Hockey: Not Your Average Joe

by Madonna King

  Joe says he didn’t think too much more about it, believing it was an un-costed proposal, not an Opposition policy. At least, that was until Abbott announced it publicly. Soon after, in the wake of Party unrest, Abbott told a joint Party-room meeting that he had made a captain’s call on the policy. ‘Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission,’ he said.

  Joe was seeking neither forgiveness nor permission when he went to see his leader soon after. He was both irked and offended. Joe had known Abbott was magnanimous in giving him the Treasury portfolio, but it was useless if he was going to ride roughshod over him, and not consult him about details on big-spending policies.

  The two met in Abbott’s office in Parliament House. ‘We sort of had a heart to heart,’ Joe says. ‘I said we can’t do this. It’s not the way.’ Joe was working out his relationship with the new leader, where he sat in his advice chain and whether he could comfortably do the job if pegged down the line. ‘We sat down and talked like two old mates,’ Joe said, ‘and it was sorted.’ Out of that meeting came a line both men have uttered many times since – that the pair would not have more than a ‘cigarette paper’ between them on policy, that they would support each other publicly, and leave any stoush for behind closed doors. Joe wanted Abbott to genuinely consult him on anything that had a Budget consequence. Abbott agreed. It wasn’t any Kirribilli agreement, but they would go into the 2010 election as a tight double-act.

  Like any marriage, partnerships are tested from time to time, and the first big test of the cigarette paper agreement came early the following year, just ahead of the May 2011 Budget, when Joe signalled that family trusts should be taxed in the same way as companies. That issue is sacrosanct in the bush, and both the Nationals and the Party’s right-wing hit back, publicly. Joe waited for Abbott to jump in and support him. He didn’t, and Joe was forced to make an embarrassing retreat, but not before he picked up the telephone to his new leader, accusing him of leaving him stranded. Abbott listened as Joe reminded him of their cigarette paper agreement, ending the conversation with tensions defused and a reminder to both of them of what happens when a prime minister and treasurer aren’t in sync. ‘I really respect him,’ Joe says. ‘He’s come back from very deep, dark moments and shown incredible fortitude, and worked unbelievably hard.’

  The relationship still requires a trade, based on give and take, but Abbott affords Joe a broader role than a conventional treasurer. ‘After the prime minister, the treasurer has the broadest brief in the government because there are no issues that don’t involve the nation’s finance. And every government program has to be paid for,’ Abbott says. Abbott describes the treasurer’s role as house-keeper or book-keeper in chief, whose job is to ‘remind us that you can’t do anything that in the end you cannot afford to pay for’.

  Joe sees his job as delivering via budgets a legacy for Abbott to be seen as the infrastructure prime minister he wants to be. Joe had strong misgivings about both the green army and the paid parental leave policy (particularly how it is funded), but accepts them both and will fight tooth and nail publicly for them. But in return he expected full support for his financial systems inquiry. ‘Over time we’ve bared our souls to each other,’ Joe says. ‘That’s born out of those meetings at Portia’s. We trust each other and the relationship is such that I can honestly say that he gets my loyalty in exchange for me getting the rein I need to do the job I have to do.’

  They talk often and swap ideas: Joe suggested Maurice Newman as the chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council and Abbott suggested Amanda Vanstone for Joe’s Commission of Audit. ‘With Joe and Tony, they try their hardest to stick together,’ Credlin says. ‘Joe will move for the boss and the boss will move for Joe.’

  Abbott says, in line with the cigarette paper agreement, any misunderstanding is now fixed immediately, behind closed doors. An example of that is Qantas, where Abbott believed they had differing views. Just after dawn, he left a message on Joe’s phone. Joe was on the squash court, but not long after Abbott arrived at work, Joe walked into his office in his squash gear, to sort it out. Their relationship has been helped by their offices, which interact well, particularly Joe’s chief-of-staff, Grant Lovett, and Peta Credlin.

  Melissa has seen the relationship mature, too. ‘They’ve both grown a lot in their roles. They see each other’s strengths and are prepared to acknowledge each other’s strengths as well.’

