Howard’s elite – the official list

How come Kylie Russell, the only Australian widowed when we fought the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, didn’t get an invite to the Bush barbecue? How come crocodile man Steve Irwin did? Could it be because Steve said recently that Howard was the best leader in the world and Kylie’s been fighting for better compensation for SAS officers killed in training or combat?

John Howard chose the guests for George and its mix and make-up perfectly situates John Howard’s Australia. Who’s in. Who’s out. Us and them. With me or against me.

John Howard came to power on the slogan “For all of us” and promised to crush Keating’s elite and bring grassroots Australians into the power circle. He lied. His “us” is much narrower than Keating’s and more brutally exclusionary. Big business, close friends, big media personalities and lots of sportstars to help his image. No artists. Overwhelmingly male.

And the “them”? All the rest of us, including working journalists to observe and report the event for the people of Australia. That is, until the exposure of the lockout and the free access of the American media saw Howard deign to allow one writer and one photographer to attend. Despite this, and the unprecedented censorship and control of press gallery journalists during the visit, the head of the press gallery committee, Daily Telegraph political correspondent Malcolm Farr, accepted a late invitation. I’ll write more later on the crisis in the press gallery exposed by last week’s debacle.

Here’s the list of invitees, supplied late Thursday night after Howard’s office refused all day to oblige. According to Melbourne’s Herald Sun – Herald Sun press gallery reporter Jason Frenkel spent Wednesday ringing around famous people to uncover some guests – John Laws, Westfield billionaire Frank Lowy, Steve Waugh and former Liberal Treasurer Ron Walker were invited but could not make it due to the late notice. Howard’s office didn’t have the courtesy – to the guests or the Australian people – to include their positions in the list. Those I couldn’t find in Who’s Who or a web search I put to Howard’s spin doctor David Luff. He wasn’t sure about James Kelly, but thought he was a White House man. I haven’t placed Andrea Ball – can someone tell me who she is?

To end, memories from the last Presidential visit, and controversy over Mrs Howard’s idea of the women Hillary would like to meet. Bear in mind that the Clintons had many opportunities to meet Australians. With Bush, there was just one, the barbecue.

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JOHN AND JANETTE HOWARD’S ELITE

Howard’s family

Howard- McDonald, Mrs Melanie & Mr Rowan McDonald

Howard, Mr Richard

Howard, Mr Timothy

Howard’s staff

Varghese, Mr Peter

Nutt, Mr Tony

O’Leary, Mr Tony

Sinodinos, Mr Arthur

Howard’s politicians

Anderson, Mr John & Mrs Julia

Costello, Mr Peter & Mrs Tanya

Downer, Mr Alexander & Mrs Nicky

Hill, Senator Robert & Mrs Diana Hill

Vaile, Mr Mark & Mrs Wendy

Howard’s corporates

Triguboff AO, Mr Harry & Mrs Rhonda – head of Sydney’s biggest apartment developer Meriton

Campbell, Mr Terry & Mrs Christine – executive chairman of Were Stockbroking

Davis, Mr Leon – deputy chairman Rio Tinto

Gerard AO, Mr Rob & Mrs Fay – managing director Gerard Industries

Ramsay AO, Mr Paul – head of Ramsay Health Care

Howard’s sportstars

Eales, Mr John & Mrs Lara

Hewitt, Mr Lleyton

Taylor, Mr Mark & Mrs Judy

Howard’s media

Packer, Mr Kerry & Mrs Ros

Stokes AO, Mr Kerry & Ms Christine Simpson

Jones AM, Mr Alan – Howard’s favourite talkback king, found guilty of taking cash for favourable comment on companies without disclosure

Farr, Mr Malcolm – head of the press gallery committee, political correspondent of Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph.

