Over the past two decades, Australian prime ministers have become reliable guests of the McGrath Foundation’s high tea, the high-powered annual fundraiser on day three of the Pink Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is one of two glaring omissions from those who showed at today’s function.
Albanese, along with his Communications and Sport Minister Anika Wells, steered clear of the SCG on Tuesday, amid mounting pressure on Labor to launch a federal inquiry into last month’s Bondi Beach terror attack. Instead, Albanese travelled to flood-ravaged far north Queensland.
Happier times: Anthony Albanese at the Pink Test last year.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on his absence. Wells, meanwhile, didn’t even respond to requests for comment.
Albanese would not have had to look far for a reason to avoid the SCG on Tuesday. He only had to think back to the immeasurable failure of his predecessor, Scott Morrison, to read the mood of the nation in 2020, as large sections of the community were engulfed in flames.
The absence of the federal sports minister, though, is a little more intriguing. It was only weeks before the Bondi massacre that Wells was at the centre of a rolling expenses scandal that showed no signs of abating, after she failed to properly explain why she billed taxpayers almost $100,000 for flights to New York for last year’s UN General Assembly.
Flying the pink flag
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In place of Albanese and Wells, federal Health Minister Mark Butler is set to show face on behalf of the government, along with NSW Premier Chris Minns and federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. They will be joined by Governor-General Sam Mostyn and NSW governor Margaret Beazley, among other notables and players’ partners.
Ley and Mostyn were perched at the ground early during the first session, courtesy of Cricket Australia. In the Cricket NSW next box next door, hosted by John Knox – the former Credit Suisse executive and husband of failed Wentworth Liberal candidate Ro Knox – sat a string of other influentials and aspirants.
