Kerry Packer is Australia's richest and most powerful man, with a media empire worth $3000 million. He is also a very private person. His friends generally refuse to speak about him, while his employees and rivals don't dare. But what is he really like and where did he come from? In this the first book ever written about the man and his family, Paul Barry charts the Packer dynasty's unstoppable rise to power. The Packers have always made enemies and almost always had their way with the world. Buccaneers in business, Kerry's grandfather, R.C. Packer, and father, Frank, had a reputation for hot temper and bullying, but they also inspired great loyalty. Big figures on the political scene, they used their papers unashamedly to make and break governments. Yet Kerry is infinitely more powerful than they ever were. Politicians come to him to ask him what he wants. As a child, Kerry was considered an idiot by his schoolmates and family. Called 'boofhead' by his father, he was never encouraged to smile on himself or the world. Now, having massively increased the family fortune, he is said to be lonely, unhappy and easily bored.Two years of intensive research and hundreds of interviews make THE RISE AND RISE OF KERRY PACKER a compelling biography of Australia's least understood tycoon. But above all, it is a disturbing portrait of power in Australia and how it can be used.