RICHARD PRATT: ONE OUT OF THE BOX: THE SECRETS OF AN AUSTRALIAN BILLIONAIRE

First published 2009 by

John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall Street, Milton Qld 4064

Office also in Melbourne

Typeset in Bembo 12.4/15.9 pt

© James Kirby and Rod Myer 2010

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

Some material in this publication originally appeared in Richard Pratt: Business Secrets of the Billionaire Behind Australia’s Richest Private Company, published 2004 by John Wiley & Sons Australia

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Kirby, James.

Title: Richard Pratt: one out of the box — the secrets of an Australian billionaire / James Kirby, Rod Myer.

ISBN: 9781742169606 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Pratt, Richard, 1934–2009.

Visy Paper.

Businessmen — Australia — Biography.

Philanthropists — Australia — Biography.

Billionaires — Australia — Biography.

Other Authors/Contributors:

Myer, Rod.

Dewey Number: 338.43676092

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Extract from The World Today ‘Richard Pratt warns of coming chronic shortage of water’ by Jo Mazzochi, first published by ABC Online, 14 March 2003, is reproduced by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and ABC Online. © 2003 ABC. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Xou Creative

Cover photo © Fairfax Photo library / Craig Sillitoe

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

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Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only. The authors and publisher expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, whether a purchaser of this publication or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether in whole or in part, upon the whole or any part of the contents of this publication. While all due care has been taken to represent the truth in this publication based on thorough evidence and research, or the authors’ fair comments and opinion as the case may be, the authors and publisher make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents.

About the authors

James Kirby

James is Managing Editor at Australian Independent Business Media, the publisher of online investment magazine Eureka Report and the online business news website Business Spec-tator. He is also a weekly columnist for The Sunday Age and a regular commentator on Sky Business.

He has worked for The Australian Financial Review, The Australian, Business Review Weekly, Business and Finance (Dublin)and The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong). He is a graduate of University College Galway and of the National Institute of Higher Education (now Dublin City University) in Ireland.

Rod Myer

Rod Myer was born on a farm in north-eastern Victoria and has lived most of his life in Melbourne. He is a writer, journalist and poet with twenty-five years’ experience in the Australian media. He has worked as a business writer for The Age, The Sunday Age, The Herald and the Herald Sun, and has made radio documentaries for the ABC, 3RRR and Public Radio News. Rod also worked in politics, serving as a speechwriter, political adviser and researcher for the Australian Democrats in the 1980s.

He is the author of Living the Dream: The Story of Victor Smorgon, which chronicles the life of the patriarch of the Smorgon industrial dynasty, and has published a work of his own poetry called Prayers for a Modern Man.

Prior to commencing a career in writing and journalism Rod spent a number of years living in the outback working in the mining and pastoral industries, and has travelled extensively in Asia, North America and Europe.

Acknowledgements

James Kirby

Thanks again to the team at John Wiley & Sons who have guided me through a variety of challenges since we began working together in 2002. Thanks also to my book editor, Brendan Atkins at Big Box Publishing, for editing the orig-inal manuscript and suggesting many improvements along the way.

For the original manuscript Richard Pratt allowed me remark-able access and I remain grateful for the patience he showed at that time in the face of many questions he had no doubt heard before, and some that were clearly being considered for the first time.

Tony Gray, press officer at the Visy group, stands out as the person who did more than anyone else to make the original book a reality.

I would also like to thank a range of people I dealt with when researching the original book, including Gideon Haigh, Robbie Kaye, Sam Lipski, Bill Montague, Anthony Pratt, Michael O’Regan and Adrian Tame.

Finally, thanks once more to my partner, Mary O’Brien, who shared thoughts, theories and reflections on the original book as it came together.

Rod Myer

Writing this book would not have been possible without the support and assistance of a number of people. I would particularly like to thank my co-author James Kirby, Tony Gray, Michael Naphtali, Rebecca Myer, Ian Allen, Digger James, Sam Lipski, Leon Zwier, Helen Reisner, Stephen Kernahan, Keith McKenzie, Paul Littmann, Julia Fraser, Dr George Klempfner, Brian Meltzer and Winsome McCaughey.

