Kerry Stokes’ law: ignore the critics, take chances, and be true to yourself
Article by Damon Kitney, courtesy of The Australian.
26.10.2025
Kerry Stokes peers over the top of his broad-rimmed spectacles and his raspy voice drops almost to a whisper.
We are sitting in his vast Perth riverside mansion, surrounded by stunning gardens adorned with four towering spotted gum trees he planted in the mid-1970s.
It is a world away from Camp Pell, the post-war slum housing area in Melbourne where Stokes grew up after being adopted by an impoverished Catholic couple named Matt and Irene.
“Very few people who express an understanding of poverty or hardship have been hungry in our country. I have been hungry in my youth. Hunger strips away everything else,” Stokes says softly.
“When you are hungry and when you have known that, then you have known a part of life that most people do not get to understand. I understand what it is like.”
After starting out as a television repairman, then building a multibillion-dollar business empire that stretches across media, mining, energy and building materials, and is run by one of his sons, Ryan, Stokes has carved out a life few could imagine.
Loyalty, his guiding principle, has earned him both fierce allies and sharp critics along the way.
Through decades of deal-making, risk-taking and occasional controversy, Stokes has remained unapologetically himself: a self-made man shaped as much by grit and instinct as by opportunity.
It is his grasp of hardship in his younger years that shapes his decades-long devotion to Telethon, the annual event he and his wife of the past 30 years, Christine Simpson Stokes, have nurtured into one of Australia’s most successful and enduring charitable endeavours.
The 2025 event, staged in Perth on the weekend of October 18-19, was his last as chairman of Seven West Media after its recently agreed and controversial merger with Southern Cross Media, which will have him step down in February.
Seven has been Stokes’s obsession for three decades, a place where his vision, drive and loyalty have converged.
But scandals, volatile ratings and the poor financial and sharemarket performance of the company over the past two years have tested his patience and resolve.
In their first media interview together, to mark the historic moment and discuss their passion for Telethon, Stokes and his wife also declare their enduring support for war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith, expressing no regrets about funding his defence to allegations of being a war criminal.
Stokes has personally guaranteed a $500m redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial, supporting his long-held belief that “you don’t have to die to be thanked for your service”.
He also refuted claims he had interfered in the editorial decisions of journalists at Seven and declared that the “time was right” for him to step back from the network.
When asked how Telethon has changed him, Stokes says that above all, it has given him a better understanding of the less fortunate.
He attended the first Telethon in November 1968 as guest of then Seven Perth managing director Brian Treasure, who co-founded the event with Sir James Cruthers.
When Stokes became Telethon chairman it committed to funding many of the cutting-edge research projects of the WA Institute for Child Health Research, started by professors Lou Landau and Fiona Stanley.
“We all understand what it means to give money to those who need it. Very seldom do we actually get down into the nitty-gritty of the people. With the Telethon kids and their parents, they are at the pointy end,” he says, his voice momentarily breaking, as tears well in his eyes.
“You see that year after year and you put them all together, and you see it makes a difference. We are dealing with something that is not a feel-good thing, it is a make-good thing.”
The Stokes family pledged $5m to this year’s event.
Stokes believes Telethon has made him a more patient person and a better listener.
But what he is most proud of is not the money it generates, but rather the time and effort he puts in.
“I think Kerry is a very ordinary, grounded person,” Simpson-Stokes says.
“But he is equally an extraordinary person in his humanity, in his empathy … Kerry hates injustice and tries to step in and help where there is injustice, and that is in all walks of life. That is who he is.”
Simpson-Stokes had an early exposure to the importance of “normalising” life for disadvantaged children.
“My mother was a kindergarten teacher, and she had to fight to make sure that a little Down syndrome girl was accepted into the mainstream of kindergarten,” she says.
“So for me it was an early exposure to having a Down syndrome kid in a normal school. We were talking about the kids and normalising.”
For many outside Western Australia, Telethon remains something of a mystery. Other big community charity events in Melbourne and Sydney, such as the Good Friday Appeal, gain much more national prominence.
Yet in Perth and WA, Telethon is a pillar of the community, a unifying force for thousands of donors, volunteers and families. A record 161 beneficiary organisations are receiving funding from this year’s Telethon, which raised a record $90.16m.
Loyal backers
Critics of Stokes have long accused him of using the event as an exercise in power, allowing him to exert influence over Perth business, philanthropy and beyond.
