Business / Media / Power / Strategy / Narrative Nonfiction
You may have seen the clip. The billionaire telling politicians why he minimizes his tax. Now meet the man.
"I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimising my tax…"
— Kerry Packer, Australian Parliament, 1991
A new generation is discovering Kerry Packer through extraordinary footage from Australia's Parliament House in 1991. Asked about tax, Packer did not retreat. He distinguished tax minimization from tax evasion, then turned the argument back on the government itself. The exchange has found a new international audience because it feels almost made for the social-media age: direct, unscripted, confrontational, and difficult to forget.
And viewers keep asking the same question: Who is this man?
Kerry Packer was Australia's billionaire media titan and one of the country's most powerful twentieth-century businessmen, with major interests across television, magazines, publishing, sport, and corporate Australia. He transformed international cricket through World Series Cricket and built a reputation for formidable instincts, risk-taking, negotiation, and an unwillingness to be intimidated by powerful institutions.
But The Billionaire vs The House is not a conventional biography, and Susan Pavan, M.A.Journ., is not approaching Packer from the outside. Pavan began her career inside the Packer media world, giving this book firsthand familiarity with the culture, expectations, and standards of the organization he built. The book also includes a foreword by one of Packer's former publishers, who worked closely with him.
That inside perspective meets the public record in one remarkable room.
On November 4, 1991, Packer appeared before the House of Representatives Select Committee on Print Media in Canberra. His opening words set the tone: "I appear here this afternoon reluctantly."
Pavan takes readers inside that hearing and examines what happened exchange by exchange. How did Packer control the tempo of the room? Why did some questions strengthen him instead of weakening him? When did he answer directly, when did he reject the premise, and when did humor become a weapon?
The famous tax exchange is only the doorway. Through the hearing, readers encounter a masterclass in preparation, language, timing, confidence, negotiation, pressure, reputation, strategic restraint, and the ability to recognize exactly where the power in a room really sits.
For international readers who have only just discovered Kerry Packer, this is the story behind the man in the clip. For entrepreneurs, executives, journalists, negotiators, founders, strategists, and students of power, it is something more useful: the full lesson behind the moment, examined by an author who began her own career inside the culture Packer created.
Before leadership became content, Kerry Packer had to perform it live.
Format: Hardcover | Author: Susan Pavan, M.A.Journ.
Available internationally. Australian readers - paperback edition available locally.
Looking for the perfect gift? The Bespoke Edition features a foil dust jacket, ribbon bookmark, high-quality glossy paper, and a personalized name or message. Perfect for entrepreneurs, executives, graduates, journalists, founders, mentors, and serious students of strategy.
A masterclass in power from a man who rarely waited for permission.
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