The last time Kerry Packer died, 15 years ago, he quickly took the opportunity to denounce the existence of an afterlife.

"I've been on the other side and let me tell you son, there's f---ing nothing there," he was fond of saying.

It was a statement redolent of the media baron's forthright approach to life and his laconic sense of humour. Given he had been clinically dead for eight minutes after suffering a massive heart attack while playing polo, his recovery was hailed as a medical miracle and testament to his lust of life. Just a week later, on his release from hospital, he leapt from his car and threatened to punch a journalist he believed was intruding on his privacy.

Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer died aged 68 on Monday evening at home with his family. He had a long history of heart disease and kidney ailments and received a kidney transplant donated by long-time friend and helicopter pilot Nicholas Ross.

Mr Packer was Australia's richest man, with an estimated personal wealth of $6.9 billion. The country's biggest media baron, he controlled the Nine Network, a string of magazines and maintained an enduring interest in owning his family's longtime publishing rival, John Fairfax.

As the former chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, Mr Packer controlled a number of influential publications, including The Australian Women's Weekly, The Bulletin, Australian Business, Cleo, Woman's Day, Dolly, Mode, and Harpers Bazaar.

Mr Packer elicited conflicting emotions from those he dealt with. To some he was the most respected businessman of his time, to others the most feared; some associates loved and others loathed his hard-nosed approach to business.

A similar attitude existed amongst his employees. Sometimes described as a feudal lord, at times impossible and overbearing, he could also be extraordinarily generous and indulgent particularly with those who had served the company for a long time.

Born on December 7, 1937, as the second son of Sir Frank Packer, he was educated at Cranbrook School in Sydney and Geelong Grammar in Victoria. He married Ros Weedon in 1963 and was father to two adult children, Gretel and James.

Mr Packer inherited control of one of Australia's biggest media empires and never shrank from the challenge or responsibility that ownership entailed. He was the third generation of his family to enter the media world. His grandfather, Robert Clyde Packer, was described by The Times, London, as a successful Sydney journalist who became a newspaper executive and one of the founders of Smith's Weekly and the Daily Guardian.

But it was Kerry's father, Sir Frank Packer, who created the empire. A bombastic man who in 1967 advocated the "killing of 500 Negroes" as a cure to stop black revolutionary violence in the US, Frank Packer started The Australian Women's Weekly and transformed the Daily Telegraph into one of Sydney's leading newspapers. He was also responsible for bringing television into the homes of Australians with his Channel Nine in 1956.

An arch conservative, Sir Frank unashamedly used his media outlets to ram home his political views and actively campaigned on behalf of the federal Liberal-Country Party coalition during election time.

A one-time heavyweight boxing champion, polo devotee and keen sailor, Sir Frank had two sons, Clyde and Kerry. Clyde was always expected to take control of the business but, after falling out publicly with his father, he went into state politics before leaving for the United States.

Until that time, Kerry had been thought of as nothing more than an idle playboy. But in 1972 he found himself thrust into the limelight and bought Clyde's share of the business. Two years later his father died and he took the helm of Consolidated Press, the family company.

Much has been written about the poor relationship between Frank Packer and his sons an experience that, despite his gruff exterior, Kerry Packer was keen to avoid with his offspring. In a 1984 interview on a rare return to Australia, Clyde Packer remarked of his younger brother: "He's a clone of my father, only he's much better at personal relationships. He's much softer."

In later years, Kerry Packer was to remark that his father was a just and fair man. But there is ample anecdotal evidence that his father was an authoritarian who was never particularly close to anyone, including his sons.

Both sons were inducted into the media business and on their father's strict instructions were not to be treated favourably by other employees. Both were subjected to constant derision and public humiliation by their father in the office, leading one of his lieutenants to ask whether Clyde was "a saint or an imbecile" for smiling throughout such dressings down.

In particular, the young Kerry was forced to perform the most menial tasks at The Daily Telegraph and Woman's Weekly including cleaning the ink from the printing cylinders tasks for which he showed little enthusiasm and for which he reportedly resented his father.

Clyde rebelled by resigning as managing director of Channel Nine and briefly adopting an alternative lifestyle, getting around town in a kaftan and mixing with the emerging counter-culture before moving overseas.

Kerry accepted the challenges thrust upon him by his father and the responsibilities of running a big corporation. But unlike his father, he nurtured a strong bond with his two children. Fiercely protective and proud of his children, Kerry Packer on occasion was moved to defend them physically them from incursions by the media and other outsiders.

