Media stop flying with PM
www.theaustralian.news.com.au By Dennis Shanahan, Political editor March 20, 2003
MANY years ago I can remember flying across the Indian Ocean on the way to Zimbabwe in the Prime Minister's VIP 707. Like the rest of the travelling press I was down the back of the plane in economy-style seats with a colleague's sleeping head upon my shoulder.
It was expensive – the media paid business class fare equivalents to travel on the VIP jet – and uncomfortable: the head of the colleague was male and there was drool involved.
But we were with the Prime Minister (then Bob Hawke) and arrived when and where he arrived and were generally given some in-flight personal briefings from him.
At times this close travelling relationship led to some testiness, some inside information and some camaraderie.
With the acquisition of the new prime ministerial BAJ 737 all of those things appear to have come to an end. Last month John Howard made his first around-the-world trip sans media, and it is unlikely any prime minister will break the precedent he has established of travelling without the press corps.
Malcolm Fraser ensured the PM could enter the new Parliament House without running a press gauntlet, Paul Keating introduced velvet ropes and now Howard has ensured the PM can travel with more privacy than the US President. After all, even on September 11, George W. Bush had media travelling on his plane – even if they couldn't disclose his whereabouts.
The transition from the ailing and embarrassing old VIP fleet, which was barred from landing in a number of countries because of environmental concerns, to a shiny new 737 minus the media has been smoothly achieved.
There has been a period of adjustment when Howard travelled commercially, mixing it with public and media and generally having a chat even with those travelling press who didn't fly business or first class.
On his long trip to Europe last year the PM chartered a jet – used by football teams and pop stars to ferry around their entourage – for part of the trip. The media travelled in that jet, although on some legs went in a German air force C30 transport or on commercial flights.
But the weaning period is now over – and it would seem that the opportunity for the press to mix with travelling officials and prime ministers has ended. Howard's recent seven-day trip around the world is a worst-case scenario but proves the point.
Given only four days to plan, the media intending to travel with the Prime Minister on his most important international trip yet, had to arrange commercial travel between Canberra, Sydney, Washington, New York, London and Jakarta while keeping to a schedule set by the PM's VIP jet.
Five overnight trips were needed to ensure the media were in place to question Howard after he met the Bush Administration and the President himself, plus British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Indonesia's President Megawati.
Part of the justification for keeping the media off the plane – and remember they have been the only paying customers on these flights – is that it is not comfortable enough for the entire media contingent.
Consider this:
Canberra to Washington is a long trip made more tedious and lengthy by security measures at Los Angeles, which mean standing in at least four queues for more than two hours and the strong prospect of a body search. Anything less than a two-hour gap between arrival and a link with domestic flights virtually means you will miss the flight.
The media had to set out before Howard, who stopped en route in Hawaii and conducted Commonwealth business over bans on Zimbabwe without any pesky press interference. Indeed, it was Howard who had to raise the issue himself at a press conference in Washington because the media was oblivious as to what had happened in transit.
To be in New York in time for Howard's meetings with Hans Blix and Kofi Annan it was necessary for most of the press – as opposed to the television crews – to travel by train to New York, arriving after 2am and then filing stories written on the red-eye express.
The TV people had the luxury of sleeping in until 4am and catching a plane the next morning. The PM's team did find room on the plane for some media to record his departure and arrival and to do a pre-recorded radio interview.
New York was a blur, bleary journalists blitzing Blix in the winter wind, a quick press conference and then a four-hour preparation for an overnight trans-Atlantic flight to London.
Arrival in London was to a Heathrow tarmac surrounded by military in tanks and high-level security warnings. Arrival at 6am meant working straight through the day and night as Howard met British ministers prior to his early morning meeting with Blair at No 10 Downing Street. Standing in sub-zero temperatures after being frisked for the 20th time in four days, the travelling media knew they faced a rush to the airport for various flights to Singapore, Bangkok or Hong Kong to make on-flights to Jakarta in time for Howard's arrival.
Because someone from Venezuela had brought a hand grenade to Gatwick in his luggage, the security checks at Heathrow were doubled. It took more than two hours at the economy check-in to lodge luggage and get seat allocation. Security queues took another hour.
Some of the media had begun to flake off the tour de force, giving up on the Indonesia leg and heading straight to Australia.
After more searches in Singapore it was a late-night arrival in steamy Jakarta after having been in freezing ice and snow for six days.
Once again, the travelling media saw the Prime Minister at a press conference and a couple of meetings. Unfortunately for the ABC's Jim Middleton, the only informal contact with the PM was a dressing down in the hotel foyer after the ABC newsroom had wrongly rewritten one of his stories.
The Prime Minister was on the way to his plane and the flight to Australia. The media were left like a flight of broken geese to straggle back commercially, deprived of Howard's company and end-of-trip insights. A pattern for the future.