Do we like them?

Do we like Kerry Stokes?

Our score: 5 out of 10. Big, long-running generosity to sick kids sits against years of backing Ben Roberts-Smith, and nothing against LGBTQ+ people or the planet turned up.

Stokes is a rags-to-riches story with the receipts. He was adopted from an orphanage, left school at 14 and skinned rabbits as a kid in hard times. He later installed TV antennas on suburban roofs in WA, then built a property fortune and by the mid-1990s had control of Seven.

From there it was an empire. He picked up The West Australian in 2011 and, through his private firm Australian Capital Equity, built stakes in heavy machinery, construction, energy and equipment hire. AAP had him at about $11.7 billion in 2025. In February 2026 he finally stood down as chair, saying he'd been involved at a direct level with Seven for more than 30 years.

The stoush he's best known for is Ben Roberts-Smith. Stokes financed the former SAS soldier's defamation case against Nine's newspapers, and a Federal Court judge ruled that, more likely than not, Roberts-Smith killed four Afghan civilians. That left Stokes facing a legal bill the Herald estimated at $30 million or more, including interest.

After a Seven West AGM in 2022, Michael West Media reported he said that Roberts-Smith was innocent and that “scumbag journalists” should be held to account. The AFR reported that Stokes denied making the comments, and Michael West stood by its account, so treat that one as contested.

Then there's the Bruce Lehrmann interview. The Walkley Foundation pulled the finalist status of Seven's Spotlight story, saying the entry did not accurately describe the benefits given to Lehrmann, including a year of Sydney accommodation. Seven defended the report. Nothing we read puts Stokes personally in that decision, but it was his network.

On the harm check, honestly, the cupboard is thin in both directions. Nothing turned up in our searches where he's said anything nasty about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or climate, and nothing on campaigning against anyone's rights. What counts against him is who he stood behind in the Roberts-Smith fight, which is why it's an asterisk and not a clean bill. We found no sign of him platforming conspiracy theories.