The Press Gallery’s Midwinter Ball has a bit of a habit of making headlines for the wrong reasons. While the annual knees-up virtuously raises money for charity and, as the name suggests, is held at a time of year when Canberra is soberingly cold, there is something about cramming more than 600 political types into a room decorated with fake chandeliers and real wine bottles for five hours.
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It was at the Midwinter Ball in 2009 that then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull gave the then prime minister Kevin Rudd’s economics adviser an ill-judged lecture about integrity. It was also at that ball that a Sophie Mirabella staffer allegedly went on a boob-groping frenzy.
In 2010, Rudd’s smiling appearance at the “Kick Up Your Heels”-themed event preceded his first demise as prime minister by exactly a week. In his speech that night, Rudd prophetically joked (?) that he was not motivated by anger, as David Marr had hypothesised in the Quarterly Essay, but “incandescent rage”.
Last year, Rudd was snapped happily arriving with his daughter Jessica, as leadership speculation spun and swerved through Parliament. The member for Griffith only spent a short while at his table (he was a blink-and-miss-him guest of Fairfax Media) before slipping away to meet Bill Shorten in Richard Marles’ office.
Then prime minister Julia Gillard ended her speech that night with an Arnie riff, boldly telling the crowd: “I’ll be back.” Exactly one week later, Rudd was prime minister for the second time.
Indeed there was a certain political poetry to Wednesday night’s affair. Despite their efforts to cling on last year, neither Rudd nor Gillard were in attendance. Instead, it was Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten who gave the requisite leaders' speeches.
If any further sign was needed that the country’s power balance had swung since last time, you only had to look around the room. Watching on as a junior minister was swamped by eager networkers, one incredulous Labor MP said: “This time last year, no one wanted to talk to the guy!”
There were other changes in evidence.
While Gillard had the Great Hall in fits of chortles with Game of Thrones references last year, Abbott gave a disappointingly straight routine. It is no secret comedy is not Abbott’s forte. When launching the ball back in May (complete with jokes about stockings, Alexander Downer and Bob Carr), Julie Bishop sarcastically observed that the ball is one of the Prime Minister’s “favourite gigs”.
But on Wednesday, he had a crack at some cracks, admitting to the room: “I am a winker”. Inspired by his recent travels, he also made an outre reference to “Canadia” and tried out his French with: “Bonsoir, je m’appelle Antoine. Je suis ici pour arrêter les bateaux”. It may not be Edinburgh Festival stuff. Indeed, it may not even pass much muster at a university revue. But there were significant points for trying.
It was Shorten who was the breakout performer of the night. In fairness, it should be noted that, by the time he was up, after 10.30pm, the crowd was prepared to laugh. (Not only was the booze flowing at the expected rate, the evening's comedian, Gerry Connolly, had unfortunately had a doozy.) But the Labor leader was convincingly self-deprecating and cheeky. And he really looked as though he was having fun.
The speeches are officially off the record (as much as they can be in a room full of reporters). However, we will say that along with gags about pies, leadership spills and dinosaurs, Shorten suggested that instead of “Electricity Bill”, the government call him “Adora-Bill” (a nickname his office has been using for some months).
And, no, Paul Keating didn’t help with his ball speech. In fact, both leaders wrote their own, with the usual help of their staff. Abbott’s office googled some silly photos of Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin winking for this presentation and watched the PM do a run through on Wednesday afternoon. Shorten made use of his speechwriter James Newton and contributions from his advisers. But the speeches were Abbott's and Shorten's.
This is encouraging news.
If you have been watching question time of late, you may have been overcome with feelings of acute ennui. We are in the throes of a critical debate about the budget and future of the nation, but the 2pm sessions are a stalemate of “why did you lie about the budget?” versus “look what you did to the economy!” Sure, question time is still delivering the obligatory grabs for the nightly TV news, but the lines are about as fresh and appetising as a microwaved pie. And both sides are to blame.
Yet there is hope. Wednesday night showed Abbott and Shorten do have some self-generating verbal spark. They just need to get it rolling beyond the ball and into the chamber.
Judith Ireland is a Fairfax Media journalist.