“This is rather rare in charitable endeavours,” she says. “Exactly what has been the contribution of the naysayers?”
WA Premier Roger Cook puts his retort another way: “If it is an expression of his power that we raise tens of millions of dollars every year for our sickest and most disadvantaged kids, that is a beautiful expression of power.”
Stokes himself is unflinching on the issue: “I don’t derive any power from it. All that matters is the outcome. I’m proud that people associate me with it, but I don’t do it to be associated.”
In fact, he stresses that Telethon has never been about one man because if it was, it would never work.
“It could have been the Kerry Stokes Foundation or a Kerry Stokes charity. I don’t believe in that. I believe people want to be involved,” he says.
Stokes appointed former Qantas chairman Richard Goyder as Telethon chairman in 2018 to, in the words of the former, “make sure it was more than me”. The former remains a trustee.
Goyder’s connection to Telethon is deeply personal, shaped by his nephew Archie’s battle with cancer. Diagnosed at just four years old with a particularly aggressive form, Archie faced only a 40 per cent chance of survival. Today, at the age of 15, he is thriving because of the care he received from pioneering immunotherapy specialist Nick Skatado, supported by Telethon and other WA philanthropic groups.
“We all have these stories of kids we know or families we know who have been impacted by terrible circumstances” Goyder says.
“Archie’s story is just as a fantastic story, because in a lot of other places around the world, he would be dead.”
Telethon trustee Tonya McCusker, the wife of former WA governor and renowned Perth barrister Malcolm McCusker, describes Telethon as a powerful model for grant giving.
Their McCusker Charitable Foundation, which has given more than $80m in funding support to worthwhile causes, this year pledged $4m to Telethon.
“From a donor’s perspective, it is just so important to have good governance,” she says. “Telethon has ensured that there are multiple layers at the trustee level and at the research subcommittee level, where you have leading scientists, doctors and nurses vetting the applications.”
After completing her PhD, physiotherapist and researcher Dayna Pool used a $235,000 Telethon grant in 2015 to develop her groundbreaking Healthy Strides Foundation, helping children with cerebral palsy learn to walk using technology and hands-on training.
“Telethon grants are such a great platform for new ideas, for new researchers who don’t yet have the track record to get the big grants,” she says.
Since then, Telethon’s support has continued to fuel her research and expansion, including bankrolling her purchase of a $400,000 hi-tech rehabilitation device, Zero G, from the US.
“Her mother would leave at times for months at a time, leaving she and her brother to fend for themselves,” she says. “To earn their food, she would hand wash clothes. When she entered my life, I was concerned because she did not smile, indeed she did not smile for years.
“But now I have received – just yesterday – her birthday photos, and there she is radiantly beaming. Yes I have changed her life because she is now studying engineering, but you have no idea how much seeing her smile has also lifted my life.
“I am fortunate to have many real stories helping other very poor children, usually requiring medical treatment. While I’m helping their lives, and it is not the reason I do this, but I truly benefit too.”
The highlight of the Telethon weekend was its annual ball, Perth’s most coveted black-tie affair, which raised a record $21.4m, up from $16.7m last year.
That total included a $1m donation from billionaire James Packer.
One of the most moving moments of the night was mother Tracey Newman sharing the story of her now teenage daughter Isabelle Rigby, who is alive today thanks to receiving a heart and double lung transplant funded by Telethon. She was the first child in WA to receive such surgery.
It followed the annual charity auction of a range of luxury items and experiences, including two 1kg gold bars donated by gold miner Northern Star Resources.
One was bought by Tim Roberts for a cool $520,000. Roberts is founder of the Warburton Group, heir to the Multiplex fortune built by his legendary late father and a Telethon trustee.
“Telethon has shown me the incredible power of giving and the values that sit behind it: community, pride, and responsibility,” Roberts says.
“When you see the scale of what’s achieved and how those collective efforts translate into real outcomes for WA kids with access to world-class care, better facilities, research, and hope for families, it keeps you humble.
“You realise that giving isn’t just about money, it is about being present, listening, and understanding the human stories behind the cause. Telethon reminds you, every time, what truly matters.”
Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson attended the event, given the airline is one of its biggest corporate partners.
As did Perth businessman Lawrence Escalante, who says lending his multimillion-dollar car collection to Telethon was “the most fulfilling use they ever get”.
