Talk:Kerry Packer

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Was he ever married?

Yes, he is married with two children. When I get more time I should add information to the article about this and other things (his dealings with Brian Ray, and the Costigan Report saga, for example). --Roland Deschain 10:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I removed a reference to Ben Elton's book 'Stark' because it was erroneous. There is no character named Stark in the book, and the character in question was obviously more based on Rupert Murdoch than Packer. Ramanpotential 04:33, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

It also needs wikifying

What became of Clyde? LamontCranston 11:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Added he died, sad day Mike 22:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17669945-29277,00.html for breaking news Gnu32 22:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=75275 for more on subject Mike 22:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Interesting that he "remains and avid gambler". I'd like to leave it, I'm sure he'll be just as interventionist after his death. (Good thing I didn't author this article, otherwise it would be very POV). I'm under no false illusions that Packer's death will make the media in Australia more NPOV or balanced, though. Come to think of it, it's a good thing Packer didn't write this article... Sumthingweird 23:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Image

Can we get a fair use or copyleft image to use for this article? Harro5 23:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I Second that we need a clearer photo it needs to be repspectful as he has now died. Maybe get some of his funeral when it happens he is/was the richest Australian and a influentual person Mike 23:54, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

New Image Added Mike 06:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bond

"In 1987 he made a fortune at the expense of disgraced tycoon Alan Bond, cannily 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"

I removed "cannily" from this as Gerald Stone in his book Compulsive Viewing suggests the sale was more opportunistic than genius. Apparently Bond came to Packer with the inflated offer, so it was hardly "canny" to accept this. Nor does Stone believe Packer foresaw Bond's future difficulties.--Jack Upland 00:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Death

I think now Packer is dead we can really hear what was going on with his tax evasion and other crimes. Defamation laws were used as a threat against those who dared question the little tax Packer paid. His death is a big story but I am not sorry to see him gone. Dankru 01:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Nevertheless, from what I saw of the media coverage at the time of his death, "the Goanna" was determined to have existed, but was not Packer. Mark Hurd 05:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Erm, where did you get that idea from? It's been reported so many times that Packer was "the Goanna", but came out hard and debunked the allegations in the report. Ambi 05:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] where did that anti packer Murder by Media website go to?? someone took it off looked interesting

it was on the links 3 hours ago of this packer wikipage.

please sign your name and I took it off because there was no link it was just words (deadlink) if you fix it up it would be kept proabably Mike 12:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Someone's putting King Kong crap on this page. Can an administrator revert to an older version of this page?

[edit] Protect?

Should this page be protected for the time being as the funeral is coming up etc.. it may be for the best? Mike 16:39, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I doubt its going to get -that- much vandalism, although semiprotection would be better than full protection if it had to be done. --Kiand 16:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Deal with it as it comes. See also, M:Protected pages considered harmful -- Longhair 16:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos

Did Packer really call Channel 9 and order this show offline during it's first episode? -- Longhair 16:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes it has been documented in newpaper articles ive seen we should get a source though for acuracy Mike 17:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Yup, I've read about in the SMH also. Good on him, too. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it shows that Packer actually cared what was on his network, unlike most bosses who don't have much say creatively. Rogerthat 12:03, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it shows the extent of Packer's interventionism and conservatism and lack of collaboration with his staff (whom he subsequently fired). Sumthingweird 23:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Come on mate, it was Doug Mulray. Rogerthat 00:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
If Packer "actually cared what was on his network, unlike most bosses who don't have much say creatively" then actually wouldn't he have known and said something very firm long before it went to air? LamontCranston 15:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I doubt he would of have time to supervise all programming development Mike 04:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Death

Can I get an explanation as to why the following was deleted? I expanded the page by turning this:

National Nine News aired an extended version honouring his life.

into this:

National Nine News at 6pm, aired an extended presentation honouring his life, hosted by Jo Hall and Peter Hitchener. It featured packages from a biographical perspective from Peter Harvey, a financial perspective, with Ross Greenwood, and a sports perspective, from Tony Jones (sports journalist). Packer has received an outpouring of emotion and honours from the endless list of his associates, including former Nine newsreader Brian Naylor, the Nine cricket commentary team (who were said to have been given "jobs for life" from Packer following World Series Cricket), and current Test cricketer Shane Warne, who found out about his friend's passing during the morning warmup for the second day of the 2nd Test against South Africa.

So yeah, what's wrong with that? Rogerthat 12:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't do the deletion, but in my view it's a tad unbalanced to spend so much time discussing his Channel 9 obit. There was blanket coverage around the networks, the ABC's version considerably more insightful and less sugarcoated than 9's. --Robert Merkel 21:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough, could this perhaps fit into another article? Rogerthat 00:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Any volounteers for correcting the structure of his company now?--Ari89 15:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the news coverage of a particular event has an place in an encyclopedia (unless it is somehow history-making). And why on earth are you requesting articles on TV non-entities? I'm also dubious about the existing comment about Leila McKinnon crying.--Jack Upland 02:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dyslexic

I read a story in The Age magazine recently, an article where Nene King wrote that Packer was dyslexic. Is that true? Rogerthat 08:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, by all reports.
For completion, we should also mention his "long-time friend" and employee to whom he gave around $10 million worth of property over the past few years [1]. --Robert Merkel 13:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aus$/local usage

It would seem that in an article about an Australian, who kept his holdings mostly domestic, it doesn't need to be explicitly stated before every amount that the currency is the nationally used one.

Agreed. I have re-added the 'Australian' in one spot, referring to his $33m winnings in Las Vegas, because that would otherwise be ambiguous - presumably the actual transaction was in US dollars. Where we do identify the currency we should be consistent with the abbreviation. I've picked 'AUD' because it seems to be more common in international use than the alternatives, but I don't much mind as long as it's consistent, unambiguous, and non-redundant. --Calair 23:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Please Sign your Name!!! Whoever it is posting here, sign your name after you say something use 4 tildes (~) Mike 04:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment cut from article

This was inline in the article as a comment, making the whitespace look weird. I've moved it to here.

other stuff to mention *
* Alan Bond.
* political views
* The One.Tel disaster.

— ciphergoth 17:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] snipurl etc

I undid the conversion of various long URLs to shorter snipurl.com ones. There are times when snipurl/tinyurl/makeashorterlink.com are appropriate, but I don't think they're a good idea for Wikipedia; it adds another point of failure and obfuscates the nature of the link. Yes, the long links are ugly... but that's why we hide them behind HTML, and offer the reader a plain text description of them. Should anybody want to discuss this, though, I'm about to bring it up over at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. --Calair 01:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I support not using snipurl or similar. The value of those services is for typing URLs, or sending them through email which might stuff them up due to line-wrapping. In this case, the URL contains valuable information in the form of the publisher, which is not shown in the title of most of the links, and helps the reader to assess the value of the link without havoing to follow it. --Scott Davis Talk 09:29, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference 1 gone

yep, sad to say. I wanted to check it

[edit] Removing One Nation web site link

I'll be removing the One Nation web site link - it turns out the link was added by "Ridgy-Didg". Ridgy-Didg has a total of four edits - two of which were to global web builder web sites. I don't like external links in general, especially to partisan web sites, but linking for the sake of promotion is especially irksome. Andjam 12:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)