Australia's Federal Court on Tuesday ended a long-running legal battle by ruling in favour of a series of objections to taxation assessments by a group of the billionaire's companies.

The ruling means Packer's privately-held Consolidated Press Holdings will pay as little as A$25,000 in tax instead of more than A$100 million sought by the Australian Taxation Office.

The amount of taxable income had exceeded A$200 million, a Consolidated Press spokesman told reporters after the ruling.

Australian Taxpayers' Association spokeswoman Barbara Smith said the case indicated an argent need for taxation reform.

"Every Australian should be ringing their politician up today and asking how this can be and why their politician has not done anything about it over many years," she said.

Tax lawexpert professor Yuri Grbich of the University of New South Wales accused the court of helping Packer to flout Australia's tax laws.

"The Federal Court needs to take a good hard look at itself about its contribution...to tax avoidance in Australia," Grbich said.

Justice Graham Hill found in Consolidated Press's favour on three of four objections it raised to tax assessments for the 1990 and 1991 (July/June) fiscal years.

The assessments followed tax office reviews of a complicated web of international transactions which included a failed A$28 billion bid for British American Tobacco Plc.

Packer's challenge to the assessments was heard last month.

Hill ruled in part that the tax assessmeots had been shown to be "excessive".