Finally, the real guest list for the Bush barbecue! You’ll recall that on the day, the press gallery had to drag a list out of the Prime Minister’s office, and that it was finally faxed to interested media as just a list of names – no titles, no positions. My report of the struggle and the consequences is at Howard’s elite – the official list. As it happened, only Webdiary has published the full list of guests, however flawed.

During hearings of the Senate’s finance and public administration committee yesterday, Labor Senate leader John Faulkner quizzed John Howard’s department, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), on the Bush and Hu visits. PM&C organised the Bush non-state visit on behalf of Howard. Faulkner managed – after the usual struggle – to get public release of the department’s actual official list of guests, grouped with titles and all.

I freaked out when I first read the list. When I was trying to work out who was who before I published the list last week, I rang Howard spin doctor David Luff, who said ‘Paul Ramsay’ was the head of Ramsay Health Care. On the basis of the titles of the guests I published in Webdiary, the Sydney Morning Herald’s political correspondent Mark Riley – a former New York correspondent for the SMH – checked Australian Electoral Commission records of political donations and found that the business guests Howard invited had between them donated $1 million to the Liberal Party. His story was published on page 13 of the SMH last Saturday, and is republished after the official guest list.

But on the official PM&C list, Paul Ramsay was listed under ‘Academics’ as Mr Paul Ramsay AO, Vice Chancellor University of Sydney.

As I informed Mark of the terrible error – and wondered aloud why Howard’s office had not corrected the public record – the Herald’s higher education reporter Aban Contractor interposed that to her knowledge there was no vice chancellor in Australia called Paul Ramsay. She looked up the official lists of such things and confirmed her understanding that Professor Gavin Brown was still vice chancellor of Sydney Uni. Inquiries by theHerald’s Mike Seccombe of the Prime Minster’s office confirmed that Paul Ramsay was indeed the Ramsay Health Care bloke, donor of $223,000 to the Liberal Party.

Crazy, huh, how hard it is to get an accurate public record of such a basic thing as a guest list? Please advise if you find any other mistakes in the list.

Thanks to the Herald Canberra Bureau’s journalist assistant Ebony Bennett for typing the list into the system. The Prime Minister’s office did not supply the list electronically.

Here it is, in all its glory, as printed. The list I last published I grouped myself – all Howard’s office sent was an alphabetical list. This one has many interesting aspects, including the headings, the order and the job descriptions.

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Luncheon in honour of the Honourable George Bush

President of the United States of America

and Mrs Bush

Host

The Honourable John Howard MP, Prime Minister

Mrs Janette Howard

Guest of Honour

The Honourable George Bush, President of the United States of America

Mrs Bush

Official Party

Dr Condoleeza Rice, National Security Adviser

Mr Andrew Card, Chief of Staff

Mr James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State

Mr James Moriarty, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs

Ms Andrea Ball, Chief of Staff to the First Lady

Diplomatic Corps

His Excellency Mr J Thomas Schieffer Jr, Ambassador of the United States of America

Mrs Susanne Schieffer

Ministry

The Honourable John Anderson MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services

Mrs Julia Anderson

The Honourable Peter Costello MP, Treasurer

Mrs Tanya Costello

The Honourable Mark Vaile MP, Minister for Trade

Mrs Wendy Vaile

Senator the Honourable Robert Hill, Minister for Defence and Leader of Government in the Senate

Mrs Diana Hill

The Honourable Alexander Downer MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs

Mrs Nicky Downer

Defence Chiefs;

General Peter Cosgrove AC MC, Chief of the Defence Force, Department of Defence

Mrs Lynne Cosgrove

Departmental Secretaries

Dr Peter Shergold AM, Secretary Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Ms Carol Green

Australian Ambassador

Ambassador Michael Thawley, Ambassador Australian Embassy, Washington

Business

Mr Rob Gerard AO, Chairman and Managing Director Gerard Industries Ltd

Mrs Fay Gerard

Mr Mark Leibler AO, Senior Partner Arnold Bloch Leibler, Solicitors and Consultants

Mrs Rosanna Leibler

Mr Kerry Packer AC, Chairman Consolidated Press Holdings

Mrs Ros Packer

Mr Donald McDonald AO, Chairman Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Mrs Janet McDonald

