First TAB chief wanted everyone to be winners
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday September 23, 2009
John Robertson, who flew hazardous long-range bombing missions with the RAF during World War II, undertook a completely different high-risk endeavour as the first head of the TAB in NSW.Robertson, who said on his appointment in 1964 that he hadn't bet on a horse for about 20 years, and a few years later that he was a $2 kiss-of-death punter €“ any horse he backed failed to win €“ risked the ire of punters when he opened the first TAB branches, without chairs, writing facilities or shelves for those wanting a bet, or even race broadcasts.The sparse nature of the agencies was not his fault. Although the NSW government wanted to tap the vast amounts of money going to SP bookmakers, who were illegal but omnipresent, it didn't want the agencies to be so comfortable that punters would stay long and lose too much money.John Robertson, who has died at 88, was born in Mayfield, the eldest of five children of Bill Robertson and his wife, formerly Edith James. He was educated at Newcastle Boys High, and left school after his Intermediate Certificate to work in Sydney, joining the Education Department in 1936.In February 1942, aged 21, he enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force and trained as an officer in Canada and the Bahamas. Attached to the 14th Squadron, Royal Air Force, he captained a crew of seven in B26 Marauder bombers from Algeria, then the Mediterranean.The Marauder was a low-altitude aircraft, and Robertson flew on night missions over the Mediterranean at 20 metres, hunting German submarines. In the later part of the war he was based in occupied eastern Italy, monitoring the Adriatic Sea.In September 1944, his crew spotted the Italian liner Rex, which had been commandeered by the Germans. Their report led to the liner's sinking off the Slovenian coast by RAF Beaufighters, preventing the Germans from using it to blockade Trieste Harbour. He also flew with Coastal Command in Britain.After the war, Robertson resumed his career in the NSW Education Department, and married Dorothy Williams, whom he had met as a teenager, in 1946. While working full time, he studied at night at Sydney University, gaining an honours degree in economics in 1952.Late in the 1950s he joined the NSW Civil Defence Organisation, the precursor of the State Emergency Services, and became deputy director. After attending the Australian Administrative Staff College at Mount Eliza in Victoria in 1962, he was seconded to the NSW Public Service Board as a troubleshooter, to help re-organise the then death and stamp duties offices. Shortly before joining the TAB, he had been inspecting flood damage on the Hawkesbury in his role with civil defence.Robertson began at the TAB with a driver and a typist. On the day the first six agencies opened, punters bet $28,052 on the Canterbury gallops and $5934 that night on a trotting meeting at Menangle."We would like to see all our customers winning," Robertson said in 1966. "After all, we are only in it for the percentage. We like it best when the favourite scores in the first race. That way the punter gets to bet again."He drove the growth that made the TAB one of the biggest businesses in NSW and made it fully computerised before retiring in 1981.Then he devoted more time to Sydney Legacy, which he had joined in 1958, was co-opted by the NSW government to oversee extensive construction work at Wentworth Park, and sat on racing boards and the Veterans' Children Education Board. He was made a member in the Order of Australia in 1991.Robertson, who lived in Wahroonga for 40 years, enjoyed travel, ballet and opera €“ he was a member of the Opera Foundation Society €“ what he called "a cleansing ale" and red wine. He played tennis until 2005, and maintained the slicked-down hair and moustache fashionable among air force folk.Dorothy Robertson died in 1991 and he married Lorraine Atkin, an old Legacy friend, in 1994. He is survived by his daughter, Jane Reid and her husband, John; son David Robertson and his wife, Kathryn Hitchings, and their sons, Max and Michael; Lorraine's children, Kathy and David; and his sisters, Betty Giles and Daphne Cody.Tony Stephens
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
