The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in Sydney the other day was an entirely different bouilloire de poissons from the presentation in Melbourne back in 2014. The Melbourne event – or ceremony, as some called it – was an ambitious demonstration of Establishment grandeur. The then Arts Minister George Brandis, backed by Louise Adler, the organizer of the night, proclaimed that the Abbott government had made a deliberate decision ‘to elevate the status and prestige of these prizes’ – to make them Australia’s equivalent of the Man Booker in London.