The photo was originally posted by Twitter user @Chef09876, who gave his name only as “Dave” when contacted by The Australian Financial Review. He said he had seen the image on the Facebook page of another employee from the restaurant and decided to share it on the social network.

“I just copied it. I tried to tweet it after the function, to send it to Julia Gillard, the Labor party, [Sky news presenter] Peter Van Onselen and Kevin Rudd, my local member, but I didn’t get a reply from any of them. I don’t know if they were too busy to notice them at the time,’’ he said.

“Dave” has subsequently clarified on Twitter that he did not attempt to contact Mr Rudd.