Never one to rest too long on my posterior, I jet in from Hong Kong to Sydney, and arrive rather the worse for Qantas at the airport. A chirpy customs man asks my occupation. When told "journalist" he asks what I intend to write about in Australia. When I reply "financial markets" he says: "Well that'll be pretty dull for you." This does not bode well.
Straight to lunch with an Australian financier who spends most of the main course proclaiming why Sydney will become Asia's regional financial centre. But, say I, isn't Australia distancing itself from Asia (as well as the Queen)? No, all the multinationals are coming I am told. "You get a guy to sail up Darling Harbour, and well if he's got to choose between that and bringing his family to Hong Kong, well where's the choice, mate."
There's something in that. Two cities could hardly be more polarized than Hong Kong and Sydney. Smelly, bustling, polluted, high-rise Hong Kong, replete with average schools and with a standard of spoken English that barely beats a speak-and-spell machine; versus clean, low-rise, barbie-infested Sydney, with a standard of English that barely beats a speak-and-spell machine. The only drawback is that Sydney is nine hours from the action.
One thing Sydney does lack is Hong Kong's fine "latenight" dining opportunities, as head of CSFB Australia John Wylie well knows. While in Hong Kong recently he expensed a fine meal in Wanchai's Club New Popeye to the government - he was advising it on a privatization. The South China Morning Post helpfully pointed out that Club New Popeye doesn't serve food. Wylie's lawyers noted that it is clients not investment bankers who choose "dining" locations.
But it has to be said Sydney's pace of life is certainly more civilized than that of Hong Kong. One banker - who by his own admission was "very busy" - couldn't be contacted at 6.30pm. "Sorry mate," said one of the few stragglers left answering phones "he's gone for the day."
There could be fewer bankers before long, though. Sydney is not alone in being overbanked, but it's certainly quite high up the league table. Investment banking is a particularly low-return business. The comment regularly arises: "We're making money, but god knows who else is." This is usually followed by: "I wish some of the foreigners would do their shareholders a favour and exit XYZ business. There's no money in it..."
Should the Deutsche/Bankers Trust merger go through there's an Australian bloodbath waiting in the wings. BT's Australian business is one of its most successful - and is even considered by some Australians to be a domestic business rather than an American one. However, Deutsche doesn't want it. The Frankfurters don't even want the asset-management side - a stellar business - and reckon BT's investment bank is surplus to requirements. This has left the 800 star bankers at BT wondering what to do. They've even organized a roadshow to sell themselves. It's rather a shame for the big swinging didgeridoos of the Australian capital markets to be left to mimic BZW's shambolic fools' auction.
It must be said, however, that for such a small internal market Australian bankers are certainly disproportionately innovative. Take Colonial Bank, which has franchised out all its branches as if it were McDonald's. Franchise owners can be anything from petrol-station owners to insurance salesmen to - heaven forbid - former bankers. You've heard of commercial bankers wanting to ditch bricks and mortar. Well inside shopping malls the Colonial Bank has little pods, punting mortgages and other services without even a private interview room.
Meanwhile HSBC has launched a telephone broking service which is so simple that even the chief executive of your bank could use it.
The place to lunch in Sydney is surely Belmondo. This is where east meets west - and may well be as close as Sydney ever gets to being an Asian financial centre. Here antipasto is served in a sushi style. And the coffee is excellent. In fact, coffee appears to be a minor obsession among Sydney's bankers. Keen to assert their proximity to the American way of doing business without looking like lapdogs, many Australian bankers comment on how terrible coffee is in the US. "You know," said one, "it's strange but America is always the model, but they do some things so badly. Like coffee. I once got an espresso. Now this was not an espresso..."
The hotel industry is certainly testimony to the Australian economy's continued resilience. Not only is the plush Park Hyatt running at an almost perennial 98% occupancy, but there are at least three new five-star hotels being erected. The barman in the Park Hyatt tells me that his mutual fund is making a 12% return. It's prawns on the barbie all round.
After a week of sun and clean food, I somehow long to get back to the loquacious rudeness of Hong Kong. My plans are thwarted: I miss my flight by 15 minutes. Qantas - being a world-class airline - tell me I have missed my flight and there is nothing they can do about it. But, I ask, what about the Cathay Pacific flight in two hours? Aren't we now living in the happy bliss of OneWorld, the global alliance with the silly purple ball ads? Yes, we are, I'm told but your business-class ticket is Qantas restricted. Qantas and Cathay are clearly so closely allied that they won't transfer each other's tickets.
So another night in Sydney...
The next day I arrive well in advance of my flight. True to form Qantas give me yet another reason never to fly with them ever again. I am told that my suit carrier is a little heavy and cannot be taken on board in case it falls out of an overhead locker and "kills someone". How many funerals have you been to recently where the departed entered that country from whose bourn no traveller returns as a result of a low-flying foldover bag?
The check-in lady does not relent and I fly back to Hong Kong wondering whether Australia has the right service culture for a regional financial centre.