Packer’s Lunch

The dark channels of money and power that flow beneath the surface of Australian society are perilous places. Behind the gossip columns and headlines, the famous names and celebrity makeovers, life is a precarious business. One wrong move spells disaster. For this is the world of the networkers. The games they play, the restaurants they frequent and the social circles they inhabit determine who is in and who is out. Who ends up very rich and who is bankrupt. Everyone is a diner, but who gets to share the crumbs and who ends up on the menu?

For years Graham Richardson, Trevor Kennedy and Rene Rivkin navigated these waters deftly, with a little secret help from their offshore advisor. The exposure of their Swiss accounts uncovered a world of secret share trading going back decades by a much wider group of players. This is a story of more than just three clever swimmers. It’s a lifestyle.

Since its first publication in 2006, Neil Chenoweth’s award-winning account of the rise and fall of the 1990s business networks has established itself as a classic. It moves from the stories behind the AMP power struggle to the secrets of the Fairfax takeover. There is inept manoeuvring in the shrubbery, unpleasantness at The Toaster, Macquarie Bankers rampant, and private detectives behaving badly.

Now updated with a new Epilogue, it remains, in the words of the Australian Financial Review Magazine, deeply cathartic and satisfying.