Mr Packer was an unashamed devotee of television and his Nine Network dominated the airwaves with a combination of news, current affairs and sports telecasts.

Long before many of his international rivals, Mr Packer, a passionate sportsman, identified business opportunities that sport could offer television. He proposed an international golf circuit. But it was his incursion into the staid world of international cricket administration that created an uproar and later revolutionised and reinvigorated the game.

In 1976, with colour television being introduced into Australia, Mr Packer bid for the exclusive Australian rights to televise Test cricket matches. But he was beaten by the ABC, despite offering more than seven times the amount of money the Government network had bid.

Compared with other sports, cricketers were poorly paid. So when a rival Packer competition, World Series Cricket, was launched the following year, many leading players rushed to join, splitting the game and throwing the establishment into crisis.

Rather than white flannels, the new teams were sometimes dressed in colourful "pyjamas" and played shortened versions of the traditional five-day Test matches. After winning a resounding victory in the High Court against the cricket establishment, Mr Packer's rival tour faced a rocky start. Access to traditional venues was denied, audiences shunned the games and sponsors were disappointed. But in its second year, Australians warmed to the new game, particularly when night matches were introduced.

In 1979, a truce was called between the warring factions. Full-length Test matches and limited over games were played under the auspices of the cricket establishment. Not surprisingly, Mr Packer's Channel Nine gained exclusive rights.

Besides cricket, the Nine Network devoted itself to other sports broadcasts and frequently set technical benchmarks against which international networks measured themselves.

Not content to be an armchair devotee, Mr Packer became seriously involved in sport. At school he had played cricket in the First XI and rugby in the First XV and, like his father, was a boxing champion. Although he had a flair for all ball sports, he was by no means considered brilliant, and earned his place in the teams through persistence and determination.

He sailed on yachts in the Sydney to Hobart race, was an accomplished golfer and in later years despite his size became an adept polo player. He compensated for shortcomings in natural ability with a fierce competitive streak which earned him widespread admiration from his competitors.

A poor school student, the young Kerry found himself isolated and friendless, particularly at Geelong Grammar, where his fellow pupils looked down on his family as being nouveau riche.

He suffered from dyslexia a condition which went undiagnosed for many years and was forced to repeat a year in primary school and again in high school. He would describe himself as "academically stupid, a dolt", but his later penchant for business and strategic investment contradicts that assessment.

To counteract his poor scholastic performance, he turned into something of a thug at school bullying classmates and behaving belligerently towards teachers. As in primary school, he concentrated on his sporting prowess.

Although thrown into the business world, initially by Clyde's departure and then his father's death a short time later, Kerry Packer proved he was no dolt. He had strong ideas on television, in particular, and on the future of magazines.

Before his father's death, he launched the ground-breaking Cleo magazine for women, against the advice of his father and their advertising agency. It was to prove a runaway success.

He learnt three important lessons from his father: be loyal to your allies, tough with your adversaries, and not to care too much about other people's opinions.

While he stuck to that philosophy, Kerry Packer was extremely hurt by damaging allegations that arose out of the Royal Commission into the Painters and Dockers Union in 1984.

Documents leaked from the commission were published in the now defunct Fairfax weekly, The National Times, identifying a central figure, codenamed the Goanna, involved in tax evasion, fraud, pornography, drug importation and murder.

A fortnight after they were made public, Mr Packer identified himself as the Goanna and then proceeded to demolish each accusation. In time, all were to be proven false. But Mr Packer harboured deep resentment over the allegations and his treatment by the commission and the media.

A formidable businessman, he was a feared negotiator in business deals. He pulled off his most famous coup in January 1987 when he sold his Nine Network to Alan Bond for $1.04billion. Desperate to reduce debt, Bond and a coterie of executives had flown to Sydney in their private jet to sell their interest in Perth's Channel Nine. Once at Packer's Park Street headquarters, however, Packer convinced Bond that the pair should negotiate without advisers. When he finally emerged, an elated Bond confided to his shocked entourage that rather than sell Perth, he had bought the entire national network.

"You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime, and I've had mine," Mr Packer later quipped. Three years later, he bought back the station with an expanded network for just $200 million in one of the deals of the decade. In 1983, he had showed similar business acumen in privatising Consolidated Press. He used $110million of the company's money to buy assets valued at at least double that.

During the latter part of the 1980s, Mr Packer teamed up with two friends, British financier Jimmy Goldsmith and banker Jacob Rothschild, to launch a $28 billion bid for British American Tobacco which if successful would have been the second biggest takeover the world had seen. The trio also launched an $880million bid for food group Ranks Hovis. Both bids failed. Mr Packer lost an estimated $80 million.

