Wine and seafood leave headache for Australian PM

CANBERRA, June 14 (Reuters) A lavish wine and seafood cocktail party beside Sydney Harbour has left Australian Prime Minister John Howard with a pre-election headache.

More than 200 supporters of Howard's ruling Liberal Party, including business donors, were fed shrimp, oysters and fine wines on the lawns of his official mansion, which has fabulous views over Sydney Harbour to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

But the event has opened a debate about the use of taxpayer-funded residences for political events. Howard said the Liberal Party paid 5,186 dollar (4,357 dollar) for food, wine, and staff.

The centre-left Labor Party opposition said the Liberals paid a bargain price of less than 10 dollar (8.40 dollar) a head for food and wine, once the staff and security were accounted for, but nothing for the venue for what it said was a political fundraising event.

''The only way food at Kirribilli House could have cost less than 10 A dollar a head was if they flung a line into Sydney Harbour and caught the fish themselves,'' senior Labor lawmaker Anthony Albanese told parliament today.

The reception, held in early June as part of a three-day Liberal Party conference, included business political donors who paid more than 8,000 dollar a head to attend the Liberal conference.

Howard, whose conservative government is struggling in the polls with elections due within six months, denied the cocktail party was a political fundraising event, and electoral officials today cleared him of any wrongdoing.

''This is temporarily my home,'' Howard told reporters in Canberra. ''I am entitled to occupy it because of the office I hold, and I am entitled because of the office I hold to entertain people.'' Labor said a similar cocktail party across the harbour at the Sydney Opera House would cost a minimum of 30,000 A dollar, including 6,000 A dollar to hire a room with a view.

REUTERS SV PM1535