Packer, Murdoch, Peacock, Stockdale and Rich Listers

4. How can a scientologist be a casino mogul?

By Stephen Mayne

Kerry Packer was never a religious man, so there wasn't a religious element to his business empire. Morals never really never came into it, as any examination of some of his soft-p*rn magazine titles over the years would attest. He liked to gamble, understood the business from both sides of the table and knew he could manage the relationship with licensee Australian governments so the PBL empire spent billions profitably building and buying up casinos.

But the same can't be said for James Packer who is an enthusiastic scientologist, a religion which claims to be about helping people and against supporting people who hurt others. No matter which way you look at it, casinos create great pain for many of their customers.

James Packer used to be able to take cover under his father to avoid staring down this glaring conflict, but there's no running away from the issue now. Is James a committed scientologist who simply wants to help people or is he more interested in inflicting pain and profiting handsomely along the way? This might make for an interesting discussion at the next PBL AGM.

Then again, someone like Roger Corbett attends church every Sunday, yet has no problem ruthlessly expanding Woolworths to the point where it is now the biggest biggest poker machine and grog retailer in the country. Clearly some business leaders are able to leave their morals at the door as they go into work each day.

5. Reading the Packer and Murdoch tea leaves

By Stephen Mayne

So just what has the death of Kerry Packer done to relations between the Murdochs and the Packers? It would be fair to assume that relations were already quite strained when Lachlan Murdoch dobbed in James Packer at the One-Tel hearings for crying in his kitchen.

While Rupert Murdoch released a generous statement the day after Kerry Packer's death, The Australian's tough editorial a couple of days later took the opportunity to attack Packer's sweetheart deals with governments of all persuasions and suggested relations were quite strained.

Then there were the very aggressive attacks by the News Ltd press on Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon and his freebies at the Packer casino in Melbourne ahead of the Betfair licence announcement. This has caused plenty of headaches for James.

But although relations appear strained at a corporate level, the rockets have not degenerated into personal matters, suggesting that a long-standing agreement to not attack each other's families remains intact.

Who can forget the way the Murdoch press did not report James Packer's separation from Kate Fischer in 1998? Then there was The Daily Telegraph's decision to pull a story on the day of James Packer's wedding to Jodhi Meares which was going to highlight the fact that her father had not been an invited.

Piers Akerman famously wrote a column on May 6, 1997, which began as follows:

Federal Cabinet will today ease the way to give Australia's principal pornographer, Kerry Packer, the Fairfax media empire. If the Howard government – which courageously tackled gun control despite a firestorm from angry rural constituents – stands for societal values as it stated repeatedly at last years elections, it will reject Mr Packer's candidacy for this media prize.

This, not surprisingly, generated an abusive call from Kerry Packer to Lachlan Murdoch in which the agreement not to attack each other's families was mentioned repeatedly. There was no repetition from anyone in the Murdoch empire and we're still waiting for any of the Murdoch tabloids to mention the existence of Packer's mistress, Julie Trethowan.

The Australian only did it circuitously last week but the same reporter, Caroline Overington, followed up with this soft piece on James Packer's girlfriend, Erica Baxter, in Saturday's paper.

Maybe this is a case of mutual assured destruction whereby the Packer and Murdoch families can have their corporate skirmishes, but both have enough dirt on the other to ensure it is in nobody's interests to start producing uncomfortable stories about private lives. The Daily Telegraph's utter failure to mention the mistress would certainly seem to be a case in point. What must John Brogden think given the fiction the paper produced on page one about his so-called catalogue of sexual indiscretions?

18. The Kooyong colt and recycling Liberal Party journeymen

By Stephen Mayne

Andrew Peacock found himself back in the nation's consciousness on Saturday after The Australian Magazine decided to profile the chief executive of Boeing Australia, who receives a tidy salary of about $1 million a year.

One point the feature didn't mention was Peacock's loyalty to some of his old Liberal Party mates. Take Alister Drysdale as an example. The former racing journalist who came from relative obscurity to become Malcolm Fraser's press secretary in the 1970s has popped up in recent times as a consultant to Boeing.

Drysdale is the ultimate Liberal Party journeyman, having spent time working for Fraser, Peacock and Jeff Kennett, plus some decent stints within the party machine.

In fact, it was Drysdale who was employed by John Elliott to try and mastermind his run at the Lodge in the late 1980s. When this didn't pan out, Drysdale returned to Jeff Kennett's staff when in opposition, but only after Foster's agreed to top up his salary and let him keep the company car.

Drysdale was Kennett's gaming adviser during the period when the Foster's-associated Hudson Conway picked up the casino licence and he then left to work for pokies and lotteries outfit Tattersall's on a package worth more than $500,000 a year just after Kennett's Treasurer, Alan Stockdale, indicated he wanted a retrospective pokies licence fee.

Whilst working for Kennett, Drysdale also picked up a discounted apartment from Hudson Conway in the so-called Tower of Power on St Kilda Rd, but despite all these riches he clearly needs to maintain some cash flow, so who better than to turn to an old mate like Andrew Peacock for a bit of consulting work.

Drysdale probably doesn't know much about military contracts, but his Liberal Party contacts run deep and he remains an excellent door opener.

Alan Stockdale – what might have been
By Stephen Mayne

Former Victorian Treasurer Alan Stockdale was often seen as the brains behind the Kennett revolution, but given the scale of reforms that were achieved, his disappearance from public life has been puzzling for some of his admirers.

Stockdale is the closest Australia ever came to a genuine Thatcherite reformer, but on leaving office he failed to set the world on fire at Macquarie Bank and will sever all ties with the bank in March when his consultancy arrangement ends and he focuses on building an IR practice at small Melbourne legal firm, Mills Oakley.