In 1987, Mr Packer acquired a strategic interest in rival publisher John Fairfax. He sold the stake to Warwick Fairfax during his takeover bid for the company for a handsome profit and bought Fairfax's magazines for the bargain price of $220 million.

His interest in Fairfax was rekindled three years later after Fairfax was plunged into receivership. Mr Packer became an integral partner in the Tourang consortium that included Canadian publisher Conrad Black.

Although he quit the consortium before Tourang took control of Fairfax, several years later Mr Packer built a key stake in Fairfax. When he died he still had an interest in the group through a separately listed trust.

Mr Packer survived a number of serious illnesses throughout his life including childhood polio, the removal of a cancerous kidney and a diseased gall-bladder in 1986, and diabetes.

But his heart attack in 1990 prompted him to begin an overhaul of his business empire, paving the way for James to take control. A drastic cost-cutting program which shed many superfluous businesses was followed by a stockmarket listing for a new company, Publishing and Broadcasting, which was controlled by the Packer-owned Consolidated Press.

James formally took the job as managing director of PBL in 1996 with American-born Brian Powers as chairman, although it was widely acknowledged that Mr Packer maintained an active interest in the day-to-day running of the business. Mr Powers later became chairman of John Fairfax and James took over as chairman of PBL.

Although he kept a watchful on eye on his son's business activities and his advice was often sought, Kerry gave James the freedom to take the business in new directions. It was a decision that delivered enormous profits as James was instrumental in building up PBL's gaming division, which now accounts for about half of the group's earnings. Last year, James spearheaded the successful acquisition of Perth's Burswood casino, despite opposition from his father. He is currently looking at picking up gaming assets in Asia.

James also moved PBL and the family-owned Conspress into new technology ventures in telecommunications and the internet, such as the jobs website Seek and ninemsn, a joint venture with Microsoft.

But there were some failures, including the spectacular collapse of telecommunications company One.Tel in 2001, which prompted Kerry to once again become more engaged with the day-to-day running of PBL. While James's pride may have been hurt, the family's wealth was left largely unscathed.

Kerry Packer's property purchases reflected his business philosophy of domination. The amalgamation of a number of properties around his Bellevue Hill mansion, Cairnton, extended the family estate to an estimated 11,100 square metres. His property at Scone, Ellerston, became one of the world's best polo facilities after a $10million revamp in the late 1980s. In 1989 he bought the 37.6-hectare Great House Farm in West Sussex, England, which he also transformed into a polo estate.

When in London, Mr Packer usually took five luxury suites at the Savoy. He would often stay for the entire northern hemisphere polo season and conduct business from the hotel.

Along with polo, which took him to tournaments in Europe and South America, his other great passion was gambling.

An habitue of Las Vegas and London casinos, Mr Packer was considered the world's biggest gambler, and would occasionally win or lose as much as $20million in a single sitting of his favourite game, blackjack.

For the owners of Caesar's Palace or the Las Vegas Hilton two of his favourite establishments a Packer win could severely dent annual returns, while a Packer loss could help the house to a bumper profit for the year.

He once was so annoyed by the boasting of a millionaire gambling beside him that he proposed they flip a coin for the $200 million the American said he was worth. The offer was declined.

His gambling interest prompted Mr Packer to make a serious but unsuccessful tilt for control of the Sydney casino in 1994, while his company became a large investor in the Crown Casino in Melbourne and in his friend Lloyd Williams's company, Hudson Conway, which ran the casino. When Hudson Conway ran into difficulties, James Packer, in his first big deal at the helm of PBL, bought out Hudson Conway and took control of Crown.

Meanwhile, Kerry's love of blackjack and his spectacular wins and losses provided endless fodder for gossip columns. He also loved gambling on horse races and once famously made a killing at the Melbourne Cup when he and Lloyd Williams reputedly picked up more than $10 million.

After his 1990 health scare Mr Packer lost an enormous amount of weight and gave up smoking, a habit he readily admitted was an addiction. But he took up cigarettes again and gradually replaced his weight.

Although a big drinker in his youth, he gave up alcohol after being involved in a serious car accident as a young man in which another person died.

Mr Packer's kidney complaint eventually deteriorated to the point where he was kept alive by dialysis until kidney surgery in the US in 1998. That operation failed to ensure his health, and a kidney transplant was seen as the only alternative.