I have also cited the published work of a number of journalists whose diligence and talent I am grateful for. Most prominent among these are Garry Linnell, Leonie Wood, Cameron Stewart, Annette Sharp, Patrick Smith and Jake Niall.

I would also like to thank the publisher, John Wiley & Sons Australia, particularly my editors Kristen Hammond and Kate Romaniotis.

Introduction: The last days of a king

In mid April 2009 a seemingly endless stream of visitors began making their way to Raheen, the mansion belonging to Richard and Jeanne Pratt in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Kew. Richard Pratt had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006, but he was not the sort of person to lie down and go quietly. He was a fighter and a visionary who was accustomed to shaping life according to his whim. So he fought — so strongly that he once appeared at an informal business meeting with an intravenous needle still in his arm. He had apparently considered his treatment finished for the day and, unable to catch the attention of the hospital staff and unwilling to miss his meeting, he simply pulled the tube delivering his medication out of the needle and walked out.

The disease eventually went into remission, only to reappear in 2009. What appeared at first to be an abscess on his prostate was in fact cancer. In March he was in severe pain, which forced him to be often, and uncharacteristically, away from the office. Then one weekend in early April his condition deteriorated and he was taken to hospital. There he was told that the disease had spread to his lungs and liver, and that his life was coming to an end.

The family let it be known that Richard Pratt’s days were numbered, and so began the succession of people — a mixture of the rich, the powerful, the well known and the unknown — to Raheen to pay their last respects to a man who had touched myriad lives across the community. Former Labor opposition leader and current Trade Minister Simon Crean joined the throng, as did the former skipper of Australia’s successful 1983 America’s Cup challenge John Bertrand. Various Carlton Football Club personalities, including legend Ron Barassi, president and former skipper Stephen Kernahan, coach Brett Ratten, captain Chris Judd and club Chief Executive Greg Swann, said their goodbyes. Former long-term employees of Visy, Pratt’s giant packaging company, such as Cliff Powell, with whom the ailing tycoon sang a duet as they had done often over the previous fifty years, and Dante Bastiani, came to see their old boss one last time. Socialite Lillian Frank also made the journey, saying later that the Pratts were like family to her.

Outspoken and unconventional ally of the downtrodden Father Bob McGuire and trucking magnate Lindsay Fox joined the queue. Pratt’s long-time mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock was allowed to spend one hour with the man she loved and had a daughter with. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also made an unscheduled fifteen-minute visit to the bedside of the dying billionaire.

On the day before his death it was announced that evidence used to charge Richard with four counts of giving false and misleading evidence to an inquiry into price-fixing allegations by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had been ruled inadmissible and all charges had been dropped. Upon receiving word of the ruling, Pratt’s daughter Fiona leaned across her father, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, and whispered the news in his ear. Pratt reportedly nodded signalling he understood and began to weep.

The Cardboard King passed away on 28 April 2009 with his family by his side. Following Pratt’s death a range of public figures, including the Prime Minister, expressed regret at his passing and thanks for the contributions he made in a range of areas. Even his adversary in the final months of his life ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel expressed his sadness.

Two days after his death a section of Kew was closed off by police as 500 people crammed into the suburb’s synagogue, while another 500 stood outside watching closed circuit television coverage of Pratt’s funeral. Once again there was a wide cross-section of the community present, from friends and relatives to businesspeople, sportspeople, politicians and even the centurion philanthropist and mother of media magnate Rupert, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. In his eulogy to his long-time friend, Pratt Foundation Chief Executive Sam Lipski observed that he knew of no other Australian whose life and death had touched so many people.

Richard Pratt, the migrant boy from Poland who set out from his parents’ fruit block in the country town of Shepparton in Victoria, built far more than the Visy packaging empire that catapulted him to the status of richest man in Australia. He influenced people, organisations, public policy and culture across an unusually broad spectrum using not only his money, but his ideas, passion and boundless energy. His was a remarkable journey.