Kerry Packer
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Kerry Packer
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Latest Info
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While there had been many false alarms in recent years, the 68-year-old Mr Packer knew the end was near when he became ill on Christmas Day.
"There is only so much medication and so many transplants and so he accepted no aid," said the radio host Alan Jones, a friend who visited the Packer family yesterday. "He then knew, I think his words were, 'This is my time."'
Mr Packer, on heavy pain relief, chose to stay at home rather than be taken to hospital. He died about 10.40pm on Boxing Day surrounded by his family. His death was precipitated by poor blood supply to the transplanted kidney he received in a life-saving operation five years ago. There were multiple causes for his death, the main being kidney failure.
Mr Packer was Australia's richest man, with an estimated wealth of $7 billion. He controlled 38 per cent of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited through the family's private company, Consolidated Press Holdings. PBL owns the top-rating Nine Network, the country's leading magazine publisher ACP, and Crown and Burswood casinos.
His death was announced yesterday in the final minutes of Nine's breakfast show, Today. "Mrs Kerry Packer and her children, James and Gretel, sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry," the family said in a statement. "He will be missed enormously."
Under James Packer, who took over as executive chairman of PBL in 1998, the empire has been transformed from a pure media player to one that will generate half of its revenue from gambling. The advertising stalwart and Packer family friend Harold Mitchell said James was as tough as his father and would lead a "new aggressive stance from PBL … He will take the company to the rest of world more than Kerry ever would."
John Howard said that while Kerry Packer believed in looking after his
own interests, he was generous, philanthropic and passionately committed to
the "interests of Australia and the interests of the Australian people".
Mr Packer, whose health had deteriorated since the kidney transplant, looked frail at his last public outing, the PBL annual general meeting in October. But he was still at his Park Street office often and involved in the revamp of the Nine Network. He rushed back from Argentina, where he was looking at polo ponies, to clinch the biggest deal in Australian sport, PBL's $780 million bid for the AFL broadcast rights. Last Friday - when most offices had already shut for Christmas - PBL was revealed as the preferred bidder. Mr Packer made the call on the timing, ensuring maximum disadvantage to his competitors.
But Alan Jones told Channel Nine that a few days before Christmas, Mr
Packer complained to him: "I can't eat what I want to eat, I can't do what I
want to do, and I can't go where I want to go. Son, what am I doing here?"
The Packers plan a private funeral for immediate family and a memorial
service.
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"I know for a fact that many of his kindest and most generous and charitable deeds … went unreported and unpublished, which was precisely how he wished it to be." Cricket Australia's chairman, Creagh O'Connor, called Mr Packer "one of the giants who have influenced the shape of Australian cricket … That cricket is today taken for granted as a natural part of the Australian way of life is in no small measure due to his influence."