The club's chief executive Maurice Reilly said a record number of journalists - about 28 - had registered for the address before Senator Reynolds pulled out on Wednesday morning after she was hospitalised.

The club tried to get the acting Defence Minister to step in - "the speech was already written" - but, in the end, the event was cancelled.

Not wanting to be left with about 200 thawed lobsters, the club hastily put on a special for members - a $10 champagne-poached lobster lunch - advertising it quickly on social media as Lobster Day.

It turned out to be a roaring success and the club followed up by tweeting: "Lobster sale sold out! 220 lobsters in 72 minutes. That's gotta be some kind of record! #NPC".

The tweets launched a barrage of online abuse accusing the club of being out of touch, being part of the Canberra bubble, being tone deaf in the wake of a $3.57 increase to JobSeeker and, generally, showing bad taste.

Mr Reilly said the lobsters were purchased frozen before Christmas and were "cheaper than lamb or beef". It wasn't practical to donate the lobsters to a soup kitchen on Wednesday "because of the way they were prepared".

Mr Reilly said the club's tweets might have been a bit over the top but he denied the club was out of touch, putting on a range of speakers throughout the year, including those who brought attention to poverty and injustice such as ACOSS and the Human Rights Commission.

"We certainly apologise if we caused any offence but that was absolutely not our intention," Mr Reilly said.