Is Bond Corporation (as in, “James Bond 007”) Director Tony Oates an Ayn Rand fan? Sounds like it:
CURIOUS buyers from the ranks of Perth’s elite to suburban family battlers yesterday converged on a $5 million Swan Valley horse stud to pore over the goods and chattels at the former home of Bond Corporation director Tony Oates.
From the gleaming Rolls Royce to the rusty Japanese pick-up, the vehicle line-up outside the sprawling estate was testament to the broad appeal of the upmarket garage sale.
The high-profile status of the disgraced businessman helped pull in more than 500 punters, all eager to get a glimpse of the lifestyle once enjoyed by Oates, a man whose name is synonymous with 1980s corporate greed and the era known as WA Inc.
Bargain hunters Steve Good and Wendy Quinn, hobby farmers from Mandurah, thought the stud farm would have been a “grand place” to live.
But apart from a few knick-knacks, a tatty old horse rug emblazoned with the moniker, “The Bond Australia Show Jumping Championship South Australia – 1986” and a dog- eared copy of Ayn Rand’s Capitalism – The Unknown Ideal lying on top of a cardboard box of household junk, there were few hints to Oates’s private world.
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