1988 ARIA Music Awards

Midnight Oil won "Best Cover Art" for Diesel and Dust and both "Best Single" and "Best Song" for "Beds Are Burning".^[1][2] A shouting match developed between manager Gary Morris, accepting awards for Midnight Oil, and former Countdown compere Ian "Molly" Meldrum who was presenting:^[1][2]

I think Molly was a little precious. He was in awe of Bryan [Ferry], whereas I had an attitude about bringing over offshore artists to present at a local awards [...] I said something like, 'The Poms look at us as being pretty archaic down here, but we've got room service. You could have ordered an iron, mate'.^[5]

— Gary Morris

Morris had also objected to ARIA's award category, Best Indigenous Release, as some nominees (including Midnight Oil themselves) had no Indigenous members.^[4] Meldrum objected to Morris' political commentary from the podium and the making jokes at the expense of Bryan Ferry who was wearing a (deliberately) crumpled suit:^[1][2]

I pointed out that Gary was staying in one of the very expensive hotel rooms, on behalf of Midnight Oil [...] Then I said, 'If we're talking about disrespect, what was he doing up here accepting the awards and not Midnight Oil'. Then it all boiled over.^[5]

— Ian Meldrum

Karen Middleton of The Canberra Times was disappointed by the ceremony where "[i]nsults flowed almost as freely as the wine and all three of the international guest presenters fell victim to flimsy jokes and foolishness".^[2] She felt that Morris was "winner of the unofficial prize for least-liked personality. ... [he] aimed a poor one-liner at British presenter Bryan Ferry".^[2] However the "greatest revelation of the evening proved that there are more sore losers in the business than the small screen would lead us to believe. When a winner happened to be a little unpopular, the beautiful people booed".^[2]

Winners are listed first and bolded, other final nominees (where known) are listed alphabetically.^[1][2][6]

• John Farnham

The inaugural Hall of Fame inductees were:^[1][2]

• AC/DC
• Slim Dusty
• Col Joye
• Johnny O'Keefe
• Dame Joan Sutherland
• Vanda & Young