money is not worth anything to me. I very much enjoy my work. I love mixing in hotels.
As well as being an investor, I would say, firstly, I am a public.
What is it about the hotel community that is very attractive to you?
It was my upbringing. I was very influenced by my father. He came out of an orphanage
at 15 years of age, and he was the person who's put the drive into our family. My dad
was killed in an aircraft accident.
Wow. And did you have to take over things?
Yeah, immediately. We eventually got there, but gee, it was a scratch. I was running the
hotel, working five days, five nights, that type of thing, to get a start. I was working
Did you make a positive decision to accumulate assets?
Pretty well right from the start. If something was going to happen and I could avoid it by
giving all my money away, I'd give it away. They all mean so much to me, mate.
Arthur Laundie, welcome to Straight Talk.
Thank you very much, Mark. Thank you.
It's taken me, actually, to get you here, it was a bit of a process. I know your grandson,
someone came to me through your grandson.
My grandson, some time ago. And then I didn't do it. I said, yes. Whoever it was that asked
me, it might have even been your grandson, I don't remember. Someone reached out to
me, and I said, yes. And then nothing happened. And then I thought, hang on, whatever happened
to Arthur Laundie coming on the show? Because there's a whole lot of stuff I want to talk
to you about. And it's got nothing to do with the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs, mate, by
And now you know you won, and you're going good. But we will talk about that. But then
I thought, no, no.
What I'll do is I'll reach out to Craig, which I did, because I was hoping Craig's
number that I have is still his old number, which so happens to be. And from there, that's
how we organise it. So this is a collaboration. You're sitting there as a collaboration between
one of your sons and, I guess, one of your grandsons. How many grandsons, grandkids you
I've got four breeding children.
So you've got, I know you've got two sons. What else have you got?
Then Mel and Justine.
Justine. So you've got two boys and two girls.
And who's the oldest? Craig?
Craig. So Craig, as we know, or most people would know, was a politician. He was a minister
of small business. And amongst other things, I think other things came under his portfolio
at the time. This is some years ago. Stewart, is he working in your business?
And what about the two girls?
If you knew Stewart, you'd know exactly what I mean.
I know Stewart. I'm just being polite to ask you the question. And what about the two girls?
The two girls work in the business.
They work in the business too?
Yes. And their husbands.
And their husbands. So it's very much a family business, so to speak.
And four grandchildren.
Work in the business as well?
Yes. I've got, it starts off with Charlie.
Charlie's here today.
He is, and he runs the locker room. And then Sophie is in, I think, sales in our head office,
Lane Cove. And then I've got-
I've got Molly working three different hotels at the present time. And then I've got Annalise,
who helps, she's in the marketing side. I'm sorry, more the architectural side of things.
In terms of designs?
Designs, as a word.
Okay. So I probably shouldn't start here, but I want to start here. How old are you now?
83. You look remarkable for 83.
You're getting around no drama. I knew you around that age, but I tend to look at people
and see how they're walking, how they move.
How they sit. You're moving pretty well.
I'm going all right.
Yeah. So your health is good?
Yeah, health's, yeah, it's, you know, I swim each morning and a little bit of gym, not
a lot, but swim in the morning and that. So yeah, I'm going all right.
You're in good shape mentally and physically.
How does it feel at 83, and I, maybe this word's not the right word, but presiding over,
you've got a lot of assets, but over, probably more importantly, having a family,
involved in your business. How does it feel at 83 years of age? Because I'm 68, I keep
thinking to myself, well, my kids work in various parts of my businesses, and I often
think to myself, what's it like, what will it be like to be your age, and having grandkids,
et cetera, working? How does it feel as a, in terms of achievement for yourself?
Well, firstly, I love it, the fact that they're there with me. I work every day. I play golf
on a Wednesday afternoon, but I love it, and I, how does it feel?
Well, very satisfying, very satisfying. I enjoy, I enjoy having my family around me.
But is it, is it the ultimate goal? I mean, because, I mean, you get to a certain level
of wealth, you know, and there's all sorts of, you know, musings about what people like
yourself are worth, and as you and I know well enough, that it's usually divided by
half, multiplied by six, and who knows whether it's right or wrong, it's just some people
But it doesn't matter. It's a lot of wealth, a lot of assets.
It's a lot of assets. What drives someone like Arthur Laundie at a certain age, at a
certain age, do you tend to think, you know what, all that other stuff I can add, you
know, add another hotel, it becomes marginal, in addition to whatever else, just marginal.
I can maybe make another million bucks a year, it's probably additionally marginal. So that's
not a driver. How much of this is driving a legacy for the Laundie family, and what
you hope your grandkids one day will enjoy?
And their grandkids, or their kids?
Mark, the money is not worth anything to me. I don't worry about money at all. It's nice
to be able to say that you have it, when you have it, but no, no, I enjoy very, very much
achieving, and I guess my aim is just to keep going until I can't keep going, and I don't
know, you know, I've often said, I'll come into my office one day and say, Mr. Laundie,
this or Arthur, this, and there'll be no reaction. I said, I'll be dead, but I would
have died in the place that I'd like to be. I, you know, I very much enjoy my work. I
love mixing in hotels. Customers of mine, customers of mine, 40 years, still call in
to see me, and things like that, or ring me. I enjoy very much that. I guess I'm just,
I'm a publican. I guess probably an old-style publican, because as well as being an investor,
I would, I would pay, say, firstly, I am a publican.
And what does that mean, you're a publican?
Well, I do my best to achieve in a hotel by things like, I want good service, still at
my age. I want good service. I want good beer lines. I want good beer. I've recently, we
built a brewery 45, four years, four and a half years ago, and, you know, it's all about
getting my beer out there to our hotels.
We've got our own brand.
What's that called?
It's called Marsden.
Yes. The hotel we built out there was at Marsden Park, and the brewery is at the same hotel.
It's been run by a very long-time friend of mine from the original Toohey's Limited,
Daryl McGraw. We're doing beers at the present time for Blocker Roach, and for...
You mean like, as in white label beer?
So you're producing a beer for him?
A canned beer for him, or draft beer as well, going into lots of little football clubs.
I'm involved in it, and Blocker is out there getting the sales and all the rest of it,
along with Gordon Tallis.
What's Gordon doing?
We're doing one for him up there, called the Wild...
He's a Queenslander.
Arthur, what are you doing?
You just put shit on New South Wales all the time.
I'm now, that's it. Podcast over.
I've known him for some time, and he, I think it probably came through Blocker Roach, but
he approached and said, would you do one for me in Queensland?
So what's Gordy's beer called? Has he got a name?
He's just called the Wild Bull.
That's after him?
And what's Blocker's one called?
Block and Grapple.
Block and Grapple.
He wanted Block and Tackle, but being a genetic word, they wouldn't allow it.
So he's Block and Grapple.
Block and Grapple. I like that. So you are effectively manufacturing for these individuals,
but you are also...
And I'm part of them.
Part of the business too.
I'm part of it too.
So you're just basically, not basically, but you are producing, you've built a beer business
that can produce lots of brands.
And that's the way you get your distribution through iconic people sitting there.
We're still very involved, Mark, with both breweries. I've always tried to work with
the both breweries, and we're still very involved there. They're by far the biggest
sellers in our hotels, and all the people involved in the brewery, I get along very
I work hard with. But being a publican, I think, is trying to satisfy people. You can't
always win, but I try hard to win. I try to give them good food, good liquor. I mix with
So you still get it on the floor?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll pick up glasses, and white tables, and things like that. And I
ask the staff then not to be embarrassed, because I like... This is my life. This is
my life. I enjoy it.
It's very interesting. When you were saying about publicans, I was thinking about the
life of a publican today. So if I look at something like John Hemmes, right, he's a
different style of publican to you. He's not old school. You're an old school publican.
You said more of the old school. And then I thought about a pub that used to be just
up the road from my school, which was... And you're from the West Suburbs?
