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Marius - Politics: …

There is a quiet conspiracy at the heart of journalism - in Australia and around the world of the free press - which you as listeners, viewers and readers should be aware of.

It is the “leak”.

The “leak” is a cornerstone of some of the great moments in journalism.

Leaks generated Watergate.

Leaks involve the relatively powerless, acting in the public interest, revealing unauthorised material that the powerful would like to keep private.

That’s the idea anyway.

The term now almost never refers to that admirable action.

It is now almost always refers to the powerful - ministers, the Prime Minister - releasing material themselves, selectively, to one or a few journalists, as part of their management of the information flow.

This technique serves a number of purposes. It can allow the government to fly a kite, gauge public reaction to a policy direction, before publicly committing to it. It lets the government gradually release information which it feels might be awkward.

If, say, the government wants to cut a service or increase a charge it “leaks” the plan to a newspaper. The idea is out there but when journalists then quiz the relevant Minister on the issue he or she can say: “This is just speculation, I’m not commenting.”

Then when the matter is declared officially, it has to an extent been defused and the Minister can respond in part by saying they don’t want to go over old ground.

The arrival of asylum seekers is a good case in point. Few issues make a Labor Government more nervous. From the right, they fear a stirring of community anxiety over “border protection”; on the left, parts of the heartland demand Labor take the high moral ground.

The latest Government response has been dubbed “the Indonesian Solution”. It’s understood to mean lobbing a lot of money at Indonesia to stop the refugee flow there. So far, the Government hasn’t officially detailed any new arrangement with Indonesia.

Instead - and this is my assumption, I haven’t asked any journalists about their sources - government press secretaries are privately giving selective glimpses of the policy to a few journalists, including newspapers and ABC TV News which reported it in these terms:

“The ABC can confirm Australia is planning to compensate Indonesia for the cost of intercepting boats… and could pay de facto bounties for each asylum seeker dealt with on Indonesia soil.”

Make of that what you will. It allows Government Ministers to respond to any questions on the material put out by the government:

“……that’s a news report that’s not been substantiated by anybody…” (Immigration Minister Chris Evans)

“I understand there’s a lot of speculation and interest in this..not very helpful….” the Government has to get on with governing…(Finance Minister Chris Bowen)

An incumbent government has enormous power in directing political debate. It is able to turn the volume up and down on many issues and the “leak” - the official “leak” - is one of the best forms of volume control.