What a turnout it was for the Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation 19th annual fundraiser, the Gold Dinner, at Sydney's Royal Hall of Industries on Thursday night.
Where to start? Probably in white middle-aged male land: Morgan Stanley's chief investment banker Richard Wagner and his ECM boss Mark Burmeister, Citi's IB boss Aidan Allen, Gresham's Charles Graham, Perpetual's perpetual stock picker Paul Skamvougeras, VGI hedgie Walter Lewin, Gilbert + Tobin partner Peter Cook, REA Group chairman Hamish McLennan and fellow director Richard Freudenstein, Andy Penn's latest recruit Kevin Russell (in his full Scottish regalia), Sydney FC chairman Scott Barlow, yachtie Neville Crichton, publican Justin Hemmes, Servcorp's Marcus Moufarrige, Aussie John Symond, Vogue Australia's editor in chief Edwina McCann, Nine Entertainment Co 2IC Amanda Laing, and even our favourite power couple Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons.
Auctioneer Justin Miller was his brilliant self. "I'm sorry but I can't see you behind that asparagus fern," was just one of many memorable lines.
The night raised more than a million big ones for a new adolescent health ward at the Prince of Wales hospital in Randwick. Which brings me to an admission: I wrote a column last month about charity fundraisers, and specifically mentioned this event. In it, I was flat out wrong when I described the food, booze, flower arrangements and various other logistics as "massive… outgoings". In actuality, almost none of the Gold Dinner's suppliers have ever charged a cent. Bollinger has been supplying industrial quantities of bubbles since Windows 3.1 was ubiquitous, Naomi Parry has ground all other luxury PR to a halt and Mandy Foley Quin has supplied free waiters since before she was old enough to be one herself, and so on.
And as the foundation's fundraising gun Skye Leckie just promised me with a twinkle in her eye, "just you wait for the big 20 next year. These people won't know what hit them."
So I do humbly apologise to the committee and its supporters. Their generosity deserves plaudits, not derision – even if I do stand by the principal point about the vulgarity of public giving, and the wastefulness, generally, of its venal avenues.