It's called Southwest now. I don't think it's called West Suburbs anymore. It was
It was West Suburbs in our day, but it's now called Southwest.
I call myself a Westie every day, mate.
And I used to get called a Westie when I used to go down to Cronulla Beach. I remember
they used to give it to us. But I went to a school we were talking about earlier, a
school called Benilde, up in Bankston.
You know it. And my mum used to work at a pub at night up the road from the call of
Three Swallows Hotel.
Just behind Bankston Dilla.
Top of Chapel Street.
My sort of memory of old pubs and publicans is a lot different to what it is today. I'm
a publican. My memory of them was the pubs were very basic. Because I used to hear mum
talk about what happened in the pub. And I can't remember the name of the guy who owned
the pub, but she's...
Would have been probably John Wall.
It was something like that. It was like that type of short name. I remember it.
And I remember mum saying one time that he had to jump over the bar.
There was a brawl on there. And he jumped over the bar. And I was only young. And as
Because it sat in my mind for the rest of my life. And he had to pull either a baseball
bat or an axe handle or something. Then he had to take to the blokes just to stop the
blue. And pubs were pretty... Not just necessarily violent, but very fundamental. Very rudimentary
back in those days.
That's exactly what a hotel was in those days.
Yeah. Yeah. Correct. It was...
There were no security. There was nothing like security or anything like that.
No. And there was no rules.
So the blokes get drunk and you'd just towel them up and throw them out.
And they... When they come back the next Friday...
Friday night, you say, listen, you behave yourself or you can't come back in. How much
of that still sits in Arthur Laundie's DNA, that process, that type of real basic fundamentals
I speak of it often. I was born in Punchbowl. I lived in a place called Hearn Bay, which
is now Riverwood, down the end of...
Well, I was near Riverwood. I was at Bennett Park.
Oh, righty-o. Well, I'm down the end of Belmore Road.
I lived, after leaving the hospital, of course, I lived in number 54 Coleridge Street, Hearn
Yeah. So you were a bit further down.
I'm right... Two streets from Riverwood Station, which was Hearn Bay Station.
Yeah. Okay. So... And Belmore Road is where all the factories were, because that's where
my dad worked. And we lived just across... There was a paddock there. But Belmore...
Bennett Over is where I lived.
Right on the edge. I lived there when it was... It used to be a tip originally. And then they
filled it in and they turned it into a park.
Which was my favourite place. I used to love going and play footy there. So you were born
in... You're a Punchbowl boy. Parents, what were your parents doing?
My father was... He was an orphan in an orphanage from the time he was two to the time he was
15. It was an interesting story, because my dad was one of seven children, the mother
and father, both alive. All of a sudden, wanted out from the marriage. Neither of them wanted
But there was one girl, and my grand... Great... My grandmother then would have took the daughter
back to New Zealand. And all the boys were put into Burnside Homes, which is on Penthills
Road, run now by the Uniting Church. And it was land bequeathed to Sir Robert Burns, who
was Burns and Phillip.
And he later gave it all to King's School. Gowan Gray and all that.
But part of it was an orphanage called Burnside Homes. And I can remember till the day, pretty
well, the day my dad died. Every Christmas, he'd give me a call. A couple of weeks before
Christmas, he said, I want you to keep next Tuesday available, son. And we'd go into a
place called Hoffnung's in Clarence Street. And it was a great big building, full of toys.
You could buy cigarettes everywhere. It was a wholesale place. And my father always drove
those big Yank tanks.
Jack Bonnyvalls and all that sort of thing. And they had a boot almost as big as my unit.
And he'd fill that up with toys and all that. We'd take it out there for all the kids at
Burnside Homes. And that was his ritual two weeks before Christmas. We'd put it in their
big hall there. And they'd distribute it to all the young kids who were still at the home
It's now run by the Uniting Church. Still a similar sort of arrangement.
But by the Uniting Church.
What sort of impact does that have on a young man being told that story by his father? What
sort of impact does that have on you in terms of decisions you make in your business life?
I was very influenced by my father. So perhaps the best answer to that would be the influence
that place had on him. He never ever forgot it, forgot the place. I'd like to think I'm
an extremely loyal person.
And he was a loyal person. I learned so much from him. And he came out of an orphanage
at 15 years of age. On his wedding certificate, it had occupation. He was a Lyft driver. And
he was a Lyft driver in the flats in Macquarie Street called the Astor Flats.
I used to live there.
Yeah, I bought Barry Humphrey's place.
And I bought the one above as well and I joined them all up. I lived there for years.
And I sold it more recently to-
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
I remember we did have a Lyft driver there for a period.
We've got some connections, haven't we?
And he was a Lyft driver when he married. He married a little girl from, you'll know
this street too, Merida Street, Bankstown.
I do know the street.
And my mother's father died when she was 10 years of age. So she and her mother went
across. They lived in Merida.
Merida Street with my grandmother's two brothers. And she went to school. Prior to that, I'm
sorry, up till the time, pretty well up till the time of her leaving school, she went to
Bethlehem College in Ashfield.
And then they were both played a lot of tennis in a competition in those days, may still
be around, called the Sydenham-Bankstown Competition. And they were both pretty fair tennis players,
mum in particular.
They met, playing in opposition teams. Went out for, they've told me, six years. And
upon deciding to get married, bought this block of land in, bought two blocks of land
in Herne Bay, right, near Riverwood. And my mum and my dad built our house.
Physically. With mates and all that. He was the most hands-on fellow you've ever seen.
He could do anything. And you might recall,
I remember the back there on King George's Road at the top of Hurstville. The dippers,
up and down the dippers.
The very first dipper you'd come to there. In the old, it's all trees now. But in the
old days, my father, we would go down the dipper there and he would look at all these
houses, all the backs of the houses, backing onto the gully there, the park land. And he
used to say to me, I've worked in every one of those houses, son. Every one of them.
Doing what, like renovations?
He was a handyman. He would come home in the afternoon from working at the Astor Flats
and on his way home, he had an old Willys Overlander car. He had no back seat or anything
like that. And he'd be driving along. If there were Venetian blinds thrown out on the thing,
he'd put them in the back of the car. If there was an old lounge chair, he'd put them in
the back of the car.
Steptoe. An old steptoe.
He'd take them home and he'd pull them apart. In those days, there were springs in the lounge
chairs. And he would work out.
Just exactly how they do it. He'd work out the upholstering. He'd work out. And if ever
you've broken a string, a cord on a Venetian blind, bugger of a job, fixing them. But he
worked all that out. Then he advertised in the local paper over there at Hurstville,
don't throw these things out. I'll make them as new for you for 10% of the price, that
type of thing. And he met these people all along the back of the George's River Road
there. He used to do their electrical work.
He was never an electrician. He worked it out. A couple of burns, he said, but he worked
it out. He used to do painting there. He'd do fencing and all this sort of thing. He
was just, and he was the person who's put the drive into our family. Our family are
all, they're goers. They're prepared to have a go. And it all started with my dad. And
I watched that all my life. Then eventually he, in 1948, I was seven. We sold our house
The house at Herne Bay, I still call in and say hello to the people. But there've been
about four different lots of families live over the time. And if I'm going over that
way, I knock on the door and just say, my mum and dad built this house. I'm very, very
proud of it. I'd like to buy it if I could, but they're not interested in selling it.
But when I was seven, my father and mother bought the Sackville Hotel at Roselle. I went
to school at St. Joseph's, the little school in Victoria Road there, down there. And I
watched them work. In those days, hotels were from 10 o'clock to 6 o'clock at night. And
before I went to school, even as a little, I started, I was third grade there. My first
school was actually from, when we lived in Herne Bay, I went to St. Declan's at Penshurst.
All right. And, but then there, of a morning, there was no refrigeration in hotels.
