Rear Window

AHA, Call of the Card pull punters, publicans and pollies on Melbourne Cup eve

Bryce Corbett and Joe Aston

Oct 31, 2016 – 11.45pm

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In the Google Maps era, the Australian Hotel Association's Melbourne Cup eve luncheon in the Botanical Gardens shouldn't require orienteering proficiency to find. Not so for Barton Deakin lobbyist and former NSW Liberal leader Peter Collins, who sent his perplexed and late apologies from a small grassy knoll in Sydney's Botanic Gardens, where he was yet to locate the function. If you ever run into the bloke in Alice Springs, presume he's there for the Cairns Derby.

A bevvy (pun intended) of pollies did navigate the arduous tracks that are St Kilda and Toorak roads to hear Treasury Wine Estate's George Samios, AHA boss Stephen Ferguson and lastly Trade Minister Steven Ciobo's ode to the humble pub, a well-received swipe to lock-out laws around the country and at "a worrying shift towards wowserism".

Bryce Corbett co-writes The Australian Financial Review's Rear Window column. He is a journalist with more than 20 years' experience. He lives in Brisbane and Sydney.

Joe Aston is the founder of Rampart and the best-selling author of The Chairman’s Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out. From 2012 to 2023, Joe helmed The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window column.