Kerry Packer, who has died at the age of 68, was Australia's richest person and listed by Forbes magazine this year as the 94th richest man in the world with a $5bn fortune. He was for many years one of his country's most successful businessmen, as well as one of its most colourful.

Well known as a high-rolling gambler, he outraged the establishment in both Australia and the UK by introducing one-day cricket in the late 1970s, and later had to overcome suggestions that he was a criminal referred to by the code name “Goanna” in the proceedings of an Australian Royal Commission charges that were eventually formally repudiated by the Australian government.