Indigo is the luckiest Packer of them all

WHEN little Indigo Packer was born she was greeted with more certainties in life than your average newborn, writes Fiona Connolly.

WHEN little Indigo Packer was born in one of three rooms booked especially for her arrival in the private Mater Hospital on Sunday afternoon, she was greeted with more certainties in life than your average newborn.

In fact, ever since the day Robert Clyde Packer reportedly found 10 shillings at a Tasmanian racetrack and backed a horse at 12/1 - enough money to make it to the mainland to start his newspaper fortune - being part of the Packer clan has come with a series of cash-based guarantees.

Robert Clyde's son Frank was first to experience what it meant: a life of polo playing and yachting; of charity and fundraising; and of passing the salt to the heavyweights of Australian politics at your dinner table.

It was Frank's son Kerry who next learned the meaning of being a Packer. More polo, private jets, and the prime minister a regular at the front door.

It meant a house of hired help - maids, chefs, gardeners, tailors, chauffeurs, pilots and tennis, skiing and swimming coaches.

It meant the best of an education, sprawling properties around the globe and travel in luxury.

It was never having to work the cash register at Woolies, never feeling a hole in your sock or a longing for a warm coat.

And it was knowing that whatever you wanted to do in your life you absolutely could.

These things were as certain for Frank as they were for Kerry and, in more recent years, for James and his sister Gretel and her children.

Growing up, her father was so certain of his future, schoolmates from Sydney's exclusive Cranbrook tell of James standing in the school library pointing at the world map and laughing about which country he would buy.

Now, almost 100 years down the family tree, the Packer guarantee is set to continue for James and his wife Erica's newborn daughter Indigo - with the baby already being referred to as Australia's richest little girl.

While the heir to the $6 billion fortune might be decked out in Prada Baby and chew on Tiffany teething rings, Indigo's birth at the weekend signalled the death of one legendary Packer birthright - the wrath of a tyrannical father.

Sources close to the family describe Indigo's birth as a turning point for "generations of iron-fisted parenting" with James believed to be keen to "start over" with the birth of his daughter, taking little from his own difficult relationship with his father.

In business he has already turned his back on his father's beloved media interests, determined not to live in his shadow.

"He's shown that nous since his dad died ... I don't think he's in any danger of becoming another Kerry," the source said.

"He won't be anything like his dad. He hasn't got it in him."

"It" of course, is the well-documented brutality the Packer boys faced at the hands of their fathers Frank and Kerry.

The history books are hardly brimming with stories of fatherly love and tenderness. To the contrary, Kerry and his brother Clyde were cared for by a nurse Inez McCracken or "Nanny Packer" who, according to Clyde, was their "surrogate mother" who made "an unbearable childhood tolerable".

Kerry was famously sent on a 2000km round trip from Melbourne to Sydney and back again to collect a tennis racquet left behind on a school trip.

"He was very strict. But he was fair. He used to use a polo whip very well. I got a lot of beltings, because I wasn't a very good child, but in all of the times I can remember that I got a belting from him, I never got one that I didn't deserve," Kerry once revealed of his father.

It was harsh treatment but Kerry saw fit to bestow the same severity on his own son, the stories of which have filled whole chapters in Packer biographies, apparently "to the embarrassment" of James.

Among the countless tales of Kerry's tyrannical rule is the story of 14-year-old James ordered to improve his cricket batting skills, then being lined up in front of a baseball-throwing machine loaded with cricket balls being pelted at him at 160km/h.

"Come on, he's a man. Turn it up a bit," Kerry would yell to the coach. James was facing speeding leather-bound bullets faster than any Test bowler could ever muster.

It's a scene unimaginable in the Packer backyard these days.

Indeed, James has started a new life away from the Bellevue Hill compound in a luxury waterfront Bondi apartment where he is set to raise his generation of Packers.

His role models are more likely to be the modern, hands-on dads his friends are - such as property tycoon Ben Tilley, TV presenter Karl Stefanovic, mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, even Hollywood mate Tom Cruise - than for what he's worth.

While remaining intensely private, Packer has already shown signs of an emerging inner "Mr Mum", accompanying his wife to their ultrasound appointments and redecorating their Campbell Pde home in preparation for Indigo's arrival.

"In all honesty James is a lot blander than his father was ... he has a gentle side you didn't see in KP. I think you'll see him pushing the pram."

Yesterday a source close to the couple said: "He's putty in Erica's hands. Imagine what he'll be like with a darling little girl."