McDonald, Mr Donald & Mrs Janet – chairman of the ABC, personal friend of Howard

Mitchell, Mr Neil – Howard’s favourite Melbourne Radio host

Howard’s former rival

Peacock AC, Hon Andrew – Howatrd made him ambassador to the US after victory in 1996

Howard’s historian

Blainey AO, Geoffrey & Ann

Howard’s public servant

Shergold, Dr Peter & Ms Carol Green – head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

Howard’s ambassador

Thawley, Ambassador HE Michael Thawley

Howard’s army

Cosgrove, General Peter & Mrs Lynne

McNairn, Brigadier Maurie & Mrs Richenda

Howard’s true blue

Irwin, Mr Steve & Mrs Terri – crocodile hunter

Howard’s lawyer

Leibler AO, Mr Mark & Mrs Rosanna – partner in Arnold Bloch Leibler, prominent Melbourne Zionist

Howard’s gesture to the community

Cory, Prof Susan & Prof Jerry Adams – director of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Biology

Huggins, Ms Jackie – director of Reconciliation Australia

Stanley, Prof Fiona & Prof Geoff Shellam – Professor of paediatrics Unoiversity of Western Asutralia, Australian of the year

White House staff

Rice, Dr Condoleezza

Schieffer, Ambassador HE Tom & Mrs Suzanne

Card, Mr Andrew

Moriarty, Mr James

Kelly, Mr James

*

Ball, Ms Andrea

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1996 GUESTS AT HILLARY CLINTON’S FUNCTION

The guest list with a certain snub appeal

by Sheryle Bagwell

Australian Financial Review, 21-11-1996

The Prime Minister’s wife, Mrs Janette Howard, will be there. So will the Federal Minister for Social Security, Senator Jocelyn Newman. Even the NSW Liberal Opposition Leader’s wife, Ms Dominique Collins, and Liberal MP Ms Kerry Chikarovksi have got a guernsey.

But the 30 “high-powered” women who have scored a ticket to the hottest women’s event of the year – a private audience with Hillary Rodham Clinton this afternoon – will not include such leading Labor female identities as Dr Carmen Lawrence, Mrs Joan Kirner, Dr Anne Summers, or even NSW Minister for the Status of Women, Mrs Faye Lo Po. Ms Susie Annus, wife of Federal Opposition Leader Mr Kim Beazley, has also been snubbed.

Mrs Clinton had requested a private reception with “women working at the coalface” in areas close to her heart, after she delivers a speech to 500 invited guests at the Sydney Opera House. But Labor has complained that the women Mrs Clinton would want to meet are absent from the “secret” guest list, said to have been drawn up by the Federal Government’s Office of the Status of Women, but heavily vetted by the Prime Minister’s office and Mrs Howard.

“I think that Hillary Clinton has a set of interests which have been very much the interests of what were the previous Labor Government, particularly as far as women’s affairs were concerned,” said Mr Beazley, smarting from his own bit part in the Clinton visit. “So, I guess I would have to say, in all logic, that an awful lot of our people would probably be better interlocutors.”

The Prime Minister’s office yesterday dismissed Mr Beazley’s comments. A spokesman said that among those invited were Mrs Helena Carr, the wife of the NSW Premier; Ms Catherine Harris, the head of the Affirmative Action Agency; Ms Lois O’Donoghue, the ATSIC chief; and Ms Kathy Townsend, the head of the Office of the Status of Women, proving that the guest list was “a broad church – without men”.

The kerfuffle over the private reception has caused some consternation in the First Lady’s camp. An observer said yesterday Mrs Clinton’s “people” were “amply aware” of the “political vetting” of the list.

“It is always a preference of Mrs Clinton in her travels to engage with women from all walks of life,” he said. “But there comes a point in discussions where you throw up your hands and say ‘This is the best we can get; let’s do the best we can’.

“This is politics. I can assure you that in Washington, President Dole would not have invited Gloria Steinem to the White House.”

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Getting an entree to Hillary is a family affair

by Jodie Brough Canberra

Sydney Morning Herald 22/11/96

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s reception for prominent women yesterday proved one thing. It’s not who you are but who you know – and to know the Prime Minister’s family is a definite bonus.

Mrs Clinton had asked to meet prominent women working in her areas of interest, which include health, children’s welfare, law and discrimination, after her speech on women at the Opera House.

She met Ms Melanie Howard, law student and Prime Minister’s daughter, and a friend, Ms Miranda Biven, also a student at University of Sydney law school.

