Veil of secrecy descends on Midwinter Ball in Canberra

The opening of Parliament House’s first Midwinter Ball in the COVID age was punctured by a brief, and frankly underwhelming bit of protest.

Disgruntled by the ball’s corporate sponsors, which included Shell and Woodside, Extinction Rebellion activists had promised to stage an “Alternative Midwinter Ball” on the parliament lawns, featuring “sorrowful music [and] dancing black wraiths (representing fossil fuels),” with federal MPs in attendance.

Did someone say Met Gala? Sarah Hanson-Young wears her protest dress at the Midwinter Ball on Wednesday night.Credit: James Brickwood

Senator Lidia Thorpe, who along with leader Adam Bandt and fellow senators Dorinda Cox and Sarah Hanson-Young, was one of four Greens on the event’s guest list. Before heading to join protesters outside, Thorpe stormed through parliament’s Marble Foyer with a raised fist, yelling about “fossil fools”.

It was a slightly lacklustre effort, which made CBD wonder whether Thorpe would rather be partying in the House.

Meanwhile, Hanson-Young rocked up in a dress with “End Gas and Coal” scrawled on the back, a homage to US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2021 Met Gala effort and proof that Australia’s left and right are united in their stunning lack of originality.

Then guests started trickling in, and CBD was muzzled. You see, Anthony Albanese’s promise to lead a government of openness and transparency didn’t extend to the Midwinter Ball, with the prime minister’s office informing disgruntled press gallery journalists this afternoon that his speech would be off the record.

The unexpected 11th-hour call is a return to tradition. Former PM Scott Morrison’s savage roast of the press gallery – and takedown of Ten’s political editor Peter Van Onselen in 2019 – was heard by everyone because, for the first year ever, cameras were allowed in after the speech was leaked one time too many in the years preceding.

That change, it seems, was short-lived.

Braithwaite’s horses a Cox Plate scratching

For as long as CBD can remember, venerable Aussie vocalist Daryl Braithwaite has been geeing up the well-oiled Cox Plate crowd at the Moonee Valley racecourse with his classic cover of Rickie-Lee Jones’ The Horses.

The annual performance hasn’t always gone to plan. Race organisers, the Moonee Valley Racing Club, were less than impressed in 2010 when Braithwaite’s performance ran over time, with the former Sherbet frontman still belting out his anthem while the runners made their way to the starting gates, but the club has been happy to keep up the tradition.

Now it looks very much like Daryl has been scratched from this year’s plate.

Jockey-turned singer Robbie Dolan, who had a memorable turn on this year’s The Voice Australia, confirmed on Wednesday that he had been booked to perform Horses this year in the Moonee Valley mounting yard. Seems like a natural choice.

CBD understands that Braithwaite won’t feature on the Cox Plate Day but may make an appearance at some point in the two-day carnival, with the club making arrangements for a full line-up announcement in the coming days.

A Share Bet

Looks like David Gallop has a good feeling about the betting markets for footy finals and spring racing carnivals.

The former NRL boss and TabCorp director has nearly doubled the holding of the company’s shares in his self-managed super fund. The sums involved aren’t huge; Gallop has boosted his shareholding from about $16,700 to a touch under $30,000, but it’s a decent vote of confidence in the nation’s largest wagering operation all the same.

The plunge by Gallop, who also had a stint running the round ball code in Australia, isn’t a terrible bet either. TabCorp shares have continued their steady recovery from a mid-2020 nadir of just 44 cents to 94 cents on Wednesday lunchtime.

We asked David on Wednesday what gave him such a good feeling about the company. He didn’t respond.

Aerial combat

On Monday night, beleaguered airline Qantas got the full Four Corners treatment, with an investigation from reporter Stephen Long painting a bleak picture of an airline in the grips of chaos and decline.

It included a tense clash between Long and Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, which culminated in the journalist being escorted from the building.

But the relationship between two national institutions isn’t always so antagonistic. While savaging the carrier with one hand, Aunty is meanwhile advertising a producer job specifically to put together special bulletins to run on Qantas flights.

It comes after the ABC made a deal with Qantas in July to produce dedicated in-flight news bulletins. We imagine the candidate in question might need to have sharp diplomacy skills. And given the airline’s recent track record with delays, those bulletins better be long!

He’s already dead!

Everyone is taking potshots at former prime minister and miracle man Scott Morrison. At a NSW budget estimates hearing on Wednesday, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet made a quip about Morrison’s secret ministries.

“I am not Scott Morrison here. I don’t run every single ministry,” he said.

And speaking at a Free TV event in Parliament House the night before, Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg delivered a slightly more ambiguous roast, telling guests to “never trust anyone who changes their football team,” a lesson so important he instructed the crowd to write it down, and repeated it later on.

Sure, it could be a reference to Bill Shorten, once a Swans fan who turned to the Pies. But given Bragg’s recent commentary on the last government’s election campaign, our money is on the former PM – a rugby union fan until preselection in Cook made him a Cronulla Sharks tragic, and whose old support for the Western Bulldogs appears long forgotten.

But we’ll leave you to guess.

Book ’em

A battle of the book launches broke out this week among federal Labor’s policy wonks in Canberra.

Government backbencher, and former Victorian state Labor MP, Daniel Mulino’s debut tome Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia was launched by Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who had to hot-foot it shortly after his address.

Among the attendees were fellow Melburnian and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten and Senator Deb O’Neill. From outside Parliament, former Labor stalwart “Coal” Joel Fitzgibbon, and HECS architect Bruce Chapman dropped in.

Mulino’s book, written during the Victorian lockdown, weighs in at a hefty 313 pages – far too many to tempt Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to read. Unlike fellow PhD economist Andrew Leigh’s book, which at a light 80-pages was enough for Albanese to digest on a weekend away before launching it on Tuesday evening.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus grabbed a copy of Leigh’s 10th book, which was being doled out for free to attending MPs and journalists, before ducking out. Among those getting a signed copy of Fair Game: Lessons from Sport for a Fairer Society and a Stronger Economy were Minister for Regional Development Kristy McBain, as well as fellow Canberra politicians, MPs David Smith and Alicia Payne.

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