I think Molly was a little precious. He was in awe of Bryan [Ferry], whereas I had an attitude about bringing over offshore artists to present at a local awards [...] I said something like, 'The Poms look at us as being pretty archaic down here, but we've got room service. You could have ordered an iron, mate'.[5]
— Gary Morris
Morris had also objected to ARIA's award category, Best Indigenous Release, as some nominees (including Midnight Oil themselves) had no Indigenous members.[4] Meldrum objected to Morris' political commentary from the podium and the making jokes at the expense of Bryan Ferry who was wearing a (deliberately) crumpled suit:[1][2]
I pointed out that Gary was staying in one of the very expensive hotel rooms, on behalf of Midnight Oil [...] Then I said, 'If we're talking about disrespect, what was he doing up here accepting the awards and not Midnight Oil'. Then it all boiled over.[5]
— Ian Meldrum
Karen Middleton of The Canberra Times was disappointed by the ceremony where "[i]nsults flowed almost as freely as the wine and all three of the international guest presenters fell victim to flimsy jokes and foolishness".[2] She felt that Morris was "winner of the unofficial prize for least-liked personality. ... [he] aimed a poor one-liner at British presenter Bryan Ferry".[2] However the "greatest revelation of the evening proved that there are more sore losers in the business than the small screen would lead us to believe. When a winner happened to be a little unpopular, the beautiful people booed".[2]
Awards and nominations
Winners are listed first and bolded, other final nominees (where known) are listed alphabetically.[1][2][6]
^ ab"Anne Kirkpatrick". www.countrymusichalloffame.com.au. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
^"New year family concert". Times. Vol. 93, no. 14. Victor Harbour, South Australia. 18 December 1997. p. 12. Retrieved 5 June 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
