Federal budget just an entree for power dining

Two of tonight’s most exclusive post-budget events will be held at restaurants most Australians have probably never heard of.

Portia’s Place, in Canberra’s Kingston, is a long-time favourite for post-budget celebrations.

For many in the media, tonight is the biggest night of the year. No, we are not so much talking about the 2018 federal budget, but the traditional 2018 federal budget dinner, which goes long into the Canberra night after the special supplements have been put to bed.

While numerous cocktail functions and satellite events swirl around the budget, these are timed for people who don’t actually have to do any work. The two most exclusive events are the invite-only gatherings for hardworking staff of the two journalistic clans, News and Fairfax, who gather at their preferred restaurants — the Ottoman, for a Turkish-inspired budget dinner, or Portia’s Place.

LIVE COVERAGE OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET

Make no mistake, these events can be career enhancing/ending, given the heady mix some hacks experience in proximity to editors and copious amounts of alcohol.

One hot topic tonight: the fact that the Coalition government’s efficiency/austerity drive has finally reached Treasury, which hosts hundreds of journalists in a secure embargoed “lockup” before the budget is handed down at 7.30pm (AEST).

Treasury has quietly axed the free tea and coffee urns that were a fixture of proceedings and instead adopted a user-pay, as-you-go system in the best economic traditions of the Liberal Party. The urns are out and in comes a coffee cart, derided by one logistics co-ordinator as “tiny”, and which will trundle through the lockup manned by a harried barista unlikely to know what has hit him or her. Each coffee will cost $4, which sounds steep, even for Canberra, and muffins for $3.80.

The age of entitlement is well and truly over for gallery hacks, and the many more who journey from interstate for the event. Some media companies have rebelled, hiring their own urns, and the issue became something of a political debate on the Twittersphere, along the lines of “why does the government want to spend $65 billion on corporate tax cuts and not supply journos with tea and coffee?”

Inside the budget lockup. Pic: Getty Images

Treasury would do well to take heed that newspapers might not march on their stomachs but they are definitely fuelled by caffeine and alcohol. And thus to the dinners, where in Canberra ideological allegiances tend to dissipate where a feed is concerned.

Over to The Australian’s Canberra power dining correspondent, Dennis Shanahan. “There are still favoured spots, such as the Ottoman (Turkish, Barton), Chairman and Yip (Asian fusion, the city), and Portia’s (Chinese, Kingston, where Abbott used to dine with a group of Liberal frontbenchers every Monday night) and the Charcoal Grill (60s steak, the city), but some of these have changed and there are newcomers,” Shanahan, who doubles as the newspaper’s political editor, wrote in a feature in 2014.

The Ottoman (specialty: seafood dishes of Istanbul!), is the News Corporation restaurant of choice, and was long the Labor Party power dining destination after it opened in 1987 as the Anatolia, favoured by ministers Paul Keating, Kim Beazley and Graham Richardson, according to Shanahan.

The Australian will have its own private room, courtesy of an renovation a few years ago that increased the number of private dining spaces, but a late booking means it looks likely that the Herald Sun will have to mix it out in the main restaurant with Joe Public.

Inside Canberra’s Ottoman restaurant

And the considerably less grand but more beloved Portia’s Place (specialty: crispy duck pancakes with hoisin sauce!) is the preferred destination of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Former prime minister Tony Abbott used to dine at Portia’s with a group of Liberal frontbenchers every Monday night and the restaurant provided the first prime ministerial meal for Julia Gillard on her first night after dispatching Kevin Rudd from the top job. It was a takeaway, details undisclosed.

Portia’s Place arrived in Canberra in 1996 after Portia Yeung, who knew how to charm a politician, founded a restaurant in nearby Queanbeyan and then upgraded to the national capital just as John Howard assumed the prime ministership. And when the legendary proprietor called it a day in 2011, the news made the pages of this newspaper (byline D. Shanahan).

Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott dine at Portia's Place in 2004. Pic: Ray Strange.

But spare a thought for those who will not be heading out to dinner tonight.

Chris Uhlmann, Nine’s political editor, will be on air at 10.30pm, so is planning a slice of pizza in a parliamentary corridor.

And dinner is too old school for Sky News, which won’t draw breath until Friday reporting the ins and outs of the budget. And radio presenters, such as Radio National’s Fran Kelly, who will be on air from 6am tomorrow, rarely get a chance to kick up their heels these days.