Since you ask, yes the Pratt coffin thing in today’s Crikey email was my idea. A necessary corrective in an increasingly rose-tinted atmosphere of instant forgiveness for one of the country’s leaders in corporate malfeasance, or did it go too far? Your call.
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Comes in standard, deluxe and cartel models, extra handle for the mistress, a “get out of jail for free” card and a letter slot for return of awards
It’s a thing of wonder and a joy to behold Jonathan.
LOL
What’s more, it might even take off as a real product!!
Listening to Jeff Kennett rabbiting on about Pratt the philanthropist
on last night’s Lateline, made me want to vomit.
It’s definitely time to call a halt to the media love affair with Australia’s
recently departed biggest crook.
Dear Jonathan Green, or GreenJ:
This comment of yours, although witty, went nowhere far enough. What on earth has this rotten crook, Richard Pratt, done to deserve all the crocodile tears, rancid salutations, hypocritical hogwash and this vomit-making genuflection?
The man has had a long history of ripping off his shareholders. Thirty years ago it was some bent finance company, (I think it had the word triangle in its title) and ever since he has been up to his Adam’s apple in collusive trading agreements with Amcor. Any other honest crook would have been severely dealt with. As in that other crook, Steve Vizard. John Elliot is another name which comes to mind.
To fine Richard Pratt thirty-six million dollars was a travesty of justice. It was small change for Pratt. This appalling excuse for a businessman gave generous donations to charity. SO FUCK-NG what? He could afford to just by using the money he grabbed from the people from whom he stole.
Of course his wealth allowed him to start on the road to beatification, in as much that it enabled him to but a football team. And footy lovers generally don’t tend to be the sharpest knives in the draw, so drooling good onya Dickie they lapped up every word of the obsessive hyper-cant.
If all this isn’t bad enough the Age went on its own little Prattian legend canter. Today’s edition being more than nauseating. Accordingly I have stopped my subscription and demanded my money back. It’s a pity about the the Television page, and the Wizard of Id cartoon. The man who took down the details sounded quite petulant.
Lamafrog (Tweeter) and I have got a loose bet going about Richard Pratt’s-bring out the violins- final accolade. I’ve gone for Richard Pratt’s Theme Park of Pro Hart’s paintings and an Anzac statue. He has gone for a State Funeral and a special peerage.
Dear GreenJ, please do you have any recommendations for a screed to replace the Age? I don’t see why I should pay to get the Oz, or the Herald Sun. I) They are owned by Rupert Murdoch. 2) Their right-wing lunacy is laughable. 3) I wouldn’t want to be seen reading them. Just joking. 4) I don’t want to pay for being bored.
Sincerely
Venisejb
In all seriousness when the time comes, a cardboard coffin will do me just fine. I mean, I drive a P.O.S car most of my life, why do I need to die in style? Gimmie a @GreenJ box and I’ll be happy (well maybe not happy but you get the picture)
If you make pre-assembled ones you could hide a “super hero’s magic power ring” or sum such inside for the kiddies to find while they get out all the polystyrene filler
Confronting. Instant thoughts of “too far” that, upon further reflection, morphed to “not too far”. I think it all came down to timing — if the piece was published in a week’s or a month’s time there wouldn’t be the instinctive gut reaction that many people have had.
Lived up to what we expect from Crikey: challenging and thought-provoking content.
It was Tim Costello who went too far in trying to maintain the post mortem cash flow from the Pratt Foundation for World Vision when he gushed about Richard Pratt’s philanthropy not being for public display (I haven’t got the precise words only what was meant). It could be argued that the enormous publicity given to the charitable distributions from the Pratt Foundation, and the fund raisings at Raheen, was and is highly desirable in its demonstration effect and as setting marks to be emulated. However, to suggest that lights were hidden under bushels is utterly absurd, almost the reverse of the truth. In any list of patrons and benefactors there are usually few listed as “Anonymous” but the only really large benefactor that I can think of who would be likely to be amongst them would be Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, or maybe a member of the Fairfax family. Now there’s a project for Stephen Mayne the list maker. What about a list of the biggest anonymous donors to charitable causes?
Going ‘Green’ or being buried in cardboard is all the go these days Jonathon. There’s a huge display online of ‘down to earth’ departures so rather than slagging his memory you’ve likely promoted the packaging Emporor’s empire. At 11 today he may well find himself enshrined in a hand-painted recycled waste paper container. Highly appropriate.
