To accommodate the largest red carpet event Melbourne has seen in recent times,Exhibition Street was partially closed to traffic as the city’s political,business,media,sporting and celebrity aristocracy took their seats,fully masked in the 1700-capacity theatre.

Hamilton’s original Broadway producer,Jeffery Seller,jetted in from New York to once again walk the opening night red carpet.

Attendees included Australian of the YearDylan Alcott,MasterChef turned ABC radio presenterMatt Preston,cycling greatCadel Evans,restaurateurBen ShewryandEddie McGuire,whose production company is helping to produce theShane Warne memorial service.

Also there:galley curatorAnna Schwartz,designerLisa Barron and national KPMG chairman Alison Kitchen.

Federal Labor arts spokesmanTony Burke,accompanied by his plus one,MP Josh Burns,also attended the Sydney premiere.

He said:“There’s one songThe Room Where It Happens which takes you back to your first dreams of being a politician. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a healthy thing.”

There were also plenty of state government ministers,includingMartin PakulaandMartin Foley.

The A-list trooped up the street to an after-party at the State Library of Victoria,which doesn’t open its doors after hours for just anyone.

Facey Fight

Following on from our item yesterday,the Facebook political advertising spending spree continues,and there is no surprise thatClive Palmer’s United Australian Party is the No.1 political carpet bomber on Facebook over the past 90 days.

The party,which appears to have shamelessly ripped its colour and styling cues from a Hazmat sign,has dropped $417,000 into Mark Zuckerberg’scoffers. Palmer himself spent a further $132,000. And the starting gun hasn’t even been fired.

Climate 200,the fund generously financed by the top end of town to fight the climate war against moderate Liberals in inner-city electorates,is also splashing the cash in a huge way,forking out $344,000 in the past 90 days. The founder isSimon Holmes a Court,son of the late resources billionaireRobert Holmes a Court,who has raised more than $7 million from 8000 donors,including multimillionaires who might previously have called the Liberal Party home,such as Sportsgirl ownerNaomi Milgrom.

But apart from acres of coverage,Climate 200 is actually not very popular where it counts on Facebook. UAP has 117,900 Facebook likes on its page and has it all over Climate 200,with a desultory 2300 likes. Hence the climate activists have to spend up big to match UAP’s reach. Palmer himself has a massive 202,800 likes.

The two movements are spending far in excess of the South Australian Labor ($92,000) and South Australian Liberal Party ($112,000) — and they had an election to fight.

Nationally,the Liberal Party ($50,900) and ALP ($7430) are holding fire. But with their massive reach — 282,300 likes and 310,600 likes respectively — they can afford to ... for now.

Albright’s Legacy

And it’s another regrettable vale to one of this column’s heroines. Farewell to the former US secretary of stateMadeleine Albright whose pioneering application of sartorial diplomacy,command of the Russian language and not-for-turning hawkish sensibility won over your columnists.

And one colleague had the fortune of meeting the hawk in the flesh. EsteemedAgejournalistChip Le Grand met the glass-ceiling demolition expert as an exchange student at Georgetown University. She was his professor.

“It was 1992,the year leading up to Clinton’s election. I was hungover for some of her morning tutes because my Russian politics class the previous night always ended up at the pub,” he told CBD regarding what he calls a “line in the sand’ moment with the formidable foreign policy expert.

One morning,he received a handwritten note from Albright impressing the importance of attendance. “To those not schooled in the liberal ways of university attendance,such a note could be mistaken as a polite,gentle reminder,” he said. “But from a senior academic … this is line in the sand stuff. An ultimatum to either get my act together or take it to someone else’s class. Move it or lose it,buddy. And prompted by what? Missing one lousy class and turning up late for the next. Surely,only the most hawkish of administrators would get their feathers ruffled over such a minor transgression.” Quite!

But inside the classroom,Albright clearly knew how to navigate loud voices and big opinions. “She rarely dominated debate and interjected infrequently,often allowing the discussion to meander off on unforeseen tangents — much to the chagrin of students from the university’s military stream,” Le Grand said,before noting what could be her most enduring,local legacy:”She wrote me a kind reference which helped me get hired as a copy kid atThe Oz. So she is pretty much to blame for inflicting 30 years of my journalism on our readers.”

Fight night

Just as the seashore played the stage to our tetrapod ancestors migrating from the water to the land,the boxing ring bore witness to a pivotal point in evolutionary history on Wednesday as football legendsSonny Bill WilliamsandBarry Hallditched the footy pitch for the gloves.

We’re not joking. The Kiwi dual-code rugby star Williams took out the AFL great and former Sydney Swan Hall in under two minutes. But the event wasn’t just about the boxing. The ringside extravaganza also rated as online streaming giant Stan’s first major pay-per-view sports fixture which went to air on its newly created channel Stan Event.

And given Stan is owned by Nine,which is the owner of this masthead,there was no shortage of media heavyweights watching on in the bleachers. Nine chief executiveMike Sneesby,who ascended to the role from chief executive’s chair at Stan,was spotted ringside alongside his freshly appointed successorMartin Kuglerand NRL commentatorAndrew Johns. Nearby were boxing stars includingAnthony Mundine — who himself graduated from rugby league to boxing — alongsideDanny Green and Sydney-born world lightweight boxing championGeorge Kambosos jnr who started boxing after a shortlived football career playing in the Gymea Gorillas under-11s.

Others watching on included Sydney Roosters chairNick Politisalong with coachTrent Robinsonwhose relationship with ex-Rooster Williams must be good considering they were granted access to Williams’ change room before the fight. CricketerSteve Waugh and former AFL starWayne Carey also attended the event. Omnipresent PR queenRoxy Jacenkowas in the stands along with comedianDave Hughesandnewly minted Australian citizenQuade Cooper.

Also spotted:nightclub czarJohn Ibrahim clearly enjoying a school night out afterbecoming a new father. The Kings Cross identity watched the match alongside media heavyweightMark Fennessy who has joined with Ibrahim on an upcoming drama series,Last King of the Cross.

Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news,views and expert analysis.Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.