Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wore a dress bearing the phrase “end gas and coal”, while the wife of Greens leader Adam Bandt, Claudia Perkins, arrived in a gown emblazoned with the slogans “coal kills” and “gas kills”. The fashion statements came after criticisms raised by Senator David Pocock and climate groups about fossil fuel companies Woodside and Shell sponsoring the annual press gallery ball.

“It’s a big night in parliament … and this year we were pretty pissed off to see the gas corporation Woodside as one of the major sponsors,” Perkins said in a post on Instagram. “So I wanted to make my feelings loud and clear.”

“There’s 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline that will fast-track climate collapse,” Bandt said. “We’re in a climate emergency, coal and gas are killing people, but Liberal and Labor still take their corporate donations and open up new mines.

“The Adelaide artist who made my dress, Liz Cahalan, feels as passionately as I do about climate action and shared my vision for a piece that represented both the action we need to take and the consumerism, corporate greed and greenwashing that also fuels environmental destruction,” she said.

“The black and white lace at the bottom is made from old curtains and represents the murkiness of coal, hidden by the flimsy veils of greenwashing because what we don’t need right now is window dressing on climate,” she said.

Organisers of the ball said the fossil fuel companies had contributed 7% of funding to the event. Attenders buy their own tickets, which this year ranged in price from $125 to $175.

The event raised $350,000 for charity, with funds in 2022 going to organisations such as Rural Aid, Fearless Women, Roundabout Canberra and the Ukraine Crisis Appeal. The Midwinter Ball has raised more than $4.4m for charity over its lifetime.

Pocock last month raised concerns over the sponsorship after criticism from climate groups. He attended the ball and donated an item for the charity auction, saying his engagement with the event was in hopes of raising “awareness”.

“We’re seeing increased sponsorship in communities and sport from these companies at a time when fossil fuel companies’ social licence is rightly being questioned,” Pocock said in August. “Given the nature of this event, I think the ball offers a unique opportunity to reinforce good corporate governance practice by putting some strong guidelines around sponsorships.”

Speeches were made at the event by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton. The ball had traditionally been an off-the-record event where political leaders make humorous addresses, poking fun at themselves, their colleagues, their opponents and the press, but after speeches leaked and were reported in recent years, the event became an on-record function.

Source: The Guardian

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