JOHN: My wife,Anne,and I didn’t go into married life with a plan to have a dozen kids. We actually had 13 children,eight boys and five girls. We lost Joseph,who had a congenital abnormality,and died as he was being born.
Dominic is the third eldest and was a boisterous child. His brain really goes at a thousand miles an hour. When he was three or four,it would go so fast his mouth really couldn’t keep up. You had to calm him down a bit but that’s because he’s got a very fertile mind.
When the kids were young,we’d ask them each to find a newspaper clipping and bring it to the dinner table and say something about it. We’d censor it so they didn’t come up with something too horrific. And it couldn’t be the latest goings-on with the Wests Tigers rugby league team night after night. Anne,who was a primary school teacher,instigated it. She said,“Keep their mouths full and minds occupied.” It was always going to be a rabble – let’s not run away from that fact! – but it gave some order to dinner time. They had to listen and be ready to hear what the other person had to say,and not talk out of line.
Having such a large family,the budget was under pressure,so every year we’d do a section of the Great North Walk[in NSW;the family was raised in Sydney’s northern suburbs],and that was a great way of having an economically friendly holiday. It was trekking,not just camping. You had to carry everything. The kids learnt to toughen up. We had a couple of massive leech attacks on one of these trips,and I came back with 100 leech bites. Dominic hates leeches.
There were times when we took off on holiday and realised we’d left a kid somewhere. One time Anne was driving – we had this massive Nissan 15-seater bus that the kidshated – and she looked in the rear-view mirror to do a headcount. The baby seat was empty,so she screeched to a halt. In a big family personalities get sharpened up fast. The kids were always competing.
Dominic has been bashed from pillar to post by his siblings since he could walk. He’s got a lot of ideas,is a good talker,but most importantly is incredibly resilient.
We’re both interested in sport and are both long-distance runners. Dom and I would buy Percy Cerutty books when he was young and read about long-distance tactics. Cerutty was Australia’s long-distance running coach when Herb Elliott broke the four-minute mile. Every year,the whole family would race in Sydney’s City2Surf. In 2000,Dominic must have had a big night on the turps before the race,as he wasn’t feeling too good. He pulled over during the race and started throwing up on the side of the road,only to see his brother Gabriel,who’s half his age,go bolting past. He thought,“I can’t live with this!” So Dom composed himself,took off and caught up with Gabe. He was never going to be beaten by his younger brother.
When Dominic was running for office,we had to go along and vote for him. That was interesting;you don’t often get a chance to stand in a polling booth and vote for your own son. In the booth with my wife,I joked,“Gee,look at this guy Perrottet. Total loser. Don’t vote for him.”