  Peter Dutton says the relationship between Hockey and Abbott is much closer than Howard and Costello at its strongest. ‘That’s been a conscious effort by both men. Tony Abbott’s gone out of his way to consolidate the relationship and I think Joe’s reciprocated,’ he says. Many in the Party think the same. Warren Entsch says it was clear to the Party room when he spontaneously offered his congratulations that they were ready to take office. ‘The way they interact, the way they bounce off each other – they’re not competing, they’re doing their jobs,’ he says.

  Barnaby Joyce, who like Hockey is one of the government’s best retail politicians, says the two will rise and fall together. Joyce, who locked horns with Hockey over the first big decision of the Abbott government – the Archer Daniels Midlands bid to take over GrainCorp – says, ‘There’s no decision you can say that was the other’s decision.’

  Howard, who has been around the traps more than all of them, knows how things can change quickly, but sees Joe as strongly placed when the leadership becomes available again. Politics is incremental, he says, and it would be wrong to mark anyone out as a future prime minister. ‘Nobody would have said in 1996 that Tony Abbott would be the next Liberal prime minister,’ he says. ‘But clearly, if Joe does a good job as treasurer that will greatly enhance his prospects of one day leading the Party if the position becomes vacant.’

  That’s a big rider – a good job as treasurer – especially given the big issues he would confront in his first few months.

  TWENTY

  THE BIG PATIENT being wheeled into theatre at the North Shore Private Hospital in Sydney on Monday 17 December 2012 joked he wanted to be admitted under the moniker Dirk Diggler, but with hospital chiefs ruling that joke out, the Opposition treasurer had to settle on a less grand name – Joe Little. Now his 132-kilogram frame lay on the trolley, in a nondescript room, waiting for the anaesthetist who would talk to him before putting him to sleep. He’d fasted since midnight and he knew that when he woke up some time later that afternoon, 80 per cent of his stomach would have been removed.

  There was no going back now, but he was resolved about his decision, recognising that he had been wrestling with his weight for most of his life. He was banking on it taking away the years of self-loathing, but he was scared, too. Like a lot of people, he’d always thought the fewer visits to a doctor the better – and this place was now swarming with them. He reminded himself of the big picture – Melissa, Xavier, Adelaide, Iggy. He recalled how, when he was just a tad older than his own children, he’d answered in the schoolyard at St Aloysius’ to Fat Joe. His mates didn’t mean anything by it, and he gave as good as he got, but he was always bigger than the rest of the pack, despite his passion for swimming, cricket and rugby. People were so quick to put labels on others – and his had always revolved around his weight. He knew he didn’t understand food much, not even enough to have a good relationship with it. It was fuel, and he ate too much of it. But his genes were responsible, too, and every attempt to lose weight had failed. The childhood photographs he refused to put on show around the house proved it. Fat baby. Fat child. Fat teenager.

  It was at Sydney University, where college life revolved around pizza and beer, or often in his case Kahlua and milk, that Joe’s weight spiralled out of control. College parties could be found on any night, and Joe, finally out of home, loved the freedom and the student culture. Playing rugby burnt up plenty of calories, but not enough. ‘And then when I stopped playing at the end of uni, I just kept eating,’ Joe says. Friends tell of see-saw diets and attempt
s to keep his weight down, but then finding burger wrappers strewn around his car.

  Melissa says he could not manage to keep it under control. ‘All of us can be overweight – but I know what I need to do to get rid of it. For Joe, I don’t think he ever knew how to lose it. He’d never successfully been able to lose it. That was something that upset him.’ At home, before the children came along, good food was not a high priority either. He was a busy young lawyer at the same time Melissa was climbing the corporate ladder. Dinner often consisted of tinned tuna and rice, unless they wanted to splash out and buy Indian take-away. As their children arrived, Joe’s days got longer and his girth bigger. Away from home, he ate what and when he could. Andrew Kirk, a chief-of-staff in his office, warned him that he was going to have a poster put up in every drive-through McDonald’s between Sydney and Canberra urging the fast-food joint not to serve him. ‘He was eating too much. That was a weakness,’ he says. It was a struggle he shared with people across Australia.