In recent years his health problems continued. Besides diabetes, he had a melanoma removed from an ear, experienced heart problems and returned to hospital complaining of tightness in the chest, shortness of breath and loss of appetite. Though he continued to take a close interest in the running of his businesses, recent public appearances suggested considerable weight loss and ill-health.

He is survived by Roslyn and his children Gretel (born 1965) and James (born 1967).

Both my father and my father-in-law went to school with Kerry Packer and my father-in-law remained a close friend of his, and through him I met Mr Packer a few times. He was a very personable man, but more importantly he was a patriot dedicated to his country, and intent on doing what he could to his country's benefit.

My younger son has put together the following as notes for his school newspaper (he attends Geelong Grammar - on summer holidays at the moment, but he's trying to impress the editor for when they get back) - and I thought it was quite interesting. He's gathered it from a number of sources.

Kerry Packer

Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer (17 December 1937 – 26 December 2005) was an Australian publishing, media and gaming tycoon. In 2004 Business Review Weekly magazine estimated Packer's net worth at AUD$6500 million ($6.5 billion), an increase of $1 billion on the previous year. At the time of his death, Packer was Australia's richest man and one of the most influential.

Business

Packer was the major shareholder in Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), which owns the Nine television network and Australian Consolidated Press, which produces many of Australia's top-selling magazines. He was involved in a number of other gambling and tourism ventures, notably the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

Packer was widely respected in business circles, courted by politicians on both sides, and there is no doubt that he was one of the most astute businessmen of his time, despite the fact that he was a poor student.

The Packer family's business reputation suffered a blow when One.Tel, a telco which James Packer had invested in, collapsed in 2001.

Kerry Packer was also one of Australia's largest landholders, a fact that contributed in 2003 to a discovery of a deposit of rubies on one of his properties.

The full extent of the Packer "empire" includes magazines and television networks, petrochemicals, heavy engineering, ski resorts, diamond exploration, coalmines, property and casinos.

Media interests

The "Packer Empire"

The Packer family has long been involved in media. Packer's grandfather was an influential publisher, his father, Sir Frank Packer was one of Australia's first media moguls, and his son, James Packer, is Executive Chairman of PBL.

He was not originally destined for the role, but in the early 1970s Kerry took the place of the designated successor, his older brother, the late Clyde Packer, after Clyde fell out with their father, quit PBL and moved to America. Kerry took over the running of PBL in 1974, on the death of his father. [edit]

Alan Bond media buyback

In 1987 he made a fortune at the expense of disgraced tycoon Alan Bond, selling Bond the Nine Network at the record price of AU$1 billion in 1987, and then buying it back three years later for a mere AU$250 million, when Bond's empire was collapsing and Packer was then able to re-invest the proceeds in a 25% share in the Foxtel pay TV consortium.

Later, on the subject, he famously said: "An Alan Bond only happens to you once."

Hands on business approach

Packer was known to sometimes take a direct interest in the editorial content of his papers, although he was far less interventionist than the notoriously hands-on Murdoch.

Packer also occasionally interfered directly in the programming of his TV stations, and during the early 1990s he famously called his Sydney station, TCN-9 and ordered that Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos hosted by Doug Mulray be taken off air on national television during its inaugural broadcast.

It was also said that he often manipulated broadcasts of the cricket himself, in order to ensure the end of a cricket match was broadcast, despite previously set television broadcast schedules.

Government inquiry and legal challenges

Packer faced a 1991 Australian government inquiry into the print media industry with some reluctance, but great humour. When asked his name, he replied: "Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer. Reluctantly."

During the inquiry he repeatedly berated the politicians conducting it, and the government. When asked about his company's tax minimisation schemes, he replied: "I minimise my tax. Any Australian who doesn't minimise his tax should have his head read."

At the time of his death, the Nine Network was the jewel in the PBL crown. Although it had a tough year in 2005 against rival Seven Network (aided largely by US TV hits such as Desperate Housewives and Lost) Nine still finished the year the number one network.

Founder of World Series Cricket

Outside Australia, Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket.

Packer was famously quoted from a 1976 meeting with the Australian Cricket Board, with whom he met to negotiate the rights to televise cricket. According to witnesses, he said: "There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?"

In 1977 the Nine cricket rights deal led to a confrontation with the cricket authorities, as top players from several countries rushed to join him at the expense of their international sides.

One of the leaders of the "rebellion" was England captain, Tony Greig. Grieg remains a commentator on the Nine Network's payroll.

Packer's aim was to secure broadcasting rights for Australian cricket, and his ploy was largely successful.

