Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office has moved to directly approve the media appearances of all Coalition frontbenchers, The Australian Financial Review reports.
An email sent to the Coalition's ministerial media advisers, leaked to Fairfax Media, outlines that newly appointed press secretary Kate Walshe will handle all requests.
“All media coordination and requests should go through Kate first. This covers all national media interviews on television, radio and print. This includes any ABC local radio or ABC television interviews, the Sunday programmes, Sky News, and metropolitan print media longer-format interviews, etc,’’ it says.
“With any regular appearances on shows such as Sky AM Agenda, they should first have been coordinated through Kate at least the day before; on the morning of the interview it is still best to speak with Russ Neal for the main daily issues and messages.”
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The report comes just days after Immigration Minister Scott Morrison was forced to defend the decision to provide only a weekly briefing on asylum seeker boat arrivals.
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd attracted similar criticisms of media management during the early years of his first government, nearly doubling the number of press secretaries, media advisers and consultants than employed during the Hawke and Keating years.
