It’s certainly good to be back in Sydney after a week of exile in Bleak City.
And they certainly returned en masse late last week after the Melbourne Cup, hitting the town as elegantly as Ellie Aitken approaching a caviar dealer with a fist full of fifties.
John Borghetti was spotted at Ross Lusted’s Bridge Room.Credit: John Shakespeare
Friday kicked off with Virgin Australia boss John Borghetti spotted at Ross Lusted’s Bridge Room, perhaps pondering stockpicker Geoff Wilson’s attack on his chairwoman Elizabeth Bryan at the company’s annual general meeting a day earlier.
(Meanwhile, can we express our delight at the thought of Wilson marching in the streets against Chris Bowen’s planned changes to dividend imputation. He even reckons hearings of an inquiry into the changes will be “as powerful as we’ve seen in the royal commission”.)
One table along was the immaculately-groomed art patron John Kaldor, said to have appeared positively Deliverance-esque, tucking into an ash grilled duck with banyuls-softened prunes.
Must have been preparation for a long evening, including the pre-show Sydney Theatre Company party at Aria for the opening of Patrick White’s A Cheery Soul, once described by its author as a work which “upset everybody who saw it”.
Also there: designer Carla Zampatti and her son Alex Schuman, who happens to be Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s head of economic policy, as well as his boss Sarah Cruikshank.
It wouldn’t have been just White’s play which upset her that night, as factional infighting (involving Treasurer Dominic Perrottet and his mates) at the somewhat-less salubrious Castle Hill RSL blew up Berejiklian’s plan to stop a full-out factional war.
Anita Hegh in the Sydney Theatre Company's A Cheery Soul, which opened on Friday and attracted a list of Sydney identities.Credit: Daniel Boud
Platinum Asset Management billionaire Kerr Nielson would have been decidedly less worried, at the opening with former David Jones boss Peter Mason and UBS banker Ben Roberts.
Also on the guest list: former Deutsche banker Chum Darvall, former Liberal MP Bruce Baird and the Liberal Party’s federal president Nick Geiner.
The magic money bus
Before attending the theatre, Greiner had his own pre-show show in the form of a Liberal Party fundraiser at the Australian Hotels Association headquarters on Macquarie Street.
The star attraction: none other than Prime Minister Scott Morrison (sans bus).
Sadly, we hear the event was not all that well attended.
But it was nevertheless a good chance for Morrison (beer in hand) to meet the likes of Nine Entertainment regulatory affairs chief Claire Gill and her husband Nick Gill, who manages the one part of the Blue Sky Alternative Investments business which isn’t a bin fire — an agriculture fund owned by the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board.
Then there was the new Minerals Council chief executive Tania Constable and Origin Energy’s chief lobbyist Tim O’Grady, presumably thrilled with the government’s public flogging of his outfit and other major energy companies over high power prices.
It was all good practice for next week, when Morrison holds the Big One, a $3300-a-head fundraising dinner with Cabinet colleagues on Tuesday.
And the pressure is on. Labor leader Bill Shorten has his own boardroom lunch one day earlier (price tag: $5000 per seat).
Not drowning, waving
Gladys Berejiklian and David Elliott, photographed just before Ashleigh Raper's statement said her story had been used without her consent.Credit: Janie Barrett
It took Corrections Minister David Elliott two days, two hours and nine minutes to apologise for using ABC journalist Ashleigh Raper as a political sledge after she went public with allegations Luke Foley inappropriately touched her at the Parliamentary Christmas Party in 2016.
(He denies the allegations.)
If it was up to him, we'd doubt an apology would have ever even been made.
In her statement, Raper said this had been done "without my involvement or consent".
But Elliott, in his own statement on Thursday, did not apologise.
We don't know exactly when, whether on Thursday afternoon or on Friday, but it seems Berejiklian and Perrottet weighed in, urging him to apologise.
Still nothing, until 3.09pm on Saturday, when Elliott finally said sorry.
"I have every intention of respecting Ms Raper’s wishes and letting her get on with her life and will be making no further comments," he said.
What a gentleman!
Others close to Elliott have a different take.
Apparently Berejiklian simply told him to "do what he thinks is right".
As Kevin Rudd once said, perhaps it was "something of a personal journey".