Politics

The bellicose and emphatically conservative Packer was long a bogeyman for the political left. One early and unflattering appearance in the Sydney media (recounted by Richard Neville) was in 1962, when his father was trying to take over a small publishing concern, the Anglican Press, run by maverick journalist Francis James.

Angered by James' refusal to sell, Sir Frank sent the burly Kerry (and several friends) over to the Anglican Press offices to "rough up" James and pressure him into selling. They forced their way in and began vandalising the premises, but according to Neville, James was able to barricade himself in his office and call his friend Rupert Murdoch, Packer's rival.

Murdoch quickly despatched his own team of 'heavies', who saw Kerry and friends off the premises and ejected them unceremoniously onto the street. Not surprisingly, next day the Murdoch press had a field day with the news that the son of Australia's biggest media tycoon had been caught brawling in the street.

Like Murdoch, Packer's critics saw ever-expanding cross-media holdings as a potential threat to media diversity and freedom of speech. He also repeatedly came under fire for his companies' alleged involvement in tax minimisation schemes and for the extremely low amounts of company tax that his corporations are reported to have paid over the years. He fought repeated battles with the Australian Taxation Office over his corporate taxes.

His severest legal challenge came in the 1980s with the Costigan Commission alleging (using the codename of "the Goanna") that he was involved in organised crime including tax evasion and drug trafficking. He successfully dismissed the allegations with the assistance of his lawyer, Malcolm Turnbull who later became a prominent politician.

Personal life

His primary schooling suffered greatly when he was stricken with a severe bout of poliomyelitis at age eight, and he was confined to an iron lung for nine months. His father apparently thought little of his son's abilities, once cruelly describing him as "the family idiot", yet Kerry steered PBL to heights far beyond anything his father or brother achieved.

Packer was a keen polo player, a longtime chain smoker, and remained an avid gambler, fabled for his titanic wins and losses. In 1999 it was reported that a three-week losing streak at London casinos cost him almost AU$28 million dollars -- described at the time as the biggest reported gambling loss in British history.

The same report stated that he had once won AU$33 million at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas and that he often won as much as AU$7 million each year during his annual holidays in the UK. Packer is also known for his sometimes volcanic temper, and for his perennial contempt for the media and for journalists.

Failing Health

Packer reportedly suffered as many as eight heart attacks in the years before his death. He underwent heart bypass surgery in New York in 1998. In 1990 he suffered a massive attack while playing polo in Sydney, and was resuscitated after six minutes.

It was not common for an ambulance to have a defibrillator at the time - it was purely by chance that the ambulance which responded to the call had one fitted. After recovering, Packer donated a large sum to the New South Wales Ambulance Service to pay for equipping all NSW ambulances with a portable defibrillator (now colloquially known as Packer Whackers).

He also suffered from a chronic kidney condition for many years, and in 2000 he made headlines when his long-serving helicopter pilot, Nick Ross, donated one of his own kidneys to Packer for transplantation.

The transplant was covered in detail by the Australian TV documentary program Australian Story, a rare occasion on which Packer granted a media interview (and, to the surprise of many, not to his own network; Australian Story is produced by the public network, ABC.)

Since recovering from the operation, Packer had launched an organ transplant association in memory of cricketer David Hookes.

Death

Kerry Packer died at the age of 68 on Boxing Day, 26th December, 2005 at home in Sydney, Australia with his family.

The death was announced by broadcaster Richard Wilkins, who was hosting the Nine Network's Today program.

Wilkins read a statement from Nine's head of news Tony Ritchie which said: "Mrs Kerry [Roslyn] Packer and her children James and Gretel sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry. He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside. He will be lovingly remembered and missed enormously. Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced." During the broadcast, Wilkins co-host, presenter Leila McKinnon, who is married to Packer's godson David Gyngell, teared up and began to cry.

Quotes

"Strict but magnificent." - On his tough father Sir Frank

"There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?" - To the Australian Cricket Board in 1976, seeking the right to televise Test matches.

"From now on it is every man for himself and let the devil take the hindmost." - Storming out of a meeting with ICC members at Lord's in 1977.

"An Alan Bond only happens to you once." - After Mr Bond bought the Channel Nine network for $1.05 billion in 1987. Packer bought it back three years later for $300 million.

"I've been to the other side, and let me tell you son, there's f***ing nothing there." - In 1990 after his heart stopped while playing polo.

"He wasn't very lovable but he was bloody efficient." - On one of his heroes, Genghis Khan.

