John Curtin Foundation

Formed in Perth, Western Australia in October 1984, the John Curtin Foundation was a fundraising organisation for the Australian Labor Party which attracted the sponsorship of a powerful group of wealthy businessmen, placing them in a privileged circle with direct access to both the Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and the state premier Brian Burke.

Its two vice-patrons were Kim Beazley, senior, a former Whitlam government minister, and Mick Michael, an electrical contractor and former lord mayor of Perth.

It was the brainchild of Laurie Connell, Labor strategist Jack Walsh and Burke, and named after Hawke's wartime political hero John Curtin.

[As well as Alan Bond and Laurie Connell,] Hawke also mingled with John Roberts, the hard-as-a-hammer builder who created the giant Multiplex corporation, the philanthropic James McCusker, founder of the Town and Country building society, Ernest Lee-Steere, the pastoralist, racehorse owner and Perth lord mayor, prominent businessman Kevin Parry and Ric Stowe, Australia's most reclusive billionaire, of Griffin Coal fame.

[2] Others were timber entrepreneur Denis Cullity, prominent Catholic businessman John Horgan, and bookmaker Rod Evans, who was also a publican and substantial Perth property owner.