For my cross to Ben Fordham’s breakfast show on 2GB the team wanted me to talk about the review and possible changes to the Reserve Bank board and how interest rates are set. But then the news that my old radio mate Doug Mulray had passed away grabbed the headlines and I was asked to do a tribute to the once king of breakfast ratings in the 1980s and 1990s.

Interestingly I think there is a link between the two stories and I’d argue that the staid organisation known as the RBA could learn a lot from the very irreverent Uncle Doug.

This might surprise many but stick with me on this.

When I started with Doug on Triple M in 1987, he was number one in Sydney radio with ratings over 20%, which said one in five radio listeners loved Uncle Doug, as he liked to call himself then. The rise of the discredited US preachers in the 90s gave rise to his Reverend Doctor Doug persona, which underlined his ability to use satire and comedy together to have fun while making important points.

In those days, Doug worked with Miss Lizzy — his wonderful wife Liz Muir. His sidekick was a then unknown talent called Andrew “the boy genius from indoor cricket”, who was none other than Andrew Denton, who was later replaced by Dave Gibson the voice behind Bogdan the Turnip Boy, Mr Fimey, Gloria and Roland Rollador, from Rolland Rollador Rolladoors.

Doug was inherently funny and Aussie blokes loved him. So did women because he really had what Kramer on Seinfeld had — yep, he had the Kavorka, which I think made him even closer to my wife Maureen than me (maybe it was because she had more substance than me!).

I saw Doug a couple of months ago at a reunion when he told me about the cancer in his liver. Typical Doug, he said: “I said to the doctor, hey Doc how in the F did that happen?” I gave him a hug — our first — and he said: “Gee, I didn’t see that coming, Switz.”

Doug’s success came from knowing his audience, employing great people who worked hard and who knew that Doug as our leader was a true professional. We followed his example.

Mulray was in touch with his audience/customers and that’s where the RBA and its board need to be improved.

The SMH’s Shane Wright today tells us what Treasurer Jim Chalmers is currently considering. “The review, the first of the bank since 1981, is expected to make a series of recommendations to Chalmers that would, if implemented, deliver the biggest overhaul of the RBA since it embraced inflation targeting in the early 1990s,” he explained. “Among the proposals canvassed by the panel include shifting interest-rate-setting power from the RBA board to a new committee of economic specialists, fewer meetings to discuss rate settings and regular press conferences by the bank governor to explain monetary policy decisions.”

I don’t think the board needs economic experts — they have them — and there is no real evidence that economists get the interest rate story more right than the central bank and their economists. I’ve publicly bagged the RBA big time on three occasions. The first was when they raised interest rates in February 2008 after the stock market had dived in November 2007 ahead of the GFC banking collapse. They waited until September to cut rates, but that was after Bear Stearns went belly up and Lehman Brothers nosedived into oblivion.

The second time was 2010-11 when the Bank was raising and killing off an economic recovery, which then saw them cut rates right into the madness of the pandemic’s 0.1% cash rate. See how their misreading on what was going on meant they had to cut and cut and cut.

And the third time is now, with the fastest interest rate rises in history ahead of the greatest mortgage cliff in history coming up by mid-year.

Don’t get me wrong, guessing what interest rate is needed to kill inflation or boost growth and jobs, is as hard as knowing what an audience wants to hear to win radio ratings. But the current Board seems out of touch with the real world. Adding economists to the Board or a panel of economists to help the Board won’t do that.

There should be a panel of experts on consumers and business with people who’ll stick it to the RBA Governor, if they think he’s wrong. The likes of Gerry Harvey, Harris Farm’s Cathy Harris, Twiggy Forrest, the former boss of Mirvac — Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz and ex-Australia Post’s and Blackmore’s Christine Holgate would be great people to represent business on the board.

Doug never wanted ‘yes’ men and women on his team. He surrounded himself with aspirational people who wanted to get better at what they did.

Our RBA board needs input from different people with better insights than the mob who are there right now, and to do a job that is bloody hard to get right.