“These assets are beautiful, rare machines but the most fulfilling use they ever get is giving the opportunity for sick kids – and just as importantly, their families – to smile,” he says.
Through his involvement with Telethon and what is known as the Driven Project, Escalante takes children and their families on joy rides and track days. He also pledged a $1m donation and paid $80,000 for a “Crown mansion experience” in the public auction.
A self-made entrepreneur who built his fortune through property and business investments, Escalante’s passion for Telethon is also personal: his son was born with a serious illness, giving him first-hand insight into what families of sick children endure.
Veteran property developer and long-time Telethon supporter Nigel Satterley says donating a house to Telethon has always been about “putting back into the community” and creating teamwork within his business.
“It used to be the largest donation for Telethon back in the day,” he says. “Our people loved Telethon. We could say to them, ‘thank you, we can’t do this by ourselves, but together we can donate a house’.”
He says this year’s Telethon home, valued at $1.4m and donated in full by Satterley and Home Group was “the best ever”.
Satterley says Stokes and Simpson Stokes rescued Telethon from potential oblivion in the late 1990s, when financial analysts were pushing for it to be abandoned for being a non-core business of Seven.
“I think with the right people leading it and the right team, it will keep going and in the future will raise at least $100m a year,” he says.
Culture of giving
BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery echoes the sentiment: “Telethon would not be possible without Kerry Stokes, and there is nothing like it anywhere in the world. It stands as a powerful testament to what he has built, bringing together community, business and government in pursuit of something extraordinary.”
Cook describes Stokes’s support for the charity as “relentless”. The government donated a record $14m to the latest appeal.
Habib Makhdum and Geraldine Slattery. Picture: Justin Benson-Cooper
“There is not a person in the town that has not been shaken down because it is such a good cause that he believes so passionately about,” he says.
But importantly Stokes stresses that Telethon will outlive his legacy.
“I have put the planning and structures in place so it won’t fall over. It will get stronger and stronger,” he says.
Simpson-Stokes describes the heart and soul of Telethon as a “culture of giving” that will endure.
“It connects everybody for that one weekend. There is a sense of unity and collectively, as Western Australians, everyone wants to help each other,” she says.
“My hope is research funded by Telethon continues to provide answers, treatment and hopefully cures. Research is always hard to sell but so vital. Often one research path goes off on a tangent to produce an entirely different and unexpected outcome or discovery that can have a profound impact. Reaching not just kids in WA, but more broadly the country and the world.”
Kerry’s son and Seven Group CEO Ryan Stokes, who flew into Perth for the Telethon finale from his Sydney home, says the legacy of the event transcends his surname.
“This is for the community, by the community and what Dad has been able to do is elevate it to a whole other level that no one ever thought was possible,” he says. “But this is much bigger than our family.”
His father, who turned 85 last month, says he has never been motivated by building a legacy in business or in philanthropy.
His support for the Australian War Memorial redevelopment underpins his belief that anybody who has served their country in the military should be honoured.
“In this country, we tend to want to tear down heroes,” he says.
“I just felt it was time, as a nation, we did something which said: ‘You don’t have to die to be thanked for your service’.”
Stokes still bristles at those who criticise him for financially supporting the defence of Roberts-Smith.
“I still get angry that there seems to be some law that says I shouldn’t have defended him,” he says.
“He served the country and won a VC. Doesn’t he deserve to have a defence? With a multibillion-dollar corporation throwing every one of its resources at him, he deserves a little bit of help. That is what I did and I would still do it tomorrow.”
Stokes insists he has never interfered with any of his news outlets’ independent editorial processes and especially in relation to the coverage of the Roberts-Smith case.
“I’ve never, ever spoken to a journo at Seven and said, ‘You must do this.’ I have never spoken to a journo about a news story before it goes to air. The only thing I said once to (Seven’s former director of news and current affairs) Craig McPherson on Ben Roberts-Smith was ‘make sure we are fair’.”
Simpson-Stokes says it will be difficult for her husband to let go of the network he has controlled for three decades and loved for many more.
“It is going to be an interesting time, because it is a part of who you are,” she says, looking him firmly in the eye.
But for Stokes, the time has come.
“I’ve been involved in television all my life. It is time for me not to be there,” he says.
“I am now at a point where I’m going to interfere, because I’ll do it differently. The way I would do it doesn’t make it right or wrong, just different
“It is time for me to allow my experience to be there, but not to be involved.”