Venise it wouldn’t hurt to show just a little bit of respect for the recently departed. It may well help you with your obvious anger issues & your vicious thoughts regarding Richard Pratt are probably best kept private.
Or perhaps you should have written them down & given them to KRudd to deliver in person.
Not far enough to correct the whitewash that is happening. The gushing praise is sickening. It’s great to be a philanthropist with the money you’ve gouged off ordinary people through illegal cartel behaviour. His false philanthropy does not hide the fact he stole in order to give back to charity and be seen a great guy. He cheated on his wife and publicly humiliated her also, yet all we hear is praise. How dare anyone even suggest the Order of Australia be returned to him. He does not deserve it. Frame him as an ordinary person who made mistakes, did some good and is no better than anyone else then we might come closer to the truth. The only reason we are going down the deity path is he has money and hence power. Total rubbish. They would do him more of a service by just remembering him and getting on with it. No one is fooled.
Marc Antony: Why should I respect how did you put it…’recently departed’ when I didn’t respect them when they were alive? One croaks, one is put, hopefully, into a cardboard box and possibly cremated. What’s to respect when several billions of humanity have had the same respectful(?) end.
My obvious anger is directed at four things. 1)The man who gave so much to charity was merely returning the money to his unfortunate shareholders, over a thirty year period. 2)If he was so charitable why did he did he not do it anonymously? With the christian humility that so many people invoke. 3) The way Australians worship money and power they would all go down on a red carpet and masturbate in public to show their adoration of the latest sporting hero MOST ESPECIALLY A FOOTBALL HERO, AND HEARTBREAKINGLY MORE SO A WHOLE FOOTBALL TEAM ONE WHICH IS OWNED BY YET ANOTHER GLORY SEEKING BLOKE WHO WORKED BLOODY HARD TO MAKE HIS MONEY-EVEN IF HIS SHAREHOLDERS LOST ALL THEIRS. ALL BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BUY THE ADMIRATION OF THE AUSSIE OCKER. 4) The total hypocrisy and can’t of the exercise-the sudden elevation from crook to beatification.
I repeat my first line. Why should I respect a person who has just died when I had no respect for them when they were alive?
I am not going to apologize for not being a hypocrite. So you may just arse off and play with all your fellow hypocrites, and I will go out into the garden and eat a couple of apples.
Marc Antony: line six from the bottom should read cant, not can’t.
PPS: I can just imagine production-line workers arriving home dead tired after a rotten day at work; picking up the Sun Herald to see all the wannabes posing for the camera at a charity ball. The worker can then look at Richard Pratt dressed in fabulously well cut designer clothes with Baker-Benje slip ons, and say to his wife ‘ ‘Ere’s me mate Dicko!’.
I can’t resist using this forum to raise the obscene comments at the cardboard Emporor’s send off today by an old and former loathed PM. John Howard’s lauding of Dick Pratt as ” a symbol of all the things we regard as Australian – sport, success, family ‘committment’ (sic News Limited)! Since when did Howard hold up philanderers as pillars of family life. So extra-marital relationships amongst those from the wrong side of the track are to be deplored but its OK if you have Raheen and a football club.
Janette should take the front door key from the old git.
Christine: Janette was a major part of the John Howard’s obscene career. She was considered to be the deus ex machina, as well as the court of last appeal. There is only one comforting thought I have about the horrendous duo. Namely, the depth of their combined passion for the queen of England. No day was too short nor night too long to forget to genuflect in the direction of Buck palace. They pray for her continued good health, they adore the thought, voice, and class (questionable as far as I’m concerned) of her, the north, south, and the east of her. Janette has been known to pace the bedroom floor night after night waiting for the gilded invitation to be in her fullness’s presence.
One day, one wonderful day they were invited to the wedding of the late princess Di. Many fortunes of the tax-payers money was spent on suitable clothing for the Oz-fullness’s good self.
Panting with adulation and hope the pair of them turned up to St Paul’s only to have several buckets of cold water dumped on them. They were in the last row, as far from her royal self as possible. And being so tiny they could neither see, or be seen.
I would have thought they would have made the coffin out of 4×2.