He was the NSW Liberal premier who helped bring the Olympic Games to Sydney and the federal finance minister during the tough budget-cutting early years of the Howard government.

Then, after almost dying from lung cancer, Mr Fahey out-lobbied his favoured French rival to take a big job in world sport.

And in 2011, the Gillard government gave its old opponent oversight of spending on the Queensland flood reconstruction.

Mr Fahey's background - Irish Catholic working class - was more Labor than Liberal. In most respects he was a "small-l liberal".

His parents were Irish migrants to New Zealand and John Joseph Fahey was born in Wellington on January 10 1945. The family moved to Australia when he was 10, settling in the NSW Southern Highlands, which was to remain his home.

Mr Fahey became a solicitor and set up practice in Camden. In 1968 he married Colleen McGurren. They had two daughters and a son. The youngest, Tiffany, was killed in a car crash on Boxing Day 2006.

A life-long sports nut, Mr Fahey first made his mark through rugby league, playing for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and later captain-coaching local teams.

He was motivated to join the Liberals by the Whitlam government which, he once said, was developing a welfare state that encouraged people not to work.

Mr Fahey entered the NSW parliament in 1984 and was in the shadow cabinet within a year.

When Nick Greiner led the Liberals back to power in 1988, Mr Fahey became industrial relations and employment minister.

In 1992 he succeeded Mr Greiner, saying, "I never aspired to be the premier."

His premiership is chiefly remembered for unbridled joy and spontaneous bravery.

A key member of the bidding team, he was in Monaco in 1993 when Juan Antonio Samaranch announced Sydney had won the 2000 Olympics. Television captured his ecstatic leaps.

The following Australia Day, he was with Prince Charles at Sydney's Darling Harbour when a deranged former student jumped on to the stage while firing a pistol. The premier tackled him and wrestled him to the ground.

Although it turned out to be a starters' pistol, republican Mr Fahey's bravery was widely praised.

But helping win the Olympics and protecting the heir to the throne wasn't enough to save Mr Fahey's government in the 1995 election, won narrowly by Labor under Bob Carr.

Later he said that being premier was an "enormous honour, but a bloody shitty life".

He turned his eyes to Canberra and in the 1996 election, which brought John Howard to power, won the seat of Macarthur.

Mr Fahey was immediately made finance minister, which raised some eyebrows because state politicians rarely succeed federally and, like most premiers, he hadn't minded throwing money around.

As finance minister, he presided over heavy budget cuts, particularly in the early years, and a raft of asset sales.

Although their personalities were different and despite Treasurer Peter Costello's initial opposition, the pair soon established a close working relationship. Indeed, for a time there was speculation that in the anticipated though never realised post-Howard era, he'd become Mr Costello's deputy.

Greg Barns, who was his chief of staff from 1996 to 1999, said: "I worked on four budgets and I never saw them clash".

Mr Barns said Mr Fahey, though never a great parliamentary performer, had a phenomenal memory, never got figures wrong and had a "good bulls**t detector".

The gregarious Mr Fahey didn't seem to make enemies. He was more pragmatist than ideologue, stayed out of factional fights and wore his ego more lightly than most. He was, as near as any senior minister who so often had to say no can be, a good bloke. In a non-smoking building, his office was a sanctuary for smokers.

Mr Barns said he made his staff feel like family, never forgetting their birthdays or their kids.

However he did put some senior bureaucratic noses out of joint by talking directly with more junior departmental officers.

Mr Fahey was responsible for more than 40 privatisations which, he once mused, may be a world record.

In early 2001, Mr Fahey found out he had lung cancer. One lung was cut out and the other failed. He was going fast and given the last rites.

As a last slim chance he was put on a lung support unit in the hope that, if he breathed through it long enough, the lung would be jogged back to working order. Though weak and drugged, he breathed through it for what surgeons said was an unprecedented seven hours. It worked.

"It's either a miracle or you're a tough bastard," a specialist said.

Mr Fahey quit politics at the election later that year.

Apparently fully recovered, he threw himself into new activities. He became a senior adviser to JP Morgan and a National Catholic Education commissioner, joined the board of the Cancer Institute and the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and worked on several rugby league bodies and the Bradman Cricket Foundation.

Then in 2007, 14 years after his successful lobbying for the Sydney Olympics, he threw himself into another battle, this time for presidency of the powerful World Anti-Doping Authority.

The position was widely thought safe for WADA vice president Jean-Francois Lamour, a former French sports minister and dual Olympic fencing gold medallist.

Mr Fahey - with Mr Howard's strong backing - embarked on a round-the-world lobbying whirlwind that was so successful Mr Lamour pulled out.

Mr Fahey held the post until 2013 and went on to serve as Australian Catholic University chancellor.

He died aged 75 in hospital from leukaemia this week and will be remembered at a state service to be held at Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral.

Australian Associated Press