  ‘He didn’t understand food,’ his friend Andrew Burnes says. Each Sunday night, on the way to a sitting week in Canberra, Joe would put in a call to Burnes and often they’d compare notes on their weight. On one occasion, Burnes remembers Joe telling him excitedly about his new diet, which was high protein and low carb. All of a sudden, Joe asked him to hold on the line. ‘A minute later I hear him say, “Ten nuggets please with sweet and sour sauce.” I said, are you serious? Joe didn’t flinch. Without a hint of cheekiness, he quipped back, “Chicken’s protein.” ’

  As Joe progressed through ministries, his weight crept up. First to 120 kilograms, and then 125 kilograms. At 132 kilograms, it plateaued – at least until John Howard called him a big cuddly bear and handed him WorkChoices to sell. Joe hated that Howard had referred to his weight, but the job – akin to selling ice blocks to Eskimos – didn’t prove conducive to weight loss either. Each afternoon, he’d sit in his office, a caring staff member handing him chocolate to elevate his energy levels. It had the opposite effect; his energy waned, and his weight continued to rise, eventually topping the scales at 136 kilograms.

  In the end, it was two issues that drove him to hospital for the stomach surgery he now awaited. The first was an innocent question from his five-year-old daughter, Adelaide, while watching a re-run of the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Adelaide’s words took his breath away. ‘She just turned to me and, as a five-year-old would, said, “Daddy, will you be around for my wedding?” ’

  ‘Of course I will be!’ Joe shot back. But later that evening he thought of his father’s frailty, and the diabetes suffered by others in his family. He became genuinely fearful. Perhaps he wouldn’t be around to walk Adelaide down the aisle. He decided to talk to his GP. But there was another reason, too, one his colleagues, staff and friends all see as playing a part. Joe had been putting political markers down for the previous couple of years and knew that his personal transformation wouldn’t be complete until he could really change how he was viewed. Joe had determined that one day he did want to be prime minister, and while Adelaide had provided the impetus for the doctor’s visit, the second issue also weighed on his mind in making the decision to undergo radical stomach surgery.

  A couple of weeks later, with a referral in hand, Joe sat in an office in St Leonards. Across the desk was Dr Steven Leibman, a north shore gastric surgeon. The office was empty – they had arranged a day where Dr Leibman did not see patients. The two strangers had a cup of coffee and talked, both of them a little bit nervous. Joe didn’t like what he was hearing; his health was good now, but the odds weren’t great and at his size there was an exponential likelihood of dying prematurely from an obesity-related disease. It’s news other Australians get every day, across the table from a medico. Joe’s weight sat at 132 kilograms, but his body mass index (BMI) had hit 41.5. That was a crucial reading because guidelines for weight-loss surgery, which were set by the National Health and Medical Research Council, stated that a BMI reading of 40, in the absence of some exclusion criteria like age or alcoholism, was an automatic qualification for the surgery. Joe left Dr Leibman’s office with a folder of information, a request to have Melissa join him at the next appointment, and a determination that he would go ahead with the operation.

  Choosing the type of surgery wasn’t as easy as it sounds. He knew others who had undergone different types of weight-loss surgery – James Packer, whom he called for a chat – but it was Melissa who asked most of the questions. They were at home, in the kitchen, when he told her he wanted to go ahead. What sort of surgery? she asked. What research had he done? Was he doing it for the right reasons? She knew she was asking them for herself as much as for Joe. Once Joe’s mind is made up, there’s not much anyone can do to turn it around. Staff members over the past 15 years all say that; some label it a weakness, others a strength. But Melissa suspected Joe had already, in his mind, started throwing out his fat suits. ‘I couldn’t care less if I never went to another restaurant,’ she told him. ‘I just don’t want you to regret it.’