And they'd have to pack, like our current ice chests that you'll take your beer out
to a party with. They had beer lines on the bottom of them and they had to pack ice and
chip all the ice around the copper lines in that. And before I'd go to school, my job
was to get the ice off the old doorstep and-
Because the ice got delivered.
Delivered. And you'd take that in and put it in there and I'd have to chip it and all
that sort of thing.
Yeah. And we were there then, we were there, but my father, I remember, borrowed money
left, right and centre. But he'd made a fair bit of money. I'm not sure with you how much
tax he paid on all this money when he was picking all these things up and advertising
and doing all that. But he made a fair bit. I remember he paid, I think it was about 6,000
pounds, which was a lot of money in those days, for the lease of the Sackville Hotel.
We had the lease of that.
We had the lease of the Sackville Hotel.
We had the lease of that.
Then later the lease of the Sackville Hotel.
Then later the lease of the Wallara Hotel. By that time I'd turned 13, because I then
changed schools and went to St. Patrick's Strathfield. And I was there till third year
and then went across to St. Joseph's at Hunters Hill. But in that time we'd sold the Wallara
Hotel and bought the Lakemba Hotel.
The old Vic Patrick's Hotel.
Vic Patrick's. He was too after us.
But I used to call in and say, Vic Patrick. I'm very much one of those people. I like
to follow things up and I enjoy that side of it, just saying, how are you going? And
all that type of thing. I then went to St. Joseph's at Hunters Hill and I was there for
three years there. And then I came out, went to university pretty ordinarily for a couple
of, for two years. I enjoyed university, but they didn't enjoy me. So I got kicked out
And then I went back to work in the hotel trade, which I really-
All I really wanted to do, I wanted hotels to get into the hotel trade. And-
Why, what is it about those days, back in those days, what is it about the hotel community?
In other words, the patrons, the people who deliver the ice, the people who pull the beers,
all that, every part of it. What is it about that is very attractive to you? Was it, that
was very attractive to you? Was it like, what, did you-
Did you take that as a sense of, this is my community, this is my, this is my gang,
this is my tribe?
It was my upbringing. I really enjoyed, I enjoyed, one of the reasons they sent me to
Bournemouth schools, because at the Kemba Hotel, they had this little tiny billiard
table at the, in the back of the bar there. And I'd spend so much time playing billiards
with customers and winning a shilling and things like this. And my, my mother and father
started to get a bit worried. Where's this bloke going? So they put me in a Bournemouth
That was a punishment.
In those days, by the way.
Well, it was a punishment.
Because I got threatened to get sent to Oak Hill. Well, every time I got in trouble at
school, I was, you're going to Oak Hill. And the last thing I wanted to do was go to boarding
school. So I always pulled my head in. But what, most people don't realise, but that
was the punishment by parents.
You're going to boarding school.
And it was used that way.
Yeah, no, totally. You're going to boarding school.
To these days, it's a privilege to go to boarding school.
It was a punishment. So, but, and, but the, because, you know, my, I don't think, I don't
know if it exists today, because I don't really go to pubs much.
But, although I do go to one of the pubs that you own, the Watson's Bay Hotel.
That's nice. Thank you.
I'm not far from, I'm not going to tell everyone where I live, but I'm not far from it. But
it's a different vibe. Although the front bar, the bar at the front, which is, it still
has a little bit of the sort of local vibe.
It's old school, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a bit like that. But pubs, generally speaking, don't have the same vibe that I
remember them, going back a long, long time.
Everybody knew each other. You knew if you went in the pub on a Thursday night, who you
were going to meet.
You'd meet someone different on a Friday night.
You'd meet someone different on the footy nights, which was in those days, weekend
nights, on the weekend. You'd go on the Monday, there'd be no one there. And if you were there,
you'd worry, because you might look like a bit of a desperate. Poker machines, weren't
they? Weren't a thing?
It was more bill.
They came in 1997.
It was beer. It was straight out beer.
And mates. And then later on, of course, clubs come into existence in 1956, the year of the
The Olympic Games.
Was that when clubs started, 56?
I think it was 56, might have been 55.
But it was around that period.
Clubs came in. And of course, they made a big bang in the affected hotels, et cetera.
And then, so 1964, my father bought, no, 1962, my father bought nine acres of ground at Bass
And that was our first freehold.
I've still got the nine acres of ground, still got the hotel.
My office is still there.
And he built a terrific hotel, a lovely hotel called the Twin Willows at Bass Hill.
Is that somewhere near the drive-in theatre?
Which is now a shopping centre.
I didn't know that.
Great big shopping centre.
I love that driving theatre, drive-in theatre.
It's fabulous, wasn't it?
I used to love going to them.
You know, like I used to sit at the back with my sister and my brother.
And mum and dad would sit in the front of the car.
In those days, seats were bench seats.
And we just had a little speaker on, we'd just hang it on the window.
And there was a place you could go and buy food, basically, fish and chips or something.
And nothing better.
Mum and dad would put the chips out on the front seat and we'd all get a hot chip and
they'd wrap a bit of paper around it and give you a hot chip.
I was pretty young.
But how good was that?
I didn't realise that.
So you're right next to the drive-in theatre.
It's now a shopping plaza, a big plaza, Bass Hill Plaza.
But that was a shopping centre.
Sorry, that was the Bass Hill.
But you still own it?
I still own the land next door where the hotel is built.
I still own that.
You guys run the hotel?
And so I was there when – but in 62, I turned 21.
At the time we were – dad was building the hotel there and cash was pretty tough.
We were struggling.
He was struggling.
He was getting there.
But the lease of the Crossroads Hotel at Liverpool came up.
So he threw me into the Crossroads at Liverpool.
He bought the lease of it and I was at the Crossroads at Liverpool two days after I turned
And it was tough towns in those days.
Conscript had come in and all this sort of thing.
And the soldiers were in – or the would-be soldiers were in Ingleburn Camp and Holsworthy
And we were close to Ingleburn but pretty well in the centre.
Liverpool was a tough town in those days.
It was country in those days.
But then in 64, he opened the Twin Willows Hotel and I still had that Crossroads till
21 is pretty young to be running a pub.
It was very young.
It was very young.
It was very young.
I used to have a lot of friends when I thought, my mum and dad hate me.
This is – they were rough.
A lot of blues, a lot of arguments and all that sort of thing.
And dad was a tough bloke.
I'll tell you a little –
Was he similar sort of stature to you?
Because you're a pretty big guy.
He was more like about 5'10", 5'11".
And – but he came out to the hotel one day and this is how meticulous he was.
He's looking in the petty cash thing and he said, what in the hell are you doing with
I said, with milk.
And he said, all this money you're spending on milk.
And I said, I said, oh, that comes from Jeff Kenney.
Jeff Kenney had the spare parts for tractors and everything right opposite.
I said, he drinks scotch and milk.
He said, are you sure you're not having too many cornflakes?
I said, no, no, no.
He drinks scotch and milk.
He drinks a whole lot of it.
Jeff Kenney was a very large fellow and you supposed – he was about 5'2", and you
supposed that he could take his belt off and put it at the top of his head and it'd
touch his toes, his belt, one of those fellows.
And he – and he did.
He drank scotch and milk every day.
My father said, you need a cow out here.
And the place had 56 acres of ground.
It's now the great big – everyone's there now.
It's a great big building.
But it was own – no, Peter Warren's is the other side.
But he was – he used to say – the reason he bought – one of the reasons he bought
the hotel, Tooth & Company in Broadway were talking about decentralising and building
a big hotel, a big brewery out there.
And he thought that'd be a great day to get the pub near it.
That never, ever happened.
However, the hotel, nothing like it is now.
It's a beautiful hotel now.
I had little arches out the front and it was a tiny – not a big hotel.
But he – he said – he said, this is ridiculous, this milk, and you wouldn't believe it.
About a week later, the babe came into the bar.
He said, can I see Arthur Laundie, please?
I said, that's me.
He said, I've got your cow here.
