The Guardian 22 February, 2006
Corporations thank Howard
Big business will be paying up to $10,000 per head to thank the Prime Minister for running its anti-worker agenda at a series of fundraisers to mark his 10th anniversary in power.
The corporate victory lap, designed to raise money for the Liberal Party, will travel from Federal Parliament’s Great Hall, to a swank Sydney hotel to the Toorak mansion of one of Australia’s wealthiest families in the first week of March.
Media reports this week suggested the guest list at the $10,000 per head dinner at the Myer family mansion in Melbourne will include Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo, NAB Managing Director John Stewart and Transurban’s Kim Edwards.
That event, slated to earn $200,000, will be the culmination of a tour that is looking at placing half a million dollars in the Liberal Party coffers.
The trough will be laid out first on March 1 when 600 Coalition politicians and business figures attend a dinner in the Great Hall, with tables of 10 selling for $10,000.
The following night, 800 people will check their cheque books into Sydney’s Westin Hotel, before the serious money turns out in Toorak.