  A week later, they visited Dr Leibman together. Iggy came too, and was delighted to find he could clamber up Dr Leibman’s examination table. Melissa sat and listened. Weight-loss surgery accounted for 40 per cent of Dr Leibman’s busy practice, and different patients opted for different procedures. Most modern surgery was minimally invasive, he told them. Gastric band surgery (where a band restricts the passage of food into the stomach from the oesophagus), which had proved so popular over the past five years, was becoming less so. The laparoscopic gastric sleeve was his recommendation, an option that provided the best compromise between effective weight loss, a good quality of life and a low risk for long-term complication. But the surgery wasn’t a small deal; 80 per cent of the stomach was removed permanently, leaving it the size of a banana. The operation was fairly new and limited long-term data existed, but it worked in two ways. First it removed a large proportion of the stomach volume including the part that normally expands when we eat a very large meal. But the second factor was important, too. The part of the stomach that expands also produces a hormone called ghrelin, which acts as an appetite stimulant, and it was believed that removing the source of ghrelin, in turn, reduced hunger. For the rest of his life, a full meal for Joe Hockey would fit into a 250-millilitre drinking cup.

  Overall, he could expect the weight loss to be 30 kilograms. That’s the part Joe liked. That would change so much – the way he was perceived, the way he was spoken about. It would also dramatically improve his chances of seeing Adelaide’s wedding. Dr Leibman referred to a Swedish study of 400 people, all of them morbidly obese. In the study, 50 per cent had surgery. Researchers monitored them for 11 years. And the result? The likelihood of dying from all causes of death was reduced by 29 per cent. Melissa was half-listening. Iggy had climbed back onto the doctor’s table. Dr Leibman was talking, but also watching the child’s movements. They both saw it at the same time. Iggy fell, his head careering in the direction of a wooden stool. Melissa, a former national track champion, caught him mid-air. Dr Leibman’s sigh was audible. He’d just seen the headline flash past his eyes: DOCTOR KILLS SHADOW TREASURER’S SON. He didn’t court publicity, especially that kind.

  Melissa still had two questions she would put to Joe later that night: Would he regret it later? And would people think he took the easy way out? Joe dismissed them quickly. His mind was made up. He signed the consent form, and the surgery was soon set down for a month’s time, inside the North Shore Private Hospital.

  On 17 December 2012 at 2 p.m., Dr Leibman was kitted out in surgical gown, gloves and mask. Music, taken from his personal playlist, provided a background as a small team of experts focused on their next patient – Joe Little, from Hunters Hill, aged 47. A needle to the back of the hand had sent Joe to sleep, and now the anaesthetic team, made up of an anaesthetist and a nurse, joined the surgical team, which comprised Dr Leibman, an assistant surgeon, a scrub nurse and a scout nurse.

  The surge
ry began with a small cut made to the left side of Joe’s stomach, halfway between the belly button and the rib cage. A telescope was inserted so that the internal abdomen could be displayed on a screen, guiding Dr Leibman while he worked. Carbon dioxide was then pumped into the abdominal cavity to make an operating space, then four more incisions, ranging in size from 5 millimetres to 12 millimetres, were made through the skin and into the abdominal cavity, giving access to the area. The stomach was mobilised, by cutting the connection between the stomach and the internal tissues. A small instrument called a bougie was passed down the mouth, through the oesophagus, and into the stomach to measure its size.

  Watching the screen, Dr Leibman checked and rechecked his movements. He liked surgery. Diagnosis carries so many shades of grey but surgery is black and white. You cut something out and fix the problem. But like any big operation, he knew sometimes things could go wrong. No-one ever hears about the good surgeons, just the bad ones. Minutes ticked by. The stapler was prepared and inserted through one of the incisions, slowly sealing Joe’s stomach. He had to make sure the lowest part of the oesophagus was not included in the highest staple deployment. Any doubt about leakage and he would have the stapler reloaded. But there was no bleeding, no leakage – a nice dry staple line. With the stapling finished, he then needed to remove the excess stomach, that part that would no longer remain in the body. To check that the staple line is secure, the portion of the removed stomach is filled to capacity – this gives the doctor a good indication of whether the internal stomach will hold the staples; in this instance it did. The doctor had been nervous at the start, but as the operation progressed he saw the man on the operating table as a patient like any other. ‘In all respects from the operating theatre environment, he was another patient having the operation,’ he says. Dr Leibman’s first patient on the day-list was stitched up and moved into intensive care for post-surgery checks.