Don’t be fooled. Peter Dutton’s no-show at the Business Council of Australia’s recent annual dinner doesn’t mean the opposition leader has forgotten about the big end of town.
With an election looming, Dutton has put out the begging bowl at a series of big-ticket fundraisers in Sydney and Melbourne this week.
Peter Dutton has put out the begging bowl at a series of fundraisers.Credit: Elke Meitzel
Kicking things off was a private lunch with new Cook MP Simon Kennedy in the Sydney CBD on Monday. Tickets started at $4000 a head, but the truest believers could have paid up to $10,000. A former McKinsey man, Kennedy’s fundraising capabilities helped him win a preselection battle for former prime minister Scott Morrison’s old seat.
Dutton is betting big on the suburbs to get him to The Lodge, and on Tuesday he was in Parramatta for a luncheon with the Liberal Party’s candidate Katie Mullens. The location was Tingha Palace in Parramatta Leagues Club, the kind of lazy Susan Chinese joint you’d expect to see Labor right warriors like Graham “Richo” Richardson plotting a political coup.
On Wednesday, the opposition leader will be back in the Sydney CBD for a $5000 a head private boardroom lunch hosted by the Mitchell Federal Electorate Conference, the seat held by Morrison’s key factional ally Alex Hawke.
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Generous friends in Victoria won’t miss out. On Thursday, Dutton is headed to Melbourne, where, after years of disastrous electoral performances, the Liberals think they can nab a few seats.
The wannabe PM will appear at a lunch event (where single tickets are again going for between $5000 and $10,000) at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Club, one of those stuffy old joints that still won’t allow women to become members. The club resisted a 2022 push to allow women to join, thanks to the resistance of its youngest members. While Dutton’s office didn’t respond to questions about the fundraiser, women can still attend the club as guests.
Dutton, like Anthony Albanese, who also charges big bucks for his time, can’t win the election without a bit of help from wealthy donors. But he also can’t win without female voters, who deserted the Liberal Party in droves after the bad vibes of the Morrison years. And yet, despite all the hand wringing about the Liberals’ “women problem”, nobody thought too hard about the optics of holding a fundraiser at an all-male club. Go figure.
Peter Dutton to host $5000 a head fundraiser
