Tomahawks and wine: how long was Gold Coast mayor's 'dinner' with Trump?

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate’s Mar-a-Lago dinner with Donald Trump under spotlight In short: Earlier this year, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate declared he had dinner with US President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The mayor told a Gold Coast radio show he and Mr Trump shared tomahawk steaks and "expensive wine". But the ABC has uncovered conflicting recollections about the dinner. Tom Tate, mayor of Australia's glitziest city the Gold Coast, was in the middle of expensive ratepayer-backed trip around the world, the icing of which would be dinner with US President Donald Trump. "He knew who I was, and he came up and called me Mr Mayor," Mr Tate later recalled. The February dinner, he said in interviews, had taken place at Mar-a-Lago, the president's famed Florida holiday retreat, following signing of a deal with a Queensland developer for a proposed Trump Tower on the Gold Coast. They shared tomahawk steaks and "expensive wine". "Mate, I had dinner with him," Mr Tate told Triple M Gold radio about meeting the president. But the ABC has uncovered conflicting recollections and questions about openness for the headline-making trip. The White House has told the ABC that the US president and First Lady Melania Trump "did not have dinner with that group" including the mayor. And an ABC right to information request for documents turned up next to no documents about a moment the mayor described as the Gold Coast getting a "guernsey to meet the leader of the free world". World trip The Gold Coast is Australia's sixth-biggest city, a tourism mecca of glamour and surf with a population swelling past 647,000. Mr Tate, 67, is its controversial four-term mayor, selling the city with a message of being "open for business" and camera-friendly stunts such as wielding a golden sledgehammer. He had been busy overseas throughout February. In cold Milan, he was clad in a white, pink and orange windproof jacket and a white Olympic beanie as he grasped the silver torch as an official Games torchbearer. He posted a picture on Instagram. That day started jam-packed. An itinerary released under right to information laws shows Mr Tate, on the Brisbane 2032 Olympic committee, was instructed to wear neutral or white shoes, leave the hotel at 6:45am, not forget his identification, and start his 200m-torch walk at 10:13am. Other days were similarly hectic. That included multiple meetings with infrastructure officials in Dubai, interspersed with lunch at the high-class Sexy Fish restaurant. Mr Tate posted on Instagram too there: the mayor meeting a Dubai official in traditional Arab robes; the mayor in a hard hat on a building site. The council itinerary includes separate briefing packs, outlining who Mr Tate was meeting or details about their background. Even Mr Tate's meeting with the Dubai Future Foundation's boss recommended the mayor wear business attire. It all contrasted with a dearth of information about what happened when Mr Tate, after Dubai, arrived in Florida and pulled into 20 acres of landscaped gardens that constitute the Mar-a-Lago Club, founded by Mr Trump in 1995. Mr Tate said he was there for the signing of an ultimately doomed deal between the Trump Organization, run by Mr Trump's son Eric, and Queensland developer Altus to construct a Trump Tower on the Gold Coast. The plan was for a $1.5 billion deal for a 340-metre tall, six-star luxury complex on the beach at Surfers Paradise. Altus was headed by David Young, a former bankrupt developer who had come back to construct housing near Rockhampton and successfully secured a long-sought deal with the Trump Organization. Mr Young posted online a photo shaking hands with Eric Trump in Florida that February. The dinner Yet all that is listed in council documents for the mayor's three days at Mar-a-Lago is a four-word entry for a Friday: "Meeting with Trump Organization". Mr Tate would later tell media about the signing and then having dinner with the president. He talked of his wife marvelling at how beautiful the first lady was "in real life". During a Triple M Gold radio interview (which started by playing the lyrics "Tom Tate, he's our mayor and he is great" to the tune of English pop band Madness's Our House), he twice noted dining with the president. Triple M: Tom, so you have had, you had dinner with Donald? Mayor: Yeah, yeah, and Eric [Trump] and Lara [Eric's wife]. He added: "We were drinking expensive wine and a couple of tomahawks." The White House, asked about the dinner and Australians that night, told the ABC: "The President and the First Lady did not have dinner with that group." Another perception of the dinner, which has been told to the ABC, is the two politicians did meet briefly, when the president came to where his son Eric and the Australians were sitting, but the US leader was seated at another table at Mar-a-Lago that evening. Mr Tate had insisted he had flown to Florida following an "invitation" from the Trump Organization. "I was there as mayor of the city. So that's the gift to the city," he told the ABC in an earlier interview. No record of an invitation exists, according to the right to information search of Gold Coast council records. Mr Tate's office since said: "The invitation was issued verbally." Mr Tate had also initially listed on his council register of interests that the Trump Organization had paid for his accommodation and meals, along with transfers. It caused a stir, with questions about the mayor potentially having a conflict of interest with a Gold Coast Trump Tower proposal, which had attracted almost 100,000 petitioners objecting. Also, local Gold Coast media was hammering council about official overseas travel. The invoice But Mr Tate's office since changed the register declaration to say he had personally paid for the accommodation and transfers. "My intention was always to personally fund any hospitality provided to me at Mar-a-Lago," he said in a statement. "Pending receipt of the invoice, and in an abundance of caution, I disclosed the hospitality on my register of interests to ensure my disclosures remained consistent with my reporting obligations. "Once the invoice was received, I promptly paid the amount personally and immediately updated my register." He did declare receiving a red hat, along with the meals. The mayor has declined to answer many questions, only issuing statements. He will not supply the Mar-a-Lago invoice, even after a right to information request from the ABC. Mr Tate's office said the trip was "private". The whole council trip was book-ended. Mr Tate had work events in Los Angeles in late February. Again, the council itinerary indicates Los Angeles was full of meetings, such as Mr Tate attending Amazon MGM Studios, which worked with Gold Coast-linked contractors. Still, the ABC can reveal, in between Florida and Los Angeles, Mr Tate took a week-long private holiday, flying in and out of Barbados, allowed under council rules. Flights involving Barbados were paid personally. Council records show the cost to ratepayers of flights from Australia to Italy and Dubai and Florida, and then to Los Angeles and home, was almost $33,000, the ABC can reveal. (He was entitled to a business class flight and paid personally to upgrade to first-class). Mr Tate's office insisted that the Barbados side-trip was economical given his Los Angeles events. "Doing so avoided the need for two separate trips to the United States and ensured no additional airfare costs were incurred by the city," it said. The Gold Coast Trump Tower proposal fell over in less three months.