Mr Harry Triguboff AO, Chairman and Managing Director Meriton Properties Pty Ltd

Mrs Rhonda Triguboff

Mr Terry Campbell, Chairman JB Were

Mrs Christine Campbell

Mr Leon Davis, Chairman Westpac Banking Corporation

Mrs Annette Davis

Mr Kerry Stokes AO, Executive Chairman Seven Network Limited

Ms Christine Simpson

Academics

Professor Susan Cory AC, Professor of Medical Research University of Melbourne

Professor Jerry Adams

Mr Paul Ramsay AO, Vice Chancellor University of Sydney (INCORRECT)

Professor Geoffrey Blainey AO, Author and Historian

Mrs Ann Blainey

Sporting Bodies

Mr John Eales AM, Former Captain of the Australian Rugby Union Team

Mrs Lara Eales

Mr Lleyton Hewitt, Australian Tennis Player

Mr Mark Taylor, Former Captain Australia Cricket Team

Mrs Judy Taylor

Former Ambassador

The Honourable Andrew Peacock AC, President Boeing Australia Limited

Prime Minster’s Office

Mr Arthur Sinodinos, Chief of Staff

Mr Tony Nutt, Principal Private Secretary

Mr Peter Varghese, Senior Adviser International

Mr Tony O’Leary, Press Secretary

Others

Mr Richard Howard, Prime Minister’s relatives

Mr Timothy Howard, Prime Minister’s relatives

Mr Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Man

Mrs Terri Irwin

Mr Rowan McDonald, Prime Minister’s relatives

Mrs Melanie McDonald

Brigadier Maurie McNarn AO, Director General Personnel, Army

Mrs Richenda McNarn

Professor Fiona Stanley, Australian of the Year, Founding Director

TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research

Professor Geoff Shellam

Dr Jackie Huggins, Board member Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Media

Mr Alan Jones AM, Radio Broadcaster Radio 2UE Sydney (INCORRECT – HE’S NOW AT 2GB)

Mr Malcolm Farr, President Parliamentary Press Gallery

Mr Neil Mitchell, Radio and Television Current Affairs Commentator

Security

President’s security

*

Ceremonial and Hospitality

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

23 October, 2003

***

Party donors gain a hot ticket

by Mark Riley, Political Correspondent

01/11/2003, Sydney Morning Herald, page 13

How do you swing an invitation to a barbecue at the Lodge with the leader of the free world? You could win the US Tennis Open and become young Australian of the Year, like Lleyton Hewitt. Or you could captain the Wallabies to a World Cup victory, like John Eales.

Failing that, you could always wrestle a crocodile while yelling “Crikey!” on your own top-rating US television show, like Steve Irwin.

Or you could cut out the middle man and simply buy yourself a television network, like Kerry Packer and Kerry Stokes.

Being an opposition leader is no way to get an invitation. Ask Simon Crean.

But it seems the most popular way of getting on last week’s prime ministerial guest list for the Lodge cook-out with George Bush was to be a major donor to the Liberal Party.

All six of the business leaders invited by Mr Howard to the small gathering represented companies that kicked in considerable sums to the Liberals’ 2001 re-election campaign.

A trawl through the Australian Electoral Commission’s official returns reveals that, between them, the six corporates represented about $1 million in party donations.

Heading the list was property king Harry Triguboff, whose Meriton group donated $275,000 to the Liberal Party in 2001.

Next came Reserve Bank board member Rob Gerard, whose Gerard Industries gave the party $244,806, and then Paul Ramsay, whose Ramsay Health Care donated $223,000.

The other invitees were Terry Campbell, chairman of JB Were, which donated $163,000 to the Liberal Party; Leon Davis, chairman of Westpac, which gave $142,000; and Mark Leibler, prominent member of the Jewish lobby and director of Coles Myer, which donated $132,000.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said the people invited were a cross-section of the Australian community who had each made a contribution to Australia in different ways, and that the Prime Minister made no apology for inviting any of them.

Opposition Leader Simon Crean’s office declined to comment. Most corporate invitees also donated large, if lesser, amounts to Labor at the last election.

The presence of major party donors would not have been a surprise to George Bush. The US has a system of declaring the contributions of corporate leaders seeking “face time” with the President. A certain amount buys a plate at a White House dinner, a higher amount a sleep-over in the Lincoln Room. The system is less formal in Australia but money can still buy access 20 corporates paid $4000 a head for dinner with Mr Howard at a fund-raiser for Employment Services Minister Mal Brough at Brisbane’s Treasury Casino on October 2.