Early May in Australian politics is budget time, one of the busiest times of year for politicians, staffers and the press gallery alike.
As the budget tree maple turns a brilliant red, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers frolics in its fallen leaves, political staffers are under pressure to push their bosses’ narrative about which pile of money is going where, while journalists chase exclusives. And sometimes these desires become mutually beneficial, with press secretaries dropping stories to certain outlets first.
So, what’s the difference between a leak and a drop?
Crikey’s federal political reporter Anton Nilsson says a drop is when the information in question is “in the government’s strategic interest” to release, whereas a leak is not. In 1980, The Age’s Laurie Oakes famously had the entire budget leaked to him and reported its contents before then treasurer John Howard could announce it himself.
Leaks are increasingly rare these days while drops become more common, with much of the budget revealed before budget night. Last week, an embargoed media release was put out by Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth’s office, explicitly titled “PRE-BUDGET DROP”.
Samantha Maiden, news.com.au political editor and one of the most experienced and decorated figures in the parliamentary press gallery, reckons there’s “an art to the drop”.
“Sometimes you know something, you have a tip and you follow it up, or negotiate to get all the details,” Maiden told Crikey.
“Sometimes a government would give me a drop and I would decide it sucked or it wasn’t strong enough. This makes me sound like a massive wanker, but I would say ‘this is crap, give it to someone else, I want something bigger and better.’
“It was a negotiation.”
Maiden said that while she was leading News Corp’s Sunday mastheads, the arrival of a drop from the Gillard government on the announcement of a policy dubbed the “Schoolkids Bonus” was “the perfect, chef’s kiss, consumer-focused Sunday newspaper drop”.
Indeed, one of responsible minister Jenny Macklin’s media advisers at the time was former ABC journalist (and current Labor member for Jagajaga) Kate Thwaites.
It’s not all roses when a drop comes in from the government, however.
“I remember one year, I think it was the Turnbull government, they tried to give me some absolute rubbish about bureaucrats,” Maiden said.
“It was so boring. I was like ‘for the love of all things holy, I am not dishing up this story to the readers … I will find something else’.
“That’s annoying, when the people working in the prime minister’s or the treasurer’s office don’t even know what a decent tabloid story is. It’s probably worse these days. There are some good press secretaries but there are a lot that don’t get it and don’t have a clue.”
Occasionally leaks get confused with drops, which Maiden calls “a sickness”.
“[It’s] a real pet peeve of mine where journalists who don’t break stories think everything is a drop,” she said.
“It’s moronic, shows poor reading comprehension and it really offends my sensibilities that alleged journalists can’t tell the difference.”
Maiden described the Abbott government’s infamous $7 GP co-payment, as well as the proposed debt levy (led by a promise that Abbott’s government would not introduce new taxes in that year’s budget), and how her reporting was mistaken for a drop.
“I wrote a front page story across all mastheads on the deficit levy. I turned on Insiders that Sunday morning and there was some fill-in host literally dismissing the story,” she said.
“They were sort of chuckling and suggesting that there was no way Tony Abbott would do this — I wanted to hurl a pot plant at the TV, because it was a really good story, it was a massive broken promise, a new tax, and it was definitely not a drop.”
“There was political fallout … then, the next night, I turned on 7.30 and there was another journalist saying the government had ‘floated the story in the Sundays’.
“I was so pissed off — it had gone from a joke to a government-sanctioned drop on the ABC in 24 hours.”
Maiden said the confusion of genuine stories for drops impacted her when it came to journalism’s award season as well.
“I remember that year I decided to enter [those] stories in all these awards because I thought it was some of the best work of my career and I didn’t get a look in — not even a nomination,” she said.
“I think in part it was because people thought they were drops when they weren’t.
“It was nearly another decade before I won my first Walkley for [the story on] Scott Morrison in Hawaii because nobody was going to think that was a drop, that’s for sure.”
