Honours Relinquished After Behaviour That Was Out Of Order

The Age

Saturday March 1, 2008

Staff Reporters

Richard Pratt gave up his status as a companion and officer of the Order of Australia voluntarily, but he may have lost it anyway.

DISGRACED billionaire and Carlton Football Club president Richard Pratt no longer carries the honour - and the burden - of AC and AO after his name. He has handed back his Companion of the Order of Australia - Australia's knighthood equivalent, of which there are only 330 - as well as his award as Officer of the Order of Australia - granted for distinguished service of a high degree - to avoid having them taken from him after his company's legal wrangle over price-fixing.

His resignations came through just as the Council of the Order of Australia was sitting down to discuss stripping him of his honours. There is still no word from the AFL on whether Pratt, as president of one of the league's founding clubs, will be sanctioned.

The 73-year-old cardboard magnate is not the first Australian to hand back a gong. Doubtless he will not be the last. And, unlike some others, he wasn't dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion he reached.

A Visy spokesman said Pratt had "the highest respect for the honours system and for all its many worthy recipients", but "given his understanding that the honours committee was considering whether he should retain his honours, he had no wish to involve the committee or the honours themselves in any form of controversy.

"Mr Pratt's decision will have no effect whatsoever on the philanthropic activities of the Pratt Foundation or the other many community and business activities in which his family and their company, Visy, is involved," the spokesman said.

New rules for stripping people of their Orders of Australia were gazetted last year.

The rules allow the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, to terminate an appointment or cancel an award of his own volition, or on the advice of the council, on grounds such as: a criminal or civil penalty under Australian or foreign law; an adverse finding by an Australian or foreign court; or if the recipient "has behaved or acted in a manner that has brought disrepute on the Order".

The new regulations came into force just six weeks before Pratt's company Visy was handed a $36 million penalty last year for a price-fixing racket with competitor Amcor, which earned the cardboard giants an estimated $700 million.

The Federal Court judge in the case, Peter Heerey, condemned Pratt for his knowledge of, and support for, the covert price-fixing deals with Amcor.

Pratt, he said, "gave his personal sanction to this obviously unlawful arrangement and an assurance of its continued operation".

He said Pratt's apology to the court was "hardly consistent with a frank admission of wrongdoing".

Pratt was made an AO in 1985 for services to secondary industry, arts and sport. He was elevated to AC in 1998 for services to the community, and to business through the expansion of job opportunities.

He told the Governor-General of his decision to return the awards last week.

Pratt joins a list of more than 20 Australians who have voluntarily returned their civic honours or had them taken from them.

Alan Bond, Australian of the Year in 1978, bankrolled Australia's famous America's Cup victory in 1983 and was Australia's best-known businessman in the 1980s. But when he was jailed in 1997 for defrauding Bell Resources of $1.2 billion, he was stripped of his honours.

Former West Australian Labor premier Brian Burke had his Companion of the Order of Australia revoked when he was sent to jail for a second time, for stealing campaign donations. The conviction was quashed on appeal.

Sydney businessman Rodney Adler, a former director of HIH, was given an award for his services to the insurance industry and philanthropy in 1999 but surrendered it when the company collapsed and he was jailed in March 2005. HIH's founder, Ray Williams, too, lost his award in the same year.

More conspicuously, however, disgraced Melbourne businessman Steve Vizard, who in 2005 was found to have abused his position as a director of Telstra and fined and banned from serving on boards for 10 years, is still an AM, a Member of the Order of Australia. Vizard did not return calls from The Age this week.

Asked to comment on Pratt's decision to hand back his gongs, a spokesman for Premier John Brumby said: "He's aware that there's some controversy in relation to the matters of trading last year and price fixing. And he's made a decision in what he believes is the public interest and presumably, his interest.

"I don't think he's the first person in these sort of circumstances to do that."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was a matter for Pratt.

Victorian Liberal senator and shadow special minister of state Michael Ronaldson told The Age: "Ultimately it is a personal decision (to return awards) and not one that should be imposed on a reward recipient." -- STAFF REPORTERS

© 2008 The Age

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