Stockdale should have flourished at Macquarie but he wasn't much use in dealing with the Bracks Government and wasn't exactly warmly welcomed by Peter Costello and John Howard given his perceived loyalty to Kennett and the grief that Jeff caused them in the 1990s. This meant he ended up heading government relations at Macquarie Infrastructure Group and this mainly entailed trying to sweet talk the Ontario government over the world's biggest tollroad in Toronto.

However, some new exotic theories on the the Kennett-Stockdale relationship were passed on by someone last week and they are worth exploring given that 2006 is an election year in Victoria and the once dominant Liberal Party is looking so sick in the polls.

Firstly, we're told that the Kennett-Stockdale relationship started to deteriorate once Jeff turned 50 in 1998, partly because he is said to have indicated that he was interested in a handover of power to his Treasurer, which self-evidently never materialised. Sound familiar?

Kennett was then very dirty on Stockdale for supposedly misleading him on the strength of the Victorian budget during the 1999 campaign. Remarkably, Kennett was voted out of office leaving a $1.8 billion surplus but now says he would have pork-barrelled far more had Stockdale not preached caution. Silly Jeff really should have known how to read the budget papers after seven years as Premier but his reliance on Stockdale on all things financial was quite profound.

Then there was the bitter break-up of Stockdale's second marriage in 1999-2000, when he took up with Dominique Collins, the former wife of NSW Opposition leader Peter Collins. Kennett did not attend the subsequent wedding and he clearly sided with Doreen Stockdale as he used to interview her on his all-to-brief 3AK radio program in 2002.

Whilst Stockdale would appear to have enjoyed more success in business than Kennett, both haven't enjoyed the stellar post-Parliamentary careers they arguably deserved given all that was achieved in government. It just goes to show how important it is to be nice to people on the way up.

Kennett has no overt involvement with the Liberal Party these days besides party membership, but at least Stockdale stepped up to become chairman of the IPA a couple of years back, although the biography clearly needs updating and his last public contribution was way back in 2002.

20. PBL's booming Kerry Packer memorabilia division

By Stephen Mayne

The Kerry Packer memorabilia industry is booming. Not satisfied with a 100-page tribute issue of The Bulletin, the Nine Network is now planning a special documentary to coincide with the taxpayer funded memorial service next month.

And The Bulletin is heading for its biggest selling edition in years after a decision to proceed with a fourth print run of the tribute issue that will appear in newsagents just as publicity is cranking up around the memorial service and Nine documentary.

The Bulletin has already sold about 100,000 copies from the first three print runs and ACP sources estimate another 50,000 will be produced next month, meaning the celebration of Packer's life will prove about three times as popular as a normal edition of the loss-making magazine.

Kerry Packer, the documentary, is being put together by a team of very heavy producers including Ben Hawke, the former head of Business Sunday and current deputy at 60 Minutes, Peter Hiscock, the former senior producer from the ABC and the Sunday program, with the voice being provided by Graham Davis, the former Nine, Seven and ABC current affairs reporter. How appropriate that the journalist who fought and beat Kerry Stokes through the legal system when Witness was killed off is providing the voice in tribute to Kerry Packer as Kerry Stokes attempts to do the same to the late billionaire.

No doubt the Packer doco will go into DVD production and be retailed during various Nine programs, but what will the documentary contain? Will comments be sought from the departed David Gyngell, now seen hanging around the Ten Network?

And what about folk like David Leckie, John Stephens and Peter Meakin, who are now tormenting his son and heir and his minions at Kerry Stokes' Seven Network? And what about other friends, relations and business rivals, mates and observers?

One great sequence would be to recreate some of St Kerry's great moments: pulling a gun on a startled exec or two, having a fist fight with Warren Anderson, throwing cricket balls around the office, punting millions, or even working out at Hyde Park Club in the basement of the Park Street head office where the mighty Daily Telegraph presses used to reside.

Perhaps we will see a polo pony or two in shot, or the re-enactment of the now famous move to pull Doug Mulray and the Naughtiest Home Videos show off air.

It won't be the first video made about Mr Packer. One was made in 1977 to mark his 50th birthday, a second was made in around 1987 to mark his departure from Nine after he sold it to Alan Bond. Copies of both were destroyed on his orders after they were shown.

The documentary idea is being driven by Sam Chisholm, a person who has helped drive Kerry Packer's fortune and that of the family. It's one way for him to repay some of the favours thrown his way.

It certainly won't be objective, but the ratings will be very interesting. Given the interest in The Bulletin tribute issue, don't be surprised if Australia's fascination with Kerry Packer is demonstated once again. After all, his occasional appearances on A Current Affair used to generate huge ratings, even during the program's hey day, and about 1.2 million Australians tuned in to Nine's 6pm news special on December 27.

29. Another publican for the CRW

By Stephen Mayne

The spread of poker machines across Australia has certainly been good for the value of pubs that have them, which doesn't make it surprising that incumbent hotel owners have seen their wealth rocket.

Bruce Mathieson was the first pub owner to crack the BRW Rich List but the Crikey Revised Wealth (CRW) list continues to uncover names that BRW have missed and today we've got another:

Paul Irvin lives in Sydney's exclusive Darling Point Rd and is one of the nation's largest private pub owners who has also managed to avoid publicity.

The former chemist owns about nine large pubs in NSW which have hundreds of poker machines, each which provide a net return of about $100,000 a year. He knocked back an offer of more than $20 million for one of his Sydney pubs a few years back.

Over the past three years he has been sensibly buying up pubs in Queensland because of the Beattie Government's bizarre rules that ban supermarkets from selling liquor. The Fitzgibbon family's sale of two Brisbane pubs to Tom Hedley for $65 million a few days back just confirms how buoyant the Queensland hotel market is now.

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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