The list of guests is said to have been altered by the Prime Minister’s wife, Mrs Janette Howard, to include personal friends and political allies at the expense of her husband’s foes, an allegation Mr Howard’s office has not denied. Mrs Howard attended, as did her friends Mrs Janet McDonald, wife of ABC chairman Mr Donald McDonald, and Ms Carla Zampatti, wife of the Howard-appointed Ambassador to Paris, Mr John Spender. So did Howard Chief of Staff Ms Nicole Feely and NSW Howard ally Mrs Kerry Chikarovski.

Nine Coalition women politicians, staffers or wives went along. The Premier’s wife, Mrs Helena Carr, and a late addition, ALP women’s activist Ms Kay Loder, were the only Labor women. Attendees not on the guest list were Mr Peter Botsman (formerly of the Evatt Foundation) and the Clintons’ favourite Australian novelist, Jon Cleary.

The guests talked for about an hour and a half in the Opera House’s northern annex, dining on finger food such as smoked salmon on buckwheat pancakes and Vietnamese spring rolls.

The Democrats’ leader, Senator Cheryl Kernot, got a last-minute invitation. The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Hill, contacted her at 9.20 am to express Mr Howard’s view that her exclusion was an “oversight” and to apologise on his behalf. Shortly afterwards, the Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Reith – who recently cut a deal with Senator Kernot to pass the IR bill – rang Senator Kernot to say: “I hope it’s fixed.”

Senator Kernot said she was “happy to go as a corrected ‘oversight’ but this was meant to be about women and women’s ideas, and that spans the political spectrum”. She and the chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Miss Lois O’Donoghue, had talked to Mrs Clinton about Aboriginal art and intellectual property rights for Aboriginal artists “in anticipation of the Olympic Games”.

Some schools missed out on invitations to Mr Clinton’s speech at Mrs Macquaries Chair and Mrs Clinton’s speech because the number of places was cut back.

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Row flares over reception guests

by Karen Middleton

The Age, 22-11-1996

The Prime Minister’s daughter, Ms Melanie Howard, and a university friend were among the carefully selected women who attended a private reception for the first lady of the United States, Mrs Hillary Clinton, in Sydney yesterday.

The hostess, Mrs Janette Howard, also invited her best friend, charity organiser Mrs Janet MacDonald, who is married to the ABC’s chief executive.

Bitter criticism of the guest-list led to some hasty last-minute invitations. The only female leader of a political party in Australia, the leader of the Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot, was invited yesterday morning.

But backbiting by the Opposition leader, Mr Kim Beazley, and others in the Labor Party did not sway the organisers. The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Ms Jennie George, was not invited. Nor were any other leading female Labor lights.

The guest list, obtained by The Age, was on the socially conservative side. There were no women from the arts. Ms Carla Zampatti, who is married to a former leading Liberal Mr John Spender, was the only prominent businesswoman.

The female advisers to the PM and Women’s Minister were there. So was Mrs Judy Fischer, wife of the Deputy PM.

The chancellor of Sydney University, Dame Leonie Kramer, and Federal Court Justice Catherine Branson were on the list. So was a director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Ms Eve Mahlab; the director of the Office of the Status of Women, Ms Kathy Townsend; and the Affirmative Action Agency’s director, Ms Catherine Harris.

Mrs Helena Carr, wife of the NSW Premier, was the only one linked to the Labor Party.

Besides Mrs Howard and Mrs Clinton, 35 women accepted invitations to attend the exclusive Opera House function which followed Mrs Clinton’s speech to about 500 guests. Another nine women sent their apologies, including Family Court Justice Sally Brown and Mrs Tanya Costello, the wife of the federal Treasurer.

Dr Anne Summers, the editor of Good Weekend magazine for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, yesterday said she would have loved to have had the chance to meet Mrs Clinton. “But it was Mrs Howard’s prerogative to invite who she chooses and I am not involved in public policy any more. I am a journalist, so I would’ve been pretty low on the list of people to consider,” she said.

Dr Summers said it was extraordinary that Ms George and the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Ms Quentin Bryce, were not invited to the gathering given their involvement in issues “that go to the heart of Hillary Clinton’s known interests”.

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