THE police did not arrive at The Canberra Times with a search warrant at the weekend.
Odd that, because on Page 1 of Saturday’s paper was an article about the as yet unpublished Vitab report leaked from a “”government source”.
Now, two years ago when someone leaked some health budget material which The Canberra Times published, the government got a search warrant and a couple of cops turned over a desk or two and found nothing.
Why no police this time? Could it be because the “”government source” was doing the government’s bidding in putting the government in a good light.
It was a bit of clever media manipulation. The government leaked a brief impression on Friday night that was favourable to its favoured parties. It was too late to get Opposition comment or anything further. The resulting impression is that the ACT TAB stuffed it up. Wayne Berry was in the clear. Berry’s staff were under fire. And the Department of Environment, Land and Planning, which embraces sport, was in the clear.
That was the once-over-lightly impression. It was exquisitely placed on Page 1 on Saturday’s paper, which quite incidentally announced that Saturday’s readership was at a record high of 201,000.
The leaker knew that no journalist could resist the early leak of a controversial unpublished report. How considerate of this government source to read and digest the report and give the government line.
And when will the open, consultative ACT Government release the whole report publicly? This may be a self-denying prophesy, but my guess is that it will be on the first available sitting day of the Assembly. It happens to be Budget day _ a convenient coincidence which means any independent or Opposition comment will get swamped by Budget news.
Well, never mind. The government leaker has summarised it all in a few paragraphs and that is all the Canberra voters need to know.
The government leaker was able to rely on the fact that the media are just as fixed in their ways, just as gullible, stupid and manipulable as government itself, so that when the full report comes down decision makers within the media will call it “”an old story”. “”That’s an old story. We’ve had the Vitab report. It is only worth Page 5 now.”
This may have nothing to do with it, but there is an election in February. Moreover the 400 or so hard left members of the Labor Party who have such a large influence in who gets to stand have put Berry at the top of Labor’s ticket in Ginninderra. Berry has to look good if Labor is to maintain credibility and do well in Ginninderra, notwithstanding the Hare-Clark effect. So it was important that a view of the Vitab report that was benign to Berry gets into the public eye.
Where was this government source likely to have come from? Not the ACT TAB, because it was bagged. Besides, the ACT TAB probably has not had an advanced copy yet. Not Berry’s office because his staff did not come out well and Berry is intensely loyal to his staff and vice versa. So that leaves the Chief Minister’s office or perhaps a senior bureaucrat. Whoever it is, we can surmise it is someone very high up.
The journalist’s lips are sealed, quite properly, as the leaker well knows. To reveal a source is professional death for a journalist. No-one will trust the journalist again. That is important in ensuring a flow of information in the public good about misdeeds in government, business or wherever, though there is obviously little public good in the leak of material that is to become public quite soon anyway. Indeed, there is the possibility of harm, if as in this case, the leak is not done to inform the public about misdeeds but rather to misinform it.
No doubt the Government will go after this pernicious leaker who has broken the Government’s own code of conduct for public-sector employees proposed in the new Public Sector Management Bill.
In the meantime, we can reflect on the miserable hypocrisy of a government that basks in being open and consultative, yet sits on a report paid for by public money, leaking it out in a way to its own advantage.
Well at least the the ACT Government has done something competently for a change.