I said, you got what?
And straight away I knew what my father had done.
So I rung the father and said, you've sent a bloody cow out here.
What am I going to do with that?
He said, milk it.
He said – and I said, don't you have to – you've got to milk it.
Don't you have to do other things to milk?
He said, no, you don't.
So there's 50 – he's one cow with 56 acres.
So you can imagine, he was presenting plenty of milk.
And – but you should have seen me trying to learn.
I had the back feet in the buckets and I – that was a joke.
But we eventually got there.
But I had a little old bloke around the place because it was a very farm area.
All our past – Lippington and all that were all great big properties, farms.
So that was the milk that Geoff Kinney had to have then for the rest of his life in – with his scotches.
Can I ask you a question, Arthur?
I remember – and I don't know how I remember this.
But I remember when I was a younger man in my earlier professional days, say in my 20s,
that one of the big things – I don't know if it's an issue now.
But one of the big things in those days when there was a lot of cash around for the publican,
or for the person managing the joint, was getting robbed by staff.
Like the amount of stuff that got stolen or free drinks over the bar or –
and then they had all these sophisticated systems, staff.
They put maybe one match here.
That means that's one free drink I gave.
That's – you know, like – and I've got to collect that out of the till before I close off.
Is that – am I right?
Absolutely right.
It was a big deal.
You'd find a three.
Threepens in the shilling enclosure of the cash register.
It had all the little things that would go – two shillings, one shilling, sixpence.
Each little container.
Many pennies in each container.
And, you know, one of my first things I found was the number of threepenses in the shilling.
Threepens was three pennies.
If there were ten threepenses in there, they know they could take –
ten shilling notes out.
This sort of thing.
You know, exactly what you were saying with matches.
Because I heard of one with matches.
But then what you used to have to do was stock takes to make sure –
To do stock takes.
You used to have to measure your stock takes off against the takings, the money and –
And – but the people who were – they were experts at this.
So the people who would get jobs in pubs and just keep moving around and they'd educate
the other staff too over time.
Get who they can trust and who they can't trust.
And they made a business of this.
So as a 21-year-old, did your dad ever say to you – what was your dad's first name?
Did Arthur Senior say to Arthur Junior, hey, listen, mate, this is how we get knocked off.
And keep your eyes open?
And were you – because that's one of the reasons you've got to be on the floor.
It was probably the first thing.
In those days, it was a case where you would work completely off percentages.
You couldn't work off dollars.
You wouldn't know how many were down or how many were up.
There'd be total percentages on the cost of goods and the sales.
And, you know, like if it came in a couple of percent down, depending on what you were
turning over, that could be a fair bit of money.
So, yeah, you had to learn that rapidly, Mark, rapidly.
Yeah, because that's sort of like – I mean, I don't want to – it's sort of an old school
– it's a bit overused, but being educated in the school of hard knocks.
I mean, you're out of Liverpool, which I remember growing up.
Growing up, I'm 20 years younger, a little less than 20 years younger than you.
But, like, I do remember that Liverpool was a tough area.
In fact, Basu was sort of pretty tough, but Liverpool was even tougher.
So, not only are you sort of getting exposed to probably those sorts of patrons, but what
you're getting exposed to in those days is no sophisticated electronics like we have
And it's all about your eye and about your instinct.
And you've got to have a really strong instinct in those days.
Do you think that skill is lost today?
Not for you, but just generally?
Well, it's probably not as essential today to have that skill that you're speaking of
because the whole thing is computerised.
You know, if a person serves a beer now, they can still serve a beer and give it away and
Well, then we know nothing about that.
That doesn't go through the computer.
But the whole thing now is computerised.
Cash registers are married to computers.
And it certainly makes it a lot simpler now to work out whether we've got a problem,
how big the problem is if we do have the problem.
It's also slightly different when it comes to tax time too because everything's measured.
Everything's measured.
Everything's recorded.
Especially when we've got your son sitting over there, an ex-politician.
Not that I'd ever condone anything like that, by the way.
So moving forward, when was your first pub that you bought?
That was after my dad died.
My dad was killed in an aircraft accident.
We had an aeroplane and he bought it.
It was a Cessna 182.
Bass Hill's very close to Bankstown Airport and it was based down there.
My sister flew it.
But why did your dad want to have a plane?
He just loved aeroplanes.
Had once, with a mate of his, built an aeroplane, flew the aeroplane.
It was before my time, so I do, you know.
But he flew the aeroplane, called it Bonnie after my mum, and landed it and everything
And then they tried to get it registered and the bloke came down and put the undercarriage
straight through the plane, you know, this sort of thing.
It sounded fairly flimsy, but he did.
I've still got old photographs of him building this plane and the finished product.
But he just loved flying.
And joined the Air Force during the war.
Never saw any action at all.
Got rheumatic fever and spent most of his time in a hospital in Wagga.
Then transferred to Melbourne.
My mother went to Melbourne, left me with my grandmother and this type of thing.
So, he just loved aeroplanes.
But he'd been out to…
He had a lease of a hotel at Wellington out near Dubbo.
And he'd been out there this particular day, took three ladies from Bass Hill who'd
been working with us, took three of them out there for a joyride.
He had to go out and do a few things at his hotel out there.
On the way back, went down to show them the dam.
Went down to show them the dam and it would appear it was a very still day.
Got confused with these heights and went straight in the water.
Four of them dead.
And he was thrown off the plane straight away and so was one of the ladies.
And then the other two were not found for 13 years.
They couldn't find the plane.
It was such a big dam.
A couple of times larger than Sydney Harbour.
And so, I was overseas at the time so I had to get home straight away.
That was in 1969.
And did you have to take over things from that point?
Yeah, immediately.
I had a little hotel that by that time, my second hotel was the Royal Exhibition in Surrey Hills
down the corner of Chalmers and Devonshire Street.
And so, I was in there.
But then the Twimlows was going very, very well by that time.
So, I had to come home and we ran the both hotels for a while.
My sister was in, put the one in town for a little while.
And I was trying to run the both hotels.
But eventually, in 1971, I sold the Royal Exhibition because we had in those days death duties.
Yeah, I remember.
You remember those?
And it cost me $170,000 in 1969.
So, it was $170,000 in state death duties and $170,000 in federal death duties.
Which means if you don't have the cash, you have to sell something.
And that was exactly how.
So, I got out of the Royal Exhibition at Surrey Hills.
And we eventually got there, but gee, it was a scratch.
It was, I was running the hotel at Bass Hill, working five days, five nights, that type of thing to get a set out of it.
Because it was tough.
I mean, the pub was only five years old.
It was built in 1964.
So, you know, having spent the money, amount of money he did, because he had the land to buy first.
And having spent that, it was a fair dig.
We still owed the bank a lot of money and all this sort of thing.
So, but that's how it happened.
That was the start of it.
But the Twin Willows, we have a lot of hotels now, but the Twin Willows was our stepping stone.
It was the diving board from there on in where we just went ahead and ahead.
Even though Dad was only there five years, he was a very good publican.
And I tried to model my life on his, just as I know my boys have, particularly, you know, Craig, has tried to do something.
Because I've toured.
I've toured him the way I was taught.
And so that's, from there on in, we just started buying hotels and buying, I was buying leasehold hotels early, but, and then capital gains.
There were no capital gains taxes.
No capital gains taxes.
So, we, you know, you'd get in, work a hotel, as well as Bass Hill, which was always the base.
First one I bought was the Melton at Auburn and got in there.
Paid $110,000 for it for a three-year lease.
Sold it one year later for $212,000.
So, I made $100,000 in that.
A lot of money then.
And made $35,000 in profit.
Paid 30%, 35% tax on the $30,000 and capital gain on the, that was free on the $100,000.
So, it didn't take you long to realize this is the way to jump.
But that stopped, as you say, in, what was it, 85?
First of July, 985.
That stopped, yeah.
