Kerry Packer died last night and there are a lot of Australians celebrating, with good reason.
Packer was a man who had cheated death many times before and a man who cheated the tax office hundreds of millions of dollars using legal loopholes, not moral fibre to do what was right. He famously said that he was not going to donate his money to taxes for wasteful government policies and that anybody who did was an idiot.
Unlike Bill Gates he did not give large portions of his massive wealth to the poor and needy, rather he used their plight to generate ratings, and from these ratings increased advertising revenue to build his media empire. His spare cash he blew at the Casinos happily losing tens of millions of dollars on cards in one night. Even though just a few thousand dollars would have saved a desperate family featured on his television station, Channel 9s, "A Current Affair" from the predicament they were in - Mr Packer looked the other ways as he wagered thousands on another hand of cards.
Why the lap dogs in the media sucked up to him we can only guess... after all consider how Kerry Packer treated a person who was instrumental in building his fortune at Channel 9 in the early days. Yes, Graham Kennedy, the funny man of the past from the show In Melbourne Tonight. The man who Packer refused to help in his hour of need...
In Blundell's book "King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy". Graham Kennedy told Tony Sattler when he could not afford to maintain the nursing assistance he needed to survive, "Tone, whatever happens to me Kerry Packer will look after me." Blundell writes that Sattler then spent "several days ringing Kerry Packer's office" to ask for financial help for Kennedy's care. "Sattler said he was not broke but no millionaire. Nursing was going to cost $3000 a week – "We could cope for several years but no more."
Sattler had explained this to Packer's office. "After three days, Di Stone, Mr Packer's personal assistant, called Sattler back: Mr Packer has considered his plight. Unfortunately he is unable to assist."
Packer was a self-confessed bully and if someone crossed his path he would not think twice about financially ruining them through the courts or through his business mates.
For example Kerry Packer personally had the book "Murder by Media" banned in all Dymocks stores because it exposed his tax minimisation strategies. This chapter of the book would have made the average Aussie thump their head against the wall in frustration. The threat of defamation action was the reason Dymocks gave when pulling the book - naming the costly and lengthy defamation action taken by Kerry Packer against the author, publishers, printers and book stores that distributed the book "The Gambling man" (about his father) as their reason for withdrawing Murder by Media.
Packer exploited the defamation tool like an experienced swordsman wields his sword. When his opponent ran out of money he bankrupted them, coldly and callously. He came famously unstuck in his action against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after they exposed his shonky deals - the ABC had the legal clout to take him on. Very few did.
So isn't it a parody that we have prominent cricketers who got fat off Packer's shirt tails now proclaiming that he was a "great Australian" and instrumental in ensuring first class cricketers were adequately compensated for their efforts on the cricket field. In the next breath we hear of the legal fight that Packer had with Murdoch over rugby league - in this case Murdoch wanted to pay the league players handsomely but Packer did not, after all he already had the NRL television rights. Of course this side of the argument detrimental to the "great Australian" theme is noticeably omitted...
Yes, I know, it does not add up, but then it never does when you have the Yes men telling porkies.
Packer was surrounded by an army of advisers and Yes men who filled the hallowed halls of Channel 9 and who would, and did, sell their own soul rather than do what was morally right when reporting. Channel 9, in many ways, became Packer's News as was demonstrated on the night of the 27th December 2005 when Channel 9 ran an extended one hour news program so that his army of yes-men coming from politics, sport and business could sing his praises.
So predictable.
Kerry Packer certainly is not all he is made out to be by the Australian media. He had a darker side - but don't expect the monkeys in the media to reveal it.
Sums up the essence of journalistic integrity. There is none and the standard across Australia is set right at the top of the tree.
As mentioned before Packer certainly ain't no Australian hero and me thinks that now he has gone a legion of bad ghosts will come out of the proverbial closet and haunt his death bed accolades for centuries to come... oh, isn't the Internet wonderful after all you won't hear about it on A Current Affair or the mainstream media no matter how ugly it gets for the Goanna.