''Maybe I should stand,'' he jokes, lighting an enormous Cohiba cigar, with his gold and diamond bling flashing in the sun.

Polite and respectful, he is softer-spoken than you'd imagine and has an air of calm rather than menace.

The veteran of Melbourne's underworld and survivor of that city's gangland wars recently made famous in the Underbelly TV series was in town yesterday to promote his book, I, Mick Gatto, and since Tony Abbott's political coup was the hot topic, giving Gatto a hypothetical stab at the country's No1 job didn't seem out of place.

Larger than life, Gatto, 54, is an Italian-Australian and former professional heavyweight boxer who made his money running gambling rooms in Melbourne, and shot to notoriety when he was acquitted of the 2004 murder of notorious hitman Andrew Veniamin on the grounds of self-defence.

Nowadays he is a businessman, running companies including Arbitrations and Mediations and Elite Cranes.

His skill as a mediator, which he says he acquired from the years of running gambling rooms, keeps him busy, particularly in the building industry. He's successful, he says, because he doesn't stretch things out as lawyers would.

He still keeps an interest in boxing, training three days a week at his home gym, and he'll be in the front row of tonight's fight between Danny Green and Roy Jones Jr. He picks Jones to win, much as he likes Green.

If you'd told him 10 years ago he'd be a published author, he'd have told you you were out of your mind.

But here he is, and his book is going gangbusters. He wrote it because he wanted to give his side of the story after the Underbelly series made him into a household name nationwide.

He's now on his second tour to promote it and it's been in the top 10 bestseller lists for weeks.

And it's clear people love him. At yesterday's book signing at the Woden Plaza they queued in their hundreds to get his signature and their picture taken with him. Unfailingly polite, he checked the spelling of names and smiled a lot.