I remember it well because I had a tax bill on 1st of July, 986.
Something I made a profit on.
And I didn't, like you, I didn't have the money and I had to sell something to pay for it.
And I will never, ever forget it.
If I could just go back a step a little bit here, your decision to buy real estate, the
hotel real estate, as opposed to just the hotel.
Is, was that ever influenced by more an accumulation phase in your life, as opposed to say just
buying the lease?
So, did you sort of at some stage in your business career think, you know what, I'm
operating on an assumption here that you could afford it, but I'm not just going to buy leaseholds
and run the pub and make the cash flow out of it, three lease, five lease, whatever it
And start to land bank.
Because you know, like a lot of wealthy people in Australia, they, a lot of made their money
out of real estate.
Because like, I can think of the car business.
So they have a, a car franchise, you know, they're the franchise for whatever it is,
but they end up buying the real estate on a corner in Parramatta or something like that.
And the money they make, they make good money on the way through and out of the car business,
but they make their real money out of the real estate.
Yeah, property play.
At any stage in your public and business life.
In your public and business life career, let's call it, did you make a positive decision
to accumulate assets?
Pretty well right from the start.
Pretty well from the start.
Those days, 97% of the hotels were owned by either Tooth and Company or Toohey's.
Which meant you had to use their beer.
You had to use their beer.
And you could, and if you were in one of their hotels, up until about 81 or two, you could
only serve their beer.
I was fortunate at Bass Hill.
My father had bought the license of a little old hotel, I can't think of the name now,
in Sussex Street.
And it was a free house, which meant he had a license, but he could sell any beer he liked.
It was not, most licenses were owned by the breweries, either Tooth's or Toohey's, and
you had to sell theirs.
So out there we had Tooth's beer, Toohey's beer, like it is today.
But back in those days, it was not the case.
So they were tied.
Tied is the exact word.
They were tied to the brewery, either Toohey's or Tooth's.
A little bit like petrol stations today.
Like, exactly the same setup.
And liquor stores.
Not so much liquor stores.
Liquor stores, liquor stores are pretty well free.
They can sell anything.
They can, you're right.
But they are owned by the Woolies and the Coors.
In terms of ownership.
But they don't lease them out.
No, you're right.
They use the breweries.
But the Tooth's are particularly famous name, more relevant today, because people still
buy Toohey's and we still see the old Toohey's, you know, feel like a Toohey's or two campaigns
were on television.
I do remember Steve Rixon.
Yeah, Steve Rixon.
And Tooth's was a big name.
But I, I mean, I remember the Tooth's KB.
Was it Tooth's KB?
They had a little bit of an unusual feel to it.
And, and it was sort of like revolutionary when that first came out.
And whatever happened to the Tooth's of the world?
I mean, does that still exist?
What a great brand it was.
It was originally taken over.
I think the original takeover for Tooth & Company was John Spelvan.
Do you remember that name?
I married his, one of his family.
Well, I think he was-
I met her through him.
Well, I'm pretty certain.
He was from Adelaide.
He's Adelaide, yeah.
Adelaide Steamship.
He was Adsteam, yeah.
And at one stage, Woolworths.
And at one stage, he had 15% in NAB.
Yeah, right, right.
He's the biggest employer in Australia.
Is he still alive?
He doesn't spend much time here.
Spends most of his time over, over in, in the US.
Well, I think he was the original buyer of Tooth & Company.
I may be wrong, but I think it was him.
But what happened?
Did you let it go or something?
Like, you just buried it?
But I, I know then-
It was a great brand.
It was a great brand.
It was by far the biggest brewery.
It was in Camperdown or along the Parramatta Road there or somewhere.
It's at Broadway.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember seeing the-
Number 26 Broadway.
Your memory's good.
And then, and by that time, they had bought Rescher's Brewery.
Oh, my favorite, the beer we drink around here.
That was the campaign.
And Rescher's Brewery was on Dowling Street.
Now, these gardens and all that sort of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it was out there.
Still, the entry is still there.
But you can still buy Rescher's?
You can still buy Rescher's.
But you can't buy Tooth's?
I haven't seen it anywhere.
Tooth's has gone right off.
No, there's no Tooth's anymore.
You're like a beer historian, by the way.
You know, I'm sort of getting off track.
I'm here to talk about you.
Because I'm so fascinated by the history of beer, et cetera, in Australia.
I've got to get back to Arthur Lawley.
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Sorry about that, mate.
That's all right.
So I had the laundry, started building up an empire, like you build an empire.
I wonder about people like you, like yourself, and I sort of said this right at the very
I think people would continue at 83.
I mean, it's not as if you don't have enough assets.
It's not as you don't have enough pubs to keep you busy.
I mean, you can still live the public and life with what you got, even probably half
of what you got if you still live the public and life if you wanted to.
I think of my old mate, Tommy Mooney.
I remember Tommy Mooney.
And Tommy like, he's my age.
And Tommy, of course, you know, is not well.
You're talking about the football star.
Yeah, and he owned a number of pubs.
He loved being a publican.
The Bangalore Hotel, you'd see Tommy there.
Working in the joint.
But, of course, he's unwell.
And sold everything.
He also had his own beer brand.
The Byron Bay beer brand that he had.
Made a lot of money.
But doesn't really have much – it hasn't helped his life in a physical sense.
But that could have happened anyway.
Do you ever think about that, though?
Do you ever think, oh, should I just stop and maybe hang out with him?
Enjoy what we're doing.
I enjoy what I'm doing.
So that's the point.
Is that the reason you keep, let's call it, accumulating?
Exactly the reason.
You know, I've got mates of mine who are retired and all that type of thing,
but I enjoy doing what I do.
I enjoy watching the success of my grandson, Charlie,
who's doing a marvellous job.
At the Locker Room, which is a hotel we built right next door to the Accor Stadium.
And I enjoy my grandkids coming through.
I was talking to, you know, Molly.
One of my grandchildren works in three different hotels I mentioned earlier.
I was speaking to her on the weekend and she – they're doing a book on me now.
They're writing a book.
And we were talking about this because the author happened to be a buddy
who I was with in Rome.
And my father was killed.
We played rugby down in eastern suburbs together.
We're great mates.
And he's done a few books.
I always knew you were a Rooster fan.
He played the Beasties.
I was the Eastie Beasties.
Because I want to talk about your sponsorship at some stage.
But please continue.
They were – and I was speaking to Molly and I said to her,
now look, if we do go on that Sunday, I'd like all the grandchildren to be there.
I want them all to throw in.
But it seems to make sense, thanks to you, we can have you.
So, how interesting.
They want a minute, and I'd be there on the Wednesday.
All of a sudden, let's say, my mother would be there
and it's a conversation with her kid.
And I'd hear this whole room.
Well, not anytime soon or tommorrow.
I was not thinking that we'd have a baby.
I was only talking to her from that day on.
It just came to come and off to see me again.
Look, at that moment are you –
And I think about having just one child.
So, I was thinking about that.
And let's make it clear to OK Paul after the book.
No, there types more interesting.
I'm not going to use all of my children and there.
and they threw me a ball on the wing and then I've just kept running
and it's as simple as that.
But I couldn't have run unless that ball was thrown to me
and I use that analogy a lot.
But they also knew the runner to finish off.
Yes, and I had to run and that's been our life.
But the kids all know that, the grandkids all know that.
I don't believe there's one of my children or my grandchildren
who in colloquial terms is up themselves.
I do not believe.
That's really important.
I believe their feet are on the ground and, you know,
I remember when I went to Bournemouth School of Joeys,
I said, Dad, I don't want to be here.
I want to be at St Pat's.
They're all over here.
I don't want to be with them.
It didn't take me long to realise they weren't at all.
But he'd say, my father used to say,
they are no better than you
and you are no better than me.
You are no better than them.
He said, we all breathe the same air.
That's very Catholic.
You are no, yeah, you're no better and you're no worse.
