Downunder tour to net Blair $1m

Tony Blair. Photo / Martin Sykes

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is predicted to pocket more than $1 million from his mid-winter lecture tour Downunder, which includes a banquet and cocktail party in Auckland.

Britain's Sunday Times said Mr Blair was expected to earn more than A$775,000 ($1.05 million) from the five-city, three-day tour to New Zealand and Australia in late July.

The cheapest ticket is $1354, offering a "full sit-down banquet meal" and pre-event cocktail party, while the VIP ticket, at $2031, includes a photograph with Mr Blair.

Mr Blair, Prime Minister for a decade and billed by promoter Max Markson as "the politician who defines our times", will speak at Eden Park on July 28, after starting his tour the previous day in Melbourne.

The Sunday Times said that since leaving office in 2007, Mr Blair had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $60.9 million, helped by the lecture circuit and lucrative consultancies.

Some of the money has been used to fund his political and charitable empire, ranging from his Faith Foundation to pro bono work advising governments in Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

The paper said the Australasian tour was expected to generate more than $3.1 million in ticket sales, and additional money from sponsorship, although so far fewer than half the tickets had been sold. Mr Blair typically earned at least $203,000 for each paid speech.

Mr Markson, a public relations agent, in 2005 organised a charity tour for Mr Blair's wife, Cherie. At one of the events, only 8.2 per cent of the proceeds went to the beneficiary, a children's cancer charity.