Trevor Kennedy: Albany boy made his mark

Trevor Kennedy was a knockabout cadet reporter on the Albany Advertiser newspaper before heading east in the early 1960s to leave his mark on the Sydney business and media scenes, including acting, at one stage, as Kerry Packer’s right-hand man.

Along the way, while editor of Packer’s magazine The Bulletin, he also hired three journalists who later left their mark on Australian politics.

They were former Liberal prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, and the record term NSW Labor premier Bob, Carr, who also served as minister for foreign affairs.

Kennedy, who died in Sydney at the weekend after a short illness aged 79, grew up in Albany where his parents operated The Hub clothing store.

He was also a prominent student at Aquinas College in Perth where he completed his leaving certificate year in 1959.

After leaving the Albany Advertiser he joined The Canberra Times and quickly proved to be an effective reporter who could always get the story.

He caught the eye of a senior editor at the Fairfax company, Vic Carroll, who hired him as the Canberra correspondent for The Australian Financial Review.

“As an Albany boy he wouldn’t have been able to mix with these big wheeler dealers naturally but journalism gave him the introductions and he could not have helped but been impressed by what he saw,” Mr Carroll said.

“Trevor always had the ability to mix with people of any rank in life and not be impressed by them, but to impress them.”

Mr Carroll then sent Kennedy to London for the AFR, before recalling him to Sydney as the foundation editor for the weekly The National Times, aged 28.

He was poached by Sir Frank Packer to reinvigorate The Bulletin magazine in 1972 and to keep an eye on his son Kerry.

“By day Trevor was running the magazine and by night he was out with Kerry Packer in the night clubs and illegal gambling joints of Sydney,” according to one source. “I don’t know how he did it.”

Kennedy was said to be in his element as an editor, a job that allowed him to back enterprising reporters while still finding time to run his share portfolio and to get to long boozy lunches with the political and business heavyweights of Sydney.

Kennedy’s political links stood him in good stead as he later was appointed to a number of government positions including the Qantas board and the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal. 

He also became an avid collector of Australiana. Earlier this year he sold part of his collection, and donated the rest, to the National Museum in Canberra for $7 million.

The museum described it as “the greatest acquisition in its history”, adding that it would “open new vistas and new horizons”.