I grew up with an Irish mother like that.
I'm exactly the same thing.
Yeah, and it was just that sort of thing.
So it was, that has been the life and I just feel the grandkids,
and I just, I love, the beauty of it, Mark,
is I love my grandkids like nothing on earth.
I've got 13 of them.
But the wonderful thing is I know they love me the same.
I know they love me the same way.
We are a beaut family, a beaut family.
And that's just, you know, how I want it to be
and I'm very, very grateful that it is.
Can I, because I'm here trying to work out for my own future
what drives people.
And vitality, which you have a lot of,
particularly for an 83-year-old,
vitality is a really important thing.
And vitality to me is the stuff that gets me up in the morning
and I can only talk for myself
and I'm going to ask you what it means to you.
But why do I get up in the morning?
What are the things I've got for three grandkids?
You know, what do I get up for?
I get up for because I like to see the look on my face and my staff.
I like to, I'm lucky I've got this show.
I get to meet interesting people like yourself.
That keeps me vital, like energised.
You know, I look at my diary in the morning.
I see who I'm going to talk to today and I go, wow, that's cool.
I'm getting to see someone I wouldn't ordinarily ever get to meet
and talk to them, find out about what keeps them going.
what you do and the empire you built,
is it fair to say it's not so much about the empire
but it's more about the vitality that the people in your life
that matter to you most, grandkids and kids, family,
you get a sense of vitality from them
because you're doing all this stuff for them.
Is that what drives you?
Is that what keeps you energised and not want to go and retire
and hang out with your mates down in the local RSL, whatever it is?
It is very much an energiser.
I love watching the way they're going.
I love, they love talking to me and asking me.
They love to know about our history.
But yes, it energises me just,
but nowadays at my stage of life, it's become mechanical.
I just keep going.
If something comes up for sale,
if I like it, we're looking at another hotel right at the minute
and we'll just go through it.
The family will discuss it.
I'll put forward to it.
But, you know, the ultimate decision at this point is still mine.
However, they're all, everyone's involved.
So when your kids were growing up and let's say,
if I could just pick on Craig for a moment,
and he decided that he wanted to go into politics,
well, what was that like for you as a father?
I mean, what did you say to him?
What did he say to you more importantly?
He came, we spoke about it and I was disappointed
and I was once misquoted in there.
That's why I'm asking you the question.
I said, why would you want to do it, mate?
You've got this, you've got where you are, we've got this.
But I never stood in his way.
I said, mate, I will never ever stand in your way.
I will encourage you as much as I can.
And I remember a news, one of the newspapers calling me one day
and just saying to me, what's your attitude to Craig going into politics?
And I said, oh, I'm disappointed actually.
I said, I'd rather him stay in our family business.
I said, however, if somebody was to say to me in 10 years' time,
Craig Laundie, your name's Laundie.
Is Craig Laundie your son?
Is the Prime Minister, is he your son?
I said, I would not be surprised.
I would not be surprised.
I know what the guy is capable of.
I'd prefer him to be here.
Politics has never been something that I would aspire to.
I said, however, he wishes to and I wish him all the best.
And he came back to the family business.
So he came back just before, I can't remember.
In a fashion he doesn't do too much.
That's what he told me.
No, no, pleasing to have him back.
He's sitting over there proudly wearing, which I don't know why I really let him in here,
but he's wearing a Bulldogs pullover or a windcheater with Laundie Hotels written on it.
Can we just talk about that for a second?
Everybody knows what Laundie Hotels are.
Everyone knows what Laundie is.
And Laundie Hotels is not really a brand so much because you promote each individual hotel,
Within your own advertising marketing environments.
Why did Laundie, you, why did the Laundie family decide to sponsor the Bulldogs?
That's a very, very interesting question.
I have been a Tigers fan all of my life, all of my life, till about four years ago.
I think this is our fourth year now.
I think it's the fourth year.
Anyway, but when I was a kid in the Sackville Hotel at Roselle in the 40s.
That's Balmain Territory.
I used to wander along and we, the football team, the Tigers team would train two nights a week.
And you'd remember these berries.
Two nights a week at Leichhardt Oval.
But by that time, hotels are closed at six o'clock.
My father used to let them all in out the back.
He became very, very close to them.
And then it came at a time where, you know, on a Saturday morning, I remember Joe Jorgensen.
He played for Australia, but he was playing for Balmain at the time.
They used to all drink at the pub and he would, at the Sackville.
And he'd pick me up on a Saturday morning or Georgie Watt and these guys,
they'd pick me up and take me to wherever they were playing.
It was always home and away games.
And my main game was at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
But they would take me wherever they go.
Cumberland Oval, it wouldn't matter.
I'd sit me in the spot just near where the reserves would be and this type of thing.
And he'd give me a packet of potato chips and a bottle of Coca-Cola.
And they'd say, now, don't go away.
We'll be here straight after into the dressing room.
So I was a mad Balmain fan.
Very, very keen on Balmain.
Craig's been the one member of the family.
But we've got a lot of hotels in the Canterbury-Bankstown district.
And Bankstown means a lot to us, like it would to you, because it's my heritage.
But they had nobody on their football jumper, the bottom of the ladder.
Nobody on their football jumper.
Four years ago, I think it was.
And Stuart's idea, Stuart came to us and said,
Dad, why wouldn't you put your name on the football jumper?
I said, what, for the Bulldogs?
All the Bulldogs, the Hewsers, Jeff Robinson's one of my best mates.
Robert, I used to love the way he played.
He was one of my best mates.
He was one of my best mates.
He was one of my best buddies.
I was with him yesterday.
But, you know, no, Saturday.
But, you know, all the guys, Joey Thomas, Gillespie,
Samir Gillespie, all these blokes, my hotel was like their clubhouse.
Gus Gould, my hotel was like their clubhouse in the 80s, right?
They were all there.
In the Canterbury area?
In the Canterbury area.
They were at the Twimlows Hotel.
That's where I was.
And they'd be all up there.
And we were very, we were very, they'd win a competition and they'd come.
They'd sleep on billiard tables and all this all night in my hotel.
You know, I'd bring chefs, the cooks in in the morning to cook them breakfast and all
And they'd cut Jeff Robinson's hair off there one time.
Remember his long hair?
Remember how hard he used to run?
He was a hard man.
His hair would be out flying out here and he'd just run straight into, like running
Like a brick wall.
So, we had all, I've always.
And every time they'd play Balmain, it would have cost, it'd cost me something like 30
schooners because I'd have to back Balmain.
They'd have, they'd all back.
What do you, what do you reckon, Arthur?
And I'll say, we'll beat you this time.
Are we going Bulldogs or Berries now?
No, we're talking Berries probably.
In the, yeah, no, 80s.
Sorry, so it might have been Bulldogs.
It was, you know, Peter Moore's time.
So it could have been Bulldogs.
But they, it was, it was the football team and they'd all be there.
And then I, with a number of hotels, and Stuart said, why wouldn't you get your name
put on the thing?
So I said, nah, I don't think so.
But John Ballesty is a very close mate of mine, former Eastman.
But a very close friend of mine.
And he was on the board of Canterbury at the time.
Stuart spoke to him.
Stuart said, make a number, Dad, what would you give him?
And I said, oh, I'll give him 500,000.
So they, he took it to the board.
And the board, they said, yeah, I'll give you 500,000.
And the board said, no, that's ridiculous, not enough.
And I thought, no wonder they're on the bottom.
Who'd knock 500,000 off for back when you're running last in the competition, you know.
Anyway, they rethought it.
So for the first couple of years, I got it cheap.
I don't get it cheap anymore, right?
No, I know the general strip costs.
So that's how, of course, you would.
And that's how, that's how it went.
So I said, all right.
And, but when, when I first said I'd do it, I said, I don't want to be just a name on a jumper.
That's not my life.
It's not my, my style.
I want to be involved.
