Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeThe city’s most exclusive members-only clubs remain a mystery to everyday Melburnians. In this series, The Age uncovers the secrets and politics unfolding behind closed doors and the moment of reckoning these institutions face.See all 7 stories.About the turn of the millennium, there was a time when a gentleman in a fine suit could sit down for lunch at the Athenaeum Club and carve Melbourne up by the time the Eton mess was served.Scions of politics would meet with titans of industry, media barons, judges and police commissioners to eat, drink and plot.John Howard and Alexander Downer negotiated a bloodless coup there over dinner. A governor met his downfall over an ill-advised lunch club. The membership list runs all the way to true royalty – Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a life member. The name fits: a temple to Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom – and war.A peek inside the club’s doors.Credit: Jason South“It was a place where the conservatives met and plotted,” says a leading political identity, granted anonymity to speak candidly.The male-only Athenaeum Club was founded in 1868 and is among the city’s most prestigious “private social clubs”, as it calls itself. Its Collins Street facade, described by architectural historian Rohan Storey as an “eclectic composition of Georgian/American Beaux-Arts”, gives little away; there’s no name over the door, just an unmarked and discrete entrance to the right of Fendi’s shopfront. The Italian luxury fashion house rents the spot at a cost of about $2 million a year.Indeed, the club is nothing if not discreet. “I’ve got a healthy aversion to speaking to journalists about the Athenaeum Club because, quite frankly, they never get it right,” one member told this masthead. “I’ve got really no interest.” (The club itself did not return a request for comment.)Membership is only via nomination by an existing member. The dress code calls for “gracious ambience”, with men expected to be in “refined business attire”, ties preferred, and jackets not to be removed without approval. Members staying in the on-site accommodation are entitled to a free shoeshine.And what facilities they are. The six-storey club is one of the few in Melbourne with a full-sized gym and four-lane lap pool. A visitor in 2013 reported the club had a boardroom, multiple dining and meeting rooms, a three-table snooker room, substantial library, steam room and one-person golf range.“That place should be the best club in Melbourne, it should be like [international private members club] Soho House,” says one member, granted anonymity to speak frankly.The Athenaeum shares its grand clubhouse with Fendi.Credit: Penny Stephens“It has the facilities, it has a rooftop, a fantastic gym, wonderful rooms. But they close them down half the time because there’s no one there. On a Friday night, everyone should be going there for dinner. None of that is happening.”Paying for lunch was done on an honesty system, befitting the men who dined there, a journalist from The Australian who managed to infiltrate the hallowed space in 2008 recounted.No wonder former prime minister John Howard preferred to stay there when he was in town.Howard – and conservative politics in general – has a long history with the Athenaeum.According to the Victorian government’s register of interests, several conservative politicians are card-carrying members: the Liberals’ Brad Rowswell and Evan Mulholland, along with former Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh.Howard and Alexander Downer negotiated a bloodless coup for the Liberal Party leadership over dinner at the club in 1995. “He was very calm about it,” Howard later recounted to The Australian – as befits the quiet, refined establishment.But perhaps the club’s biggest scandal centres around a luncheon club: the Rumour Tank.This group meets 10 times a year for lunch at the Athenaeum (not all are members of the club itself, and not all attend every meeting). Over the years, all sorts of names have been attached: from Sir Rod Eddington to Eddie McGuire, Peter Costello (as a guest) and former governor Sir James Gobbo.Its most famous member is former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, who was forced to deny during his rule that the “Tank” had undue influence over the way he governed the state.“This is an organisation, a small organisation, made up of men and women that existed well before I became leader of the opposition and was invited to join,” Kennett told this masthead when asked about the Rumour Tank.“It’s just a friendship type of group of men and women who come together to discuss anything and everything. I find it very enjoyable.”He laughed off any suggestion the Tank was powerful or influential, jokingly telling this scribe it was all down to the club’s close access to “past leaders like Julius Caesar”.A cameo of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and war, carved into the wall above the club’s entrance. Credit: Jason South“You’d be surprised by how influential it was. But might I suggest you don’t believe everything you read?”But Steve Bracks, the former Labor premier who ousted Kennett’s government in 1999, certainly took it seriously. In his memoir, he recounts the discovery that Sir James Gobbo, then Victoria’s governor, was a regular at the Rumour Tank’s luncheons.“There’s nothing wrong with a lunch club, but the Rumour Tank also discussed state political matters and made some commentary on them,” Bracks wrote. “Also, the progressive side of politics was not typically represented, so while there might have been one or two people who weren’t members of the Liberal Party, the club generally had that party’s character and nature.”The Tank continues to meet. Who makes up the current membership? “I wouldn’t tell you that in a fit,” says Kennett.But times march on for these old exclusive clubs – and the powerbrokers who spoke to this masthead said the Athenaeum had largely lost the cultural and political cachet it once had.“Their membership is ageing. It’s male. They are not getting new young people involved. I think they are waning,” says the leading political identity. “The reality is, power has moved on from there.”Athenaeum ClubAddress: 87 Collins Street, MelbourneFounded: 1868What’s inside: Accommodation for members and guests, gym, four-lane lap pool, boardroom, dining and meeting rooms, three-table billiards room, library, sauna, driving range Rules: Men-only, jackets must be worn in most areas in the club, no denin, polo tops, sandals, boat shoes or sneakers allowedHow to join: Via nomination by an existing memberThat puts the finger on what is both the club’s rawest nerve and the most frequently cited reason for its waning influence: its refusal to admit women to its membership (they can visit as guests of a member).The club made headlines in 2022 after former state Liberal Party director John Ridley attacked “young fogeys” on the club’s membership who were stridently opposed to opening the club’s doors to women.A survey of the club’s membership found about 40 per cent were deeply opposed, this masthead revealed. The club had about 1300 members at that time.Then-president Peter Brannighan said that effectively ended the matter for the next four years.But it is proving rather hard to hold off change, it would seem. The club, like many, offers reciprocal rights to institutions around the world – many of which have gone co-ed, the Australian Financial Review has reported.The Melbourne club even lost a reciprocal relationship with the Royal Society of Medicine in London after a reciprocal female member complained about being denied access to the Athenaeum’s gym. The club told members it had solved this problem – not by admitting women to the gym, but by finding another nearby gym for them.Athenaeum Club president Peter Brannighan told members in 2022 that the issue of admitting women as members was completely off the table for four years.In 2023, there was another scandal: someone had tampered with the after-dinner mints, according to the AFR, placing messages alleging the club was anti-women. The culprits were never apprehended.“What they are doing is losing the movers and shakers in town, because it’s far easier going to one of the 2000 pubs and restaurants where you can bring your wife or girlfriend,” said one member who has pushed hard to change the rules.“It’s like going to (women-only gym) Fernwood – if you want to go to the gym without blokes looking at you, that’s what women do.”LoadingIt has left the club with an air of age and archaism – a space for men to be with other men, without the company of women.A journalist for The Australian, visiting in 2008, recounted a “funereal” atmosphere as octogenarians sat reading the paper, sipping expensive liqueurs amid “amid a jumble of antiques, silverware and fine leather couches”.It shows no sign of changing. If anything, it seems to be attracting a new generation of young, male and conservative members – who want to keep things just as they are.Indeed, one conservative state politician confesses that he only became a member because of pressure from his friends.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
