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A New Zealander has been named the richest Australasian for the first time in history, but Kiwis predict Australia will have a hard time accepting it.
New Zealand tow truck driver-turned-businessman Graeme Hart has beaten media moguls James Packer and Rupert Murdoch, and shopping centre owner Frank Lowy to the title of richest person Down Under.
Hart, owner of an international packaging products empire, leap-frogged almost 100 people to finish in a nine-way tie for 110th richest in the annual Forbes business magazine billionaire rankings.
Graeme Hunt, the former editor of New Zealand's NBR (National Business review) Rich List, predicts that Australians will have trouble accepting "we can be better than them, especially with money".
"It's beyond many Australians to accept that a Kiwi could beat them at their own game, unless of course they just decide that the Kiwi is actually an Aussie," Hunt told AAP.
"Graeme Hart's just not like that. He's a Kiwi through-and-through with working class origins.
"He might have some offices in Sydney, and spend a bit of time over the ditch but he won't be claimed."
Hart famously worked as a tow-truck driver and a panel beater after leaving school at 16, but now holds an MBA and is admired as one of the world's most astute businessmen.
Forbes puts Hart's wealth at $US4.5 billion ($NZ8.6 billion), ahead of Murdoch with $US4 billion ($NZ7.7 billion), Lowy with $US2.7 billion ($NZ5.2 billion) and Packer with $US2.5 billion ($NZ4.8 billion).
He even pips Richard Branson, Donald Trump, movie directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and Apple computers founder Steve Jobs.
This is all despite losing about $US600 million ($A916.73 million) off his estimated net worth. Microsoft founder Bill Gates regained the top spot.
New Zealand media claim that "down is the new up" for Hart, whose companies include Carter Holt Harvey and Switzerland's SIG, and the food manufacturer Burns Philp.
"He's been better at holding onto his wealth where others have lost it," said Hunt, a popular financial commentator in New Zealand.
"The trick is he runs real businesses, selling food, wood, things people need to live.
"That is what really separates him from Packer and others."
Hunt said Hart had secured himself as a long-term investor and was not in it for a "quick buck".
"In that sense his losses are just paper losses, and to the Aussies I'd say `he's on the top of that list to stay'."
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