Absolute Power played out in Canberra

Lachlan Harris has stumbled, too.

Spin doctors should never let themselves become the story.

But that is just what Kevin Rudd’s media chief has done.

Harris is the complete professional.

And his management of the media, in the week before the budget was published, on May 13, was superb.

Press gallery reporters, like their colleagues everywhere, are always in the market for an exclusive story.

And the government placed many of those, on the budget, at that time.

That was a triumph for the Prime Minister’s media machine.

But the PM’s media minders – and Lachlan Harris in particular – are now being accused of censorship.

A Victorian Liberal Senator, Michael Rolandson, said the Rudd government had set “an extremely dangerous precedent.”

There is some room for scepticism.

After all, as Mandy Rice Davies once said, in slightly different circumstances:”He would say that, wouldn’t he?”

But Ronaldson was adamant.

“We’ve got ministerial staffers, with no entitlement, removing people (reporters) from licensed areas (of parliament house).

“We’ve got them out the front of the Great Hall, taking them out of the Blue Room (where Prime Ministerial press conferences are held).

“I mean this is a government, in six months, that is totally out of control,” Ronaldson added.

An ABC insider gave Private Briefing another example.

That was of Lachlan Harris objecting to the ABC filming Rudd, while the PM was in the ABC studio in the Press Gallery of Parliament House.

Rudd was reading from notes, during a radio interview.

And that is not a particularly good look, in television footage.

“When we do radio, we do radio,” our insider quoted Harris as saying, in a bullying manner.

“And when we do television, we do television.”

That one has now been settled, in the ABC’s favour.

Lachlan’s objection has been lifted.

But these events have left nasty aftertastes,

Several years ago, public servants in Canberra , were fond of saying that the highly successful TV series, Yes Minister, was not a comedy, but a documentary.

That applies, too, apparently, to the current series of Absolute Power, which studies the activities of spin doctors.