{"id":773484,"date":"2026-07-02T04:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773484\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T04:01:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:01:18","slug":"midwinter-ball-all-the-guests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773484\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwinter Ball: All the guests"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Every year, tradition has it that the prime minister and opposition leader each give speeches at the annual Midwinter Ball, an event hosted by the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery to raise money for charity.<\/p>\n

For reasons incomprehensible to us here at CBD, these speeches are delivered under what\u2019s known as the \u201cChatham House rule\u201d, which means journalists cannot quote the leaders on the record. But the rule, of course, only binds those in the room. And seeing as we weren\u2019t physically present, it doesn\u2019t apply to us!<\/p>\n

\"OppositionOpposition Leader Angus Taylor with his wife, Louise Clegg.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

An insider\u2019s account of the proceedings leaked to CBD, which for whatever it\u2019s worth did not come from our Herald and Age colleagues, suggested we didn\u2019t miss out on much. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made some predictable remarks about News Corp and the big four consulting giant, EY, after two of its staff faced charges<\/a> after they allegedly accessed the PM\u2019s confidential banking details.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those wandering in late, there\u2019s plenty of room at the EY table,\u201d Albanese said, to laughs. \u201cDon\u2019t worry \u2013 they\u2019ve got your details.\u201d<\/p>\n

More entertaining to us, though, was Opposition Leader Angus Taylor\u2019s belly flop. The opposition leader had big shoes to fill after his predecessor Sussan Ley brought the house down last year. But Taylor, who along with Peter Dutton has to be among the most humourless people to ever take the stage in the Great Hall of Parliament House, failed to meet even the low expectations set heading into Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

\"AnneAnne Aly, Laura and Jim Chalmers, and Katy Gallagher with daughter Evie.Dominic Lorrimer, Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

The opposition leader sounded sensitive and insecure as he tried to joke his way through how terribly he\u2019s polling, and bumbled his way through a mystifying bit on brumbies, which, if nothing else, gave him at least one star for the performance. Because only he could have written it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve copped some flak from my friends on Sky After Dark for caring too much about brumbies,\u201d Taylor said to the room, presumably to eyerolls. \u201cI care about a lot of uncontrollable things. The brumbies, the Coalition Party Room, Newspoll, Redbridge polls, Roy Morgan polls, the National Party near a microphone, the panel on the Insiders couch on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more: He relates to the brumbies, he said. They\u2019re stubborn, hard to shift, impossible to manage, he said. And every few months someone says they should be culled, he said. But they\u2019ve taught him a lot about, er, leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep moving, watch your flank. Remember, in the high country, when someone kicks you, [they do] it to your face,\u201d he continued, by this point well and truly flogging the proverbial dead horse. \u201cHere in Canberra, you guys just call it speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party matters.\u201d Then something-something Yellowstone, something-something Pauline Hanson, who, by the sounds of it, is living rent-free in Taylor\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Having<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps the best part of the opposition leader\u2019s address was his mention of none other than CBD.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our night of nights on the parliamentary sitting calendar,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cOr as the Nine papers\u2019 CBD column described it today: \u2018Canberra\u2019s Met Gala for ugly people\u2019. I think that\u2019s a bit harsh.\u201d On reflection, we\u2019ll pay that \u2013 many of our press gallery colleagues looked wonderful.<\/p>\n

Beyond Taylor\u2019s bomb, CBD hears the event was a hoot. A tonne of cash was raised for charity. The funds raised will go to the Foyer Foundation, a charity focused on youth homelessness, and Redkite, a charity that focuses on childhood cancer. Funds will also go to Farm Angels, which focuses on mental health support for farming families, along with The Laptop initiative, which distributes unwanted laptops to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as the St Vincent de Paul Society, Women\u2019s Justice Network, and Cystic Fibrosis ACT.<\/p>\n

To top it all off, our very own chief political commentator, James Massola, won press gallery journalist of the year, which only could\u2019ve been beaten by his name being spelt correctly when it flashed up on screen. Massola, who has been a senior member of the Canberra bureau for 14 years, took home the prize for his insightful analysis of the internal machinations within both the Labor and Liberal parties, just a week after our political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos won the award for young press gallery journalist of the year last week.<\/p>\n

\"JodieJodie Haydon and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

We also hear the food was OK. Guests arrived to entrees of either smoked ocean trout, sunrise lime kosho kewpie, kombu and beans, or game farm duck with rosella char siu, brussels and petit cos with chickpea miso kefir.<\/p>\n

For mains, there was olive oil-poached barramundi, samphire and local mushroom, and saffron emulsion. The alternative was chicken and pencil leek ballotine, Paris mash and saltbush carrots, with pancetta veloute.<\/p>\n

\"TealTeal independents Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele and Zali Steggall.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

For dessert, a Batlow apple and date upside-down cake, caramel sauce, and custard.<\/p>\n

And the most important question of them all: How did they all scrub up? Decide for yourself from our highlights reel below.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Chaaya and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland.Alex Ellinghausen\"EvieEvie and Katy Gallagher in Aje.Dominic Lorrimer\"MinisterMinister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek and Michael Coutts-Trotter.Alex Ellinghausen\"LaborLabor MP Jerome Laxale and Jo Taranto.Alex Ellinghausen\"AnimalAnimal Justice Party member of the Victorian Legislative Council Georgie Purcell before the 2026 Midwinter Ball.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

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\"JohnJohn Buckley<\/a> is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-773484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}