David Brat, Trump’s man in Canberra, lies low on midterm election results

Opinion

November 6, 2026 — 5:00am

US President Donald Trump’s man in Canberra, ambassador David Brat, has had a pretty busy schedule since touching down on Australian shores just weeks ago.

The ambassador this week travelled south for the Melbourne Cup, where he made the most of the hospitality on offer from Crown Resorts, posing for selfies with Labor godfather Don Farrell and US consul-general Colin Crosby. On the same day, the Reserve Bank lifted interest rates, no less.

But one major event the ambassador has so far managed to keep a relatively low profile on is the electoral bloodbath of his Republican Party in the US midterm elections on Wednesday.

Brat, as regular readers will no doubt recall, is a former Republican congressman who has previously been described as “the Elizabeth Warren of the right”.

In the days beforehand, word was neither the ambassador nor the embassy had plans to host a watch party or any event tied to the poll. After asking around on Thursday, word again was the ambassador was travelling and there was no midterms get-together.

Instead, Brat was praising the “world-class coffee” and “colourful laneways” of the miserable city south of the border, where he met the Governor of Victoria Margaret Gardner.

“Victoria is a vital part of the US-Australia story. From universities and emerging industries to our innovators, the ties between our people make this alliance stronger every day,” the US embassy wrote in a post to X. “Amb Brat,” was the sign-off.

We asked the US embassy how ambassador Brat monitored the election results as they flowed in – or in the case of the Republican Party, flowed out – but didn’t hear back by deadline. No word, either, on Brat’s reaction to the result, which the Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dubbed an “extinction-level event” for the party.

Spotted: Nigella Lawson

It was only a year ago British cookbook author and TV personality Nigella Lawson heaped praise on Palazzo Salato, the hatted Roman-inspired Italian haunt on Clarence Street in Sydney’s CBD.

So it was little surprise to hear on Thursday that Lawson, who has attained national treasure status in food circles here thanks to her love of Australian restaurants, was back again. Our spy, too nervous to go and say hello, saw Lawson on Wednesday night tucked in a booth with an unidentified friend. For what it’s worth, we hear the crab pasta and tuna crudo were excellent.

Chanel’s shutdown

It’s not often the Australian fashion set gets a taste of sitting front row at the show of a luxury fashion house on local shores.

So the arrival of the billionaire-controlled French fashion house Chanel for a rare cruise showing in Sydney this week understandably got the creatures of the nation’s backwater fashion industry a bit excited. Residents living near Shelly Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches, markedly less so.

On Wednesday evening, several of the beach’s locals went to Shelly only to discover it’d been closed for one of two private events hosted by Chanel that evening before the staggered runway shows the company staged at Barangaroo on Thursday.

Not only had the luxury retailer, which raked in $515.4 million in Australian revenue last year and paid $18.6 million in income tax, shut down a public space for a private event. But locals were left to discover there didn’t even appear to be anyone famous at the event, which was guarded by police patrolling on foot and on the water.

Northern Beaches Council deferred questions about why the beach was shut and how much Chanel paid for the pleasure, to NSW Crown Lands, part of the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure. The department didn’t get back to us by deadline. NSW Police, meanwhile, told us the event was staffed by police under the “User Pays Policing Services” model. Chanel didn’t get back to us on the cost of booking the beach or police.

Word is the get-together was organised for the brand’s big spending Very Important Customers, or “VICs” to borrow from the luxury retail parlance. The second event went ahead that same evening at what appeared to be Justin Hemmes’ “Hermitage” property in Vaucluse – at least judging by photos posted to social media – and was attended by an assortment of magazine editors, models and hangers-on.

But it wasn’t until Thursday the big names turned out to support the company’s Australian excursion: Kylie Minogue showed up to Barangaroo in the afternoon, while Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie were among those expected to turn up later in the day.

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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.

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