And in subsequent meetings BHP continued to use its top people to appraise Canberra of its views - about its bid, and after that was abandoned, about Rio's proposed alliance with Chinalco, an alliance through which the state-owned Chinese group double its shareholding, get board seats and buy directly into Rio's best projects, including the Pilbara iron ore operation. There was a battalion of advisers working on the Rio situation. But contact with the Government was confined largely to a small BHP team, led by Argus and Kloppers, and including Bernie Delaney, the group's head of government relations, and BHP's director of public affairs, the former ALP national secretary Geoff Walsh.