I want to be part of it.
And then Stuart became, you know, we, we were struggling the first couple of years.
And Gus's name was mentioned to come there.
And then it seemed to die, just seemed to fall over.
Stuart just rang me out of the blue one day.
He said, Dad, what's happened to Phil Gould?
I said, I don't know.
What do you mean?
And he said, well, we're in negotiations.
And I said, well, I said, I'm not sure, but I'll find out.
And, and there were little discrepancies in what each party were prepared for and all that sort of thing.
And he said, if I rang him, would you meet with him?
And I said, yeah, sure.
He said, have you met him?
I said, look, I knew him in the 80s.
And I, you know, I said.
But no, the answer is probably no.
And I said, why do you know him?
And he said, and Stuart's one of these blokes, of course, that knows everyone.
He said, but I'll get in touch with him.
I said, all right.
Didn't think anything more would happen with it.
Stuart got in touch with Freddie Fiddler, who asked, would he, would he have meet with Arthur Laundie to discuss this kind of everything?
And he said, yeah, sure.
So anyway, Stuart arranged it.
We went over to the North Sydney Hotel.
Because he had to go and do a podcast that evening or something like, I think that was what he had on it, something with Channel 9.
Anyway, he, we met and we sat and we talked.
And I thought, there's life here.
There is life here.
What is your opinion of, I don't mean in a character sense, but your opinion of Gus in terms of football smarts?
We've come from the bottom.
From the bottom, where we were getting beaten by lots of scores, 40s and 50s and all that.
In two years that he's been there, we are now a competitive football team.
We're a top eight now.
We're a competitive team now.
And I don't think we expected to be in the top eight this year.
And that doesn't disappoint me because we are competitive.
Next year, we will move.
We need some players.
And you and Nick are well aware of that.
We need a couple of players, but we are on the way, right?
So anyway, I met with him and I found out that there's, so I got in touch with the board
and I said, listen, I don't want to stick around here sitting on the bottom of the table.
I said, I think we should be putting the guy on and all that.
They discussed it with me and I think I convinced them.
So they said, all right.
I said, well, I'll leave it in your court now.
Phil Googled and just said, look, it's in your court now.
I believe there's life here.
And that's how it started.
He includes us in everything.
He includes Craig, includes me.
Like if he's interviewing, when we bought this young fella, Carl Upalu, down from the Broncos,
he rang me and he said, look, I'd like you to be there.
So we went out and we had an early dinner one night out there at Brighton East End.
At the Greek place.
One of those places there.
We sat there and we just had an early dinner and he likes me to talk to the young fellows.
I see myself as somewhat of a mentor.
I like to be involved with the players.
I like to be, and he includes me in that area.
They like it too, Arthur.
They like it too because they get, these young players coming from all sorts of places,
they get exposed to people like you.
Don't undersell it.
They have, they think, wow.
There's Arthur Laundie.
I'm meeting Arthur Laundie.
And for them, that's a big deal.
I see it in our club.
Like when they meet Nick.
And it's important to them.
Well, it's a big deal for me too.
I very much enjoy them.
You know, I was in the dressing room last night with young Jacob.
It was after the Parramatta game.
Unbelievable comeback.
It was just unbelievable.
And, you know, I just sit and I talk to them.
But I want to know what they're doing.
I want to know what are they doing with their money.
And I speak to them and say, by the time your contract's finished here,
I want you to have something in bricks and mortar.
I said, I don't care if it's a villa, but something that will make money for you
that if you work it properly, you won't be taxed on, you know,
and this sort of thing.
They're very, very involved in that side of things with them.
So I enjoy it so much that I've now become a bulldog.
Paul Langmack was with me yesterday saying,
ask Arthur what his favourite team is.
And I said, mate, I'm a bulldog.
He said, bullshit.
But this is how, you know, I enjoy it so much.
But I think blokes like Gus Gould, we were very involved,
particularly Craig, very involved.
He was very involved in getting Soraldo to the top.
He's doing so well.
Yeah, very involved with getting Cameron down there.
Great defensive coach, which people undersell,
which is one of Canterbury's strengths at the moment.
Like the way they defended when one of your blokes got Simbin
for 10 minutes against Parramatta, the way Canterbury defended was amazing.
Like, and they started attacking as well.
But like, that's amazing.
You won the game during that period when you were down one man.
I couldn't believe it.
And behind on the scoreboard.
Yet they couldn't score again.
They were leading 18-10, but they couldn't score again during that time.
I agree with you.
I mean, he's been a great addition.
But it's taken a bit of time to get him into a bit of a rhythm,
you know, some sort of cadence in terms of how he's coaching.
I guess he's got to find all these new players.
He's got to try and put them all together as well,
try and work out who's who in the zoo.
But it seems to me just from watching you then, Arthur,
that this is another source of vitality for you.
I enjoy it immensely.
This looks like it's a big, big deal.
Like you were beaming with enthusiasm then
and sort of like a sense of fulfillment.
How important is it for you, in terms of that audience at least,
the football players and the Canterbury players,
how important is it for you to be able to pay forward,
give back what you've been out of experience?
In other words, things like you should get a property,
you should get a bit of real estate behind your name.
Like in other words, you're paying forward your advice,
your life experience.
You're paying forward your experiences to these young guys
who, by the way, ordinarily would never get an opportunity
to have someone like you to talk to them.
They just play footy, spend all the money on whatever they spend it on.
At the end of their career, they're 32, 33,
no one wants to resign them.
They might get a job in England or something like that,
but they've got nothing.
How important is it for you to be able to pay back?
That's why I'm there, mate.
That's why I'm there.
I think it's very important.
But is that because, Arthur, you've done so well
and your kids are going to do well and your grandkids,
do you have it in your heart, this feeling that some poor bastards
just never get a fucking kick in life and I'm a dude
who can help them do it?
Mark, I'm a publican.
I've seen those poor bastards that's never got a kick in their life.
And, you know, all of these I'll do as much as I can for anybody,
any of the guys here who would like to talk to me at any time.
I get a great thrill out of it.
I had a young fellow.
Mick came up to me at this meeting the other day.
They were former players on Saturday at Canterbury
and they rang me and said, would you come over?
Because I know most of them.
And he came up and he said, mate, you talk to us.
Back in 1991, I think it was, 1991 or 91, 92,
Canterbury, and in the middle of being a Balmain fan at this stage,
won the President's Cup this particular year.
And I remember Geoff Robinson was coaching them.
Peter Mortimer rang me up and he said, mate, because for Geoff Robinson,
would you give us $6,000 and sponsor the President's Cup?
And Geoff would bring it all back to the hotel and they all became
And there were people like Jason Smith, Robbie Ralph,
all these guys that went on to play good, big football.
He said, after six rounds, and I hope this doesn't bore this part of it,
but he said, after six rounds, Geoff Robbo,
I was there this Thursday night and he said, mate, can I have a talk to you?
And I said, yeah, mate.
He said, we have got a good football team, but I don't –
I'm doing something wrong.
I don't know what it is.
He said, we haven't won a game.
And on next Friday night, we play Parramatta, who are undefeated.
He said, and we got talking.
And I said, would you let me talk to the team?
He said, would I ever?
But we are really close, Geoff and I.
And he said, I'd love you to, mate.
This is in 91 or 92.
So I went out to Parramatta Stadium with Gail Cumberland over there.
And he said, I just want you guys now to sit
and I want you to listen to Arthur.
I knew them all very well.
And I just spoke to them about life.
I said, I'm not here to talk about football.
I said, you guys have forgotten more about football than I ever learned.
I said, I'm not here to talk about that.
I said, but in your life, you can achieve anything you want to achieve,
providing you want to achieve.
Not, oh, I think I want to do that.
It's not like that.
I said, there's a little thing in your mind called id, I-D.
It's in your mind.
If it can convince you to do something, you can do it.
But it's got to convince you.
And you've got to be aware of it's there.
