Fittingly, the Liberal Party’s 80th birthday will be best remembered for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton going off-script and calling Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a “child in a man’s body” during his speech at the federal council on Saturday. Lord knows what Robert Menzies would’ve made of it all.
The night before Dutton’s rush of blood, Liberals were in a festive mood. The party’s good and great gathered at Sydney’s Hyatt Regency for a special gala dinner, where John Howard was once again wheeled out to gee up the troops, who were busy gorging themselves on marinated eye fillet and a patriotic dessert menu of raspberry lamingtons, Anzac crumble and our favourite, Cherry Ripe cheesecake.
Meanwhile, the Moderate faction gathered around the corner at El Loco, a Justin Hemmes-owned Mexican pastiche (the name appropriately translates as “the crazy”), for their Black Hand Dinner (a steal at $60 a head, with a cash bar). Or as former defence minister Christopher Pyne once described it, “the winner’s circle”.
Pyne sadly couldn’t make Friday’s event, but ensured his jovial presence was felt by buying everyone drinks from afar. It was an otherwise fairly standard crowd of mods – former attorney-general George Brandis, ex-South Australian premier Steven Marshall, Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto, NSW MP James Griffin and rebellious backbencher Bridget Archer, who we’re shocked to see at a Liberal event.
Most of the top dogs kicked on to El Loco after the big event at the Hyatt, with shadow ministers Jane Hume and Linda Reynolds arriving to cheers from the room. Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s speech on nuclear energy drew a more lacklustre response.
Other speakers included moderate powerbroker Michael Photios, Brandis and shadow foreign minister Simon Birmingham, the faction’s leader, whose rousing address about “being competitive due to unity” was a far cry from what Dutton would deliver the next day.
As for why the dinner is called the Black Hand, that dates back to the 1980s, when Brandis and a few fellow moderates decided to name their “subversive” factional gathering after the Serbian secret society responsible for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand and starting World War I. All in jest, obviously.
SLEEPER AGENTS
Last Thursday, a bunch of business and political types engaged in a night on the street, while raising millions for charity at the Vinnies CEO Sleepout – a priceless insight into corporate Australia’s mateship networks.
Top barrister Arthur Moses SC, a sleepout regular, might not be the biggest fundraiser, with about $28,000 in donations, but he’s probably among the best-connected. Moses’ girlfriend, former NSW premier-turned-Optus executive Gladys Berejiklian, chipped in a little more than $1000. And yet again, billionaire Seven controller Kerry Stokes, who also paid for Moses to represent war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith in a failed defamation suit against this masthead, put in $2002.
Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou had raised more than $118,000 by Sunday afternoon, from donors including Stokes’ former Seven consigliere Bruce McWilliam ($545), vitamin king Marcus Blackmore ($2000) and Merivale pub baron Hemmes, who donated a grand.
Other high-flying sleepers include Crown boss Ciaran Carruthers and House of Representatives speaker Milton Dick, who received cash from donors from across the aisle such as Labor ministers Richard Marles and Mark Dreyfus, teals Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel, and Sussan Ley, Michael McCormack and David Littleproud from the Coalition.
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
When an email slid into our inboxes on Friday announcing the departure of Jessica Ducrou, one of the co-founders and co-chief executive of Splendour in the Grass, from the music festival’s Live Nation-backed parent company Secret Sounds, it came as both a shock and little surprise.
It hasn’t been a terribly festive time on the festivals circuit recently, with cancellations, confusion and outright collapses across the sector. And not even Live Nation, the world’s biggest touring company, is immune.
Falls Festival, founded in 1993 by Simon Daly, went on hiatus after its 2022 edition, and there has yet to be any indication it will come back, while Splendour in the Grass – founded in 2001 by Ducrou and former Powderfinger manager Paul Piticco – fell over in March, less than two weeks after tickets went on sale for a bill headlined by Kylie Minogue. Both are run by Secret Sounds.
There’s been much muttering about the festivals’ failure to attract the kind of talent that would drive young people to attend, and so the writing was arguably on the wall for Ducrou. (Where it leaves Piticco, who remains as chief executive of Secret Sounds for now at least, is anyone’s guess.)
The official statement painted this as a bloodless coup, with Ducrou “announcing” her own departure.
“I’m well due for an overseas summer holiday, so it’s a good time to take a break before I embark on my next chapter,” she said.
We’re not saying she was pushed, but the statement certainly deployed language straight outta the corporate assassination playbook, noting Ducrou planned to take some time out “to spend with her children” before she looks to “start her next chapter”.
We approached Secret Sounds for more details but didn’t hear back.
Intriguingly, Ducrou will retain her position – for now, at least – as chair of the state government-funded Sound NSW, and as deputy chair of the Australian Festival Association, where she will no doubt continue to lobby for government support for the beleaguered sector. She certainly knows first-hand how tough it is.
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