Liberal faithful ecstatic as Scomo snatches victory
It was just after 8.30pm and the miraculous work of “The Messiah from The Shire” was revealing itself.
“We could win this!” exclaimed Liberal lobbyist Michael Photios, glass of red wine in hand.
Only an hour earlier the ballroom at the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth was braced for a wake.
Early exit polls had supported the widely forecast coronation of Labor’s Bill Shorten. Former prime minister Tony Abbott had been humiliated in Warringah.
But now, amazingly, the Liberals were preparing for one of their better parties.
Some of the wiser heads in Australian politics were watching the numbers in disbelief.
“This is incredible,” said former Howard staffer Anthony Benscher, a lobbyist at the Liberal-aligned shop Barton Deakin.
As the count of projected Coalition seats crept up, so did the room swell.
The VIP area hosted by the party’s honorary treasurer Andrew Burnes, the Helloworld Travel boss, and his fundraising offsider Natalie Stirling had begun as a modest affair.
Now, thanks to some late arrivals, it was sparkling with big Liberal donors, including fashion legend Carla Zampatti and former Perpetual chairman Charles Curran.
And out in the ballroom, staffers, Liberal footsoldiers and fellow travellers kept pouring in.
There was former state leader Kerry Chikarovski, fellow MP turned lobbyist Fiona Scott, headhunter Rebecca Tabakoff, NSW state Liberal director Chris Stone and Hollie Hughes, finally a Liberal senator after all those years of trying.
The glum anecdotes that had begun the night — for example, that hours earlier Hollywood star Hugo Weaving had given a booth volunteer in Wentworth a forthright indication that Agent Smith would not be voting Liberal — were long gone.
Things had turned euphoric.
“It’s like The Twilight Zone,” said one party operative, looking on in disbelief. A gruelling day on a polling booth on Sydney’s north shore had not prepared her for this.
Liberal federal president Nick Greiner and NSW Liberal president Philip Ruddock were beaming.
From 70 onwards, each seat Antony Green added to the ABC’s tally was accompanied by an eruption in the now packed ballroom.
State Liberal heroine Gladys Berejiklian entered and set off another cheer. Former prime minister John Howard followed, setting them off again.
In the TV pen just behind them, Sky News talking heads Chris Kenny and Paul Murray were giving each other bear hugs.
Now the Sky News banner announced: “Shorten concedes”.
Former SBS chairman Nihal Gupta had to step out of the heated room. “I can’t breathe in there. It’s amazing!” he told us.
It was all too much for one elderly attendee, who was carried out on a stretcher by a team of paramedics.
Scott Morrison’s close friend, David Gazard, was a late arrival after driving down from Canberra.
“This has never been done!” said a jubilant Gazard, before taking position up the front of the room to film on his phone his mate, the now elected PM, giving his victory speech.
Morrison staffers Nick Creevey, Julian Leembruggen and speechwriter Paul Ritchie — whose decision to sign up to Morrison’s Prime Minister’s Office last August now looks inspired — were assembling in a tunnel formation to welcome their boss.
And then, well after midnight, the PM arrived, to give a speech almost no one had anticipated as the day had begun — one claiming victory.
Watching on were three late arrivals who were instrumental to what may become the federal Liberal Party’s most legendary victory: the PM’s close friend and fellow Cronulla Sharks tragic Scott Briggs, the PM’s principal adviser Yaron Finklestein (an uncommonly optimistic polling guru lured into the PMO last August from Liberal-aligned research firm Crosby Textor) and Finklestein’s former CT employee Andrew Hirst, the Liberal Party’s ascendant federal director.
“He’s the new Lynton Crosby,” gushed one of Hirst’s many admirers.
Imagine the fees when he goes private again.
Cold comfort
Does packaging billionaire Anthony Pratt have the political kiss of death?
Australia’s richest man strode into trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox and property developer Max Beck’s Hyatt Place hotel at their Essendon Fields precinct expecting a party.
Instead he got an early night.
“I only came to this one because they invited me,” Pratt, worth $13.14 billion on The Stensholt List, declared to Margin Call on Saturday night as he did a 9pm runner via a side door of the 18-month-old airport hotel.
“I would have gone to the Liberal one too, popped in, but they didn’t ask me.”
Back in 2016, Pratt had journeyed to Sydney for what was supposed to be a celebration of then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Instead, Pratt, who had been one of Turnbull’s biggest donors, had to wait until the small hours to witness that excruciating election night speech.
It’s a good thing Pratt — sporting casual slacks and a Prada zip-up — is pragmatic.
“We will work with whoever the government of the day is,” the Visy Industries chief told us.
As for Beck, who is worth almost $700 million, he spent most of the evening in his hotel’s restaurant, breaking bread with friend and accountant to Melbourne’s uber rich Joe Bongiorno.
Being similarly discreet was Shorten’s friend and pro-bono lawyer at Arnold Bloch Leiber, Leon Zwier.
Labor organisers had been expecting up to 1000 supporters in the hotel’s Australian Room, which was lit red and festooned with balloons.
The decorations made for one of history’s more exuberant wakes.
At the end of last week Margin Call was told a clutch of Shorten’s billionaire mates were planning to join the celebration, with Beck and Fox said to have offered up their airport for an anticipated fleet of private jets.
As it eventuated, the tarmac remained clear.
Chloe Shorten’s old school mate Kimberley Kitching, now a Labor senator for Victoria and close confidante of the shattered Member for Maribyrnong, took on hosting duties.
Kitching moved between wellwishers and the adjacent operative bunker, as the numbers turned against her colleagues.
Shorten’s investment banker twin brother Robert Shorten, who votes in Josh Frydenberg’s Kooyong, was an early arrival in business suit and red tie.
AustralianSuper boss Ian Silk arrived later with The Australian Financial Review columnist Jennifer Hewitt. The $150bn man attempted to keep a low profile — not an easy task when you sport corporate Australia’s most recognisable moustache.
Also along was mental health advocate Patrick McGorry, Labor lobbyists from Hawker Britton Simon Banks and Neal Jones, former Melbourne University Press boss Louise Adler and husband Max Gillies, deputy chief of Melbourne-based law firm Maurice Blackburn (Shorten’s old shop) Felicity Pantelidis, and Olympian and short-lived Labor senator Nova Peris.
Local youth advocate and activist Les Twentyman and renegade retired Catholic priest and community worker Father Bob McGuire took turns pressing their causes with billionaire Pratt.
As things turned, the room thinned.
There were hugs, tears and cries of “shame”.
Labor’s forgetful former member for Batman, David Feeney, consoled himself with white wine as those who remained morosely waited for Shorten’s concession speech.
By then, returned but shattered Member for Gorton Brendan O’Connor had arrived, along with deflated national party president Wayne Swan.
Meanwhile, Victorian Labor Premier Dan Andrews and wife Catherine, who was stonkingly re-elected just six months ago, slipped in the front door of the hotel to be welcomed by operatives and proprietor Beck, who is close to the state leader.
Andrews, no ally of Shorten’s, was said to have texted confidantes that the federal result was a “shit show”.
Labor national secretary Noah Carroll can expect much more feedback along those lines.
At least the James Boag was cold.
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