It was, perhaps, the only moment when those in the big audience could see themselves in the shoes of Western Australia’s number one business leader.
It was, perhaps, the only moment when those in the big audience could see themselves in the shoes of Western Australia’s number one business leader.
That point in time when he admitted that he failed at university, flunking every course in his second year of geology and having the ignominy of having his name left off the results list.
“In those days, if you didn’t pass any units they didn’t bother to put your name up at all,” Mr Chaney said.
“I couldn’t find my name, so at first I thought maybe it was out of alphabetical order and I kept looking, but lamentably my worse fear had been realised.”
He rang and informed his father, late federal parliamentarian Sir Fred Chaney, who was keen to know his son’s results.
“He replied ‘those bloody useless socialist lecturers, they wouldn’t have a clue’ and that is all he ever said about it, which caused me to think I better try harder the next year.”
Yet that failure did not reconcile the young Mr Chaney to changing his degree. He completed geology and went on to enter the field.
“I morphed into commerce,” he said.
“I had a fantastic time in the oil industry here and in Houston. There were some signs … at uni the only subject I did well in was economic geology but it never dawned on me that that is where my real interests lay.”
Mr Chaney’s success since then – largely prompted by an MBA at UWA – is well documented, so much so that a recent magazine article credited an anonymous political observer as suggesting he had had it too easy and never received a “blowtorch to the belly”.
The WA businessman laughs that off, pointing out that Wesfarmers had been criticised heavily in the mid-1990s and it had been difficult to maintain disciplines in the face of outside critiques.
“We’ve had really difficult times in Wesfarmers over the years and we have come under a lot of pressure,” Mr Chaney said.
Whenever the share price fell or plateaued, the negative press would flow.
“Those are times which are really dangerous in companies for boards and management, where the external noise is very loud and there is a lot if criticism ... it is very easy for boards to be deflected from that focus that they should have and go and do silly things.”
And what about politics? Born into a blueblood Liberal family with a father and brother, Fred junior, involved heavily in federal politics, was there a political calling?
“I’d be lying if I said ‘no’ because when I was younger I did have some involvement at university. My brother Fred was pretty active and I came to a view fairly early on that that was his place in the sun,” he said.
“I went off and did something else, which I don’t regret and I haven’t given it any thought for the past 20 years. I wouldn’t be interested now.”