You can go out and I said, you've seen your case, Geoff Robinson,
run through brick walls.
wasn't thinking of anything else other than running through the Parramatta lineup that
time, you know, and this sort of thing.
I said, but you must be convinced in your own, in your heart.
You can't do anything unless, and the only thing that will convince you that is your
It will control everything, providing you're prepared to follow it.
And I said, you've got a bloody good football team here.
You've got a damn good coach.
A bloke would run through the walls and do everything, you know, everything a footballer,
more than a footballer would be expected to do.
I said, you've got, it's there.
We know it's there.
He knows it's there and he's a better judge of football than I am, but he knows it's there.
I said, convince yourselves, fellas.
You can beat this Parramatta side, but you've got to be prepared.
And anyway, they went out, they beat Parramatta.
They won the next 16 games.
They won the next 16 games in a row.
Got beaten by Parramatta in the semifinal.
Beat them in, came back to play them again in the grand final and won the grand final.
And this Mick Appleby reminded me of this at the football thing on the set.
He said the word.
On the weekend, last weekend.
He said, the words you spoke to our team that day, I still think of them regularly.
He's now got a successful trucking company.
And this sort of thing.
He said, but I think of it so often.
And I said, mate, you've no idea how much that thrills me that you, I have had something
that I've been able to give you that's been worth keeping.
Sometimes those things, well, you can't put a dollar figure on it.
You know, people talk about, people like yourself, about, they just want to throw numbers in
front of everything and, you know, put BN after it, which stands for billionaire.
And that's sort of, and usually it's the media.
Because that's what they like to deal with.
But sometimes, well, I'll ask you the question.
Sometimes, is it sometimes that the value of that, that one little conversation on the
weekend, the value of that sometimes eclipses the value of everything else?
I'm not saying you want to give everything else away, but I'm just, just that value inside
Is that a really important thing to Arthur Laundie?
Is that because you loved your father so much?
I love my father.
And it's because that's what he brought to the table.
He brought this to the table.
He brought to the table, Mark, if you want to win, you can win.
But don't say you want to win if it's only words.
Don't say it's you want to win.
You've got to want to fucking win.
And I've lived my life, I've tried to bring the kids up the same way.
We've led a life that, there have been times when I was doing it tough, very early days.
I've, I've helped a couple of publicans and I've used that description a lot of times.
Paid off the wall.
I've helped some publicans.
Two publicans who were in the hands of receivers.
And I went into battle for the, against the hand, with the, with the, the lenders.
Let me have a go at it.
I believe I can get these people out of trouble.
And in doing so, I'll get you out of trouble.
One was the state bank, right?
I remember the old state bank.
Remember the state bank?
and this particular family were in strife.
And I said to them, would you let me work the hotel?
I said, don't put a receiver on.
Receivers, they might save an airport, save a milk bar, save...
There's no specialty in receivers.
I believe I'm a specialty in my game.
I said, let me look after.
I believe I can save both of you.
And this one bloke said to me, across the table, he said to me,
who made you Jesus Christ?
I said, no, no, I'm not pretending to be Jesus Christ.
I said, what I'm saying is I do believe, but I know I can do it.
I believe I can save these people.
And in doing so, I believe I can save you.
Anyway, they had a chat and they decided to give me three months.
I said, I can't do it in three months.
I said, these people are in terrible debt.
I can't do it in three months.
They said, let's give three months a start.
For three months with them.
I went back to this family, who were with me at the time.
And we went back and went outside and I said to them,
I can get you there, but in doing so,
you're going to be eating the paint off the wall.
There'll be times when you hate me,
because it's the only way we're going to be able to do it.
Anyway, we went back there and I used to call in that hotel
morning and afternoon.
It's in the western suburbs, so it wasn't far from me.
I'd call in there and we'd say, what about this?
And they'd say, hang on, what's this for?
You know, and this type of thing.
And we got them out of trouble and they've now got,
gaming came in after that and really helped them.
So we've now got, they've now got one of the best hotels
and they'll be worth a lot of millions of dollars.
A lot of millions of dollars.
But they're very grateful people too.
I remember this particular person, and Craig was part of this,
I was sitting in my office this day opening Christmas cards.
And I'm just talking to Robin, who was a very big part of my life,
and Craig, talking to opposite.
And I'm opening these Christmas cards and I just opened this Christmas card
and I looked at the Christmas card.
I said, ah, that's from so and so.
And Craig said, you dropped something, Dad.
And I said, what?
It was a cheque for $50,000.
Because they were grateful for what I'd just done for them.
So I said, okay, we finished the meeting and I rang them straight away.
And I said, I don't want $50,000.
I don't need money.
I need to know that I've done something for you.
That's plenty for me.
I don't need the brass.
And the person said to me, we've been trying to estimate your time.
And I said, well, I'll tell you what, if you don't want the money,
I'll give the money to a charity.
I don't want the money.
So I sent the money straight to Matthew Talbot.
I sent it straight out to Matthew Talbot, the $50,000.
Anyway, about six months later, another $50,000 come in.
I rang the person again.
I said, what are you doing?
They said, it's yours.
Do what you like.
Matthew Talbot, another $50,000.
The third time it came and I rang them.
I said, please stop this.
And they said, we think,
we think we've helped you out.
We've repaid some of the debt now.
Not all of it, but we've repaid it.
And we will stop now.
We know you want to stop.
So another $50,000 went to the Matthew Talbot.
I said, I don't do these things for money.
That's not what I want.
And there's another family we did the same thing for.
And they, these people are now my greatest friends.
They just, they're so appreciative of what is.
I just love doing that.
Can I ask you something just to finish off, Arthur?
So it's interesting, when I was a kid growing up,
I used to hear a lot of conversations on Sunday lunches and stuff like that,
like, you know, roast lunch and stuff,
about sayings like, he or she would die in your arms.
He or she was tough as teak.
And what I didn't realize is that people were talking to,
and you've mentioned a few words, you said grateful,
you said loyalty, you know, pay forward.
You know, you were out there helping people
who were in lesser circumstances to you,
not for anything in return, but out of,
and that's really the definition of generosity.
What I'm hearing from you is what would be considered in old school days,
we don't talk about this much anymore, but old fashioned virtues,
the importance of old fashioned virtues.
If you were to sit down and talk to your kids and your grandkids,
what are the, maybe if you could just let me know what three,
I'd like to know this from someone like yourself,
what are three old fashioned virtues that you think have been,
and maybe the things your dad taught you,
but guiding lights for your life?
What are three really important old school virtues?
We never talk about virtues anymore.
We don't hear about it.
They should be, they still should be there.
I would say my first would be honesty.
I've always tried to do everything, keep my kids, you know,
Craig once came home with a little tiny,
you've heard these sort of stories before,
but we're sitting at dinner and I saw this pencil sharpener
or pencil or something that wasn't ours.
I said, who's that?
And everything went quiet.
And I said, Craig, is that yours?
I said, where did you get it from?
And after about a couple of minutes he said,
I was down at the little shop in Cave Road,
and I took that, I'm sorry, I'm sorry and all that.
I said, that's all right.
We're going back there tomorrow.
We went down to the shop and I said, right,
go and see the man.
He went up and he said, I took this, I stole this yesterday.
I'm back here to say how sorry I am, right.
And the fellow gave him a little bit of chastising
while he was winking at me and out we went.
He was about six, right, this sort of thing,
and he just took it off the shelf.
Honesty is, it's just an essential part of life
that so many people either take or don't take it for granted.
Because we're not born with honesty.
We're taught honesty.
Plays a great deal of emphasis on loyalty.
And I think my third one would be love.
Love in what sense?
As being passionate about something or?
Loving of people.
Loving of particularly my family.
They all mean so much to me, mate.
And, you know, like if something was going to happen
and I could avoid it by giving all my money away, I'd give it away.
Lawrence Laundie, thanks very much.
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