"If a working class Englishman saw a bloke drive past in a Rolls-Royce, he'd say to himself 'Come the social revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate'. Whereas if his American counterpart saw a bloke drive past in a Cadillac he'd say 'One day I'm going to own one of those'. To my way of thinking the first attitude is wrong. The latter is right"

"Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer. Reluctantly." - To a federal parliamentary media inquiry, when asked to state his full name and the capacity in which he appeared.

Tributes

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia

Well ladies and gentleman I have called this news conference this morning to express my sorrow at the death of Kerry Packer. I have spoken to Mrs Ros Packer this morning to personally convey to her, to her daughter Gretel and son James my sympathies, that of my wife and, I know, the members of the Government.

Many things will be said about Kerry Packer and at a time like this there is a tendency sometimes to throw clichés around. Remarks such as ‘great Australian’, ‘larger than life’ are sometimes used where they are not appropriate. But in the case of Kerry Packer both of those descriptions are entirely appropriate. He was a great Australian, he was a larger than life character and in so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community over a very long career in business, particularly in the media and also that other great passion of his, Australian sport.

It is fair to say that he was one of the dominant figures, if not the dominant Australian figure of the media scene in this country for more than a generation. But of all the impressions he left with me, none was greater, or more indelible than his passionate commitment to the interests of Australia and the interests of the Australian people. In all of the many conversations I had with him over the years, he was always concerned about what was right for this country. And the last one on one personal discussion we had at his home some two months ago, he was full of ideas for the future of Australia and ways in which this could be made a better country.

His business skills were legendary and I think when the annals of Australian business are being compiled no story will be more remarkable than, of course, his sale and subsequent reacquisition of the Nine Network. His devotion to and passion for sport was quite remarkable and I am sure that he himself would find some symbolism about his death occurring in the middle of a Boxing Day Test. His actions in relation to World Series Cricket transformed that game, initially very controversial, initially heavily criticised but in the fullness of time the advent of one day cricket has not only won millions of additional adherents to the game but also transformed the traditional Test match game itself. His love of horse racing and his passion for polo and other sports is also very well known.

He is a person whose company I liked. I regarded him as a friend. He was a person who was intensely loyal to those who he regarded as his friends and with whom he had a very long association. He was colourful. He battled ill health for very long periods of time. He was frequently described as Australia’s richest man. He was a very generous philanthropic person and I know for a fact that many of his kindest and most generous and charitable deeds went unreported, unpublished, which is precisely how he wished it to be.

I want on behalf again of myself, my wife Janette and all of the members of the Australian Government to express to Ros, to whom I spoke this morning, my deepest sympathy and to pay tribute to a remarkable Australian character, a remarkable Australian life. A person, who had a great capacity despite his wealth and his business power, had a great capacity to talk the language of the common man and to understand what that person thought. And I think in that context many of us will remember his bravura performance before a parliamentary committee back in the early 1990s when he was cross-examined by Members of Parliament from both sides and that particular performance was a reminder to many of his capacity to put himself in the place of the average Australian. It was a great quality and a quality that I think for which he will be very, very long remembered. Thank you.

It is a very big loss for Australia because he was a passionate believer in this country. I was always struck when I spoke to him that he was full of ideas about what should be done to make this a better country and that was something that always made him a very attractive person. Sure he was an influential businessman, he believed in looking after his own interests. He made no apologies for doing that. He wouldn’t want to have been thought doing otherwise. But always there was a concern about Australia and he was a passionate believer in this country’s decency and worth and always wanting to do something to better it.

Kim Beazley, Opposition Leader of Australia

Kerry Packer was a tough Australian nationalist who produced great innovations in the Australian media.

In the course of my political life, I have had many conversations with Kerry Packer, most of which were about the future of our nation and its economic direction.

His views were underpinned with a profound patriotism and a nationalist approach. I will miss those conversations.

While Australians will today be watching the cricket it should be said that Kerry Packer will be remembered with gratitude by Australian cricketers as the man who brought just recompense for their skills in the professional game.

My deepest sympathies go to Ros and the family.

Rupert Murdoch

Kerry was one of the most successful businessmen of his generation.

As a broadcaster, he had an uncanny knack of knowing what people across the country were thinking and this finely-tuned antennae made him one of the best media proprietors and broadcasters this country has seen.

He was a man who you could truly say was larger than life, a fierce competitor who had friends in areas of great influence and was often surrounded in controversy but at the same time, capable of great generosity.

Our thoughts are with his family.

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