“Gossip has had a very bad press through the ages, on the grounds that it is frequently untrue and nearly always disparaging of someone,” Auberon Waugh wrote in one of his outrageous essays in the ’70s in which he described gossip as a “recreation”.

It’s true, of course. One could even say that gossip nowadays is an industry – look at the bimbo magazines. And note that “through the ages”? Gossip, like the poor of the Gospels, is always with us. Particularly around power. It’s been one of the most powerful weapons of the courtier as long as courtiers have existed. It’s no surprise that it plays such a role in politics.

The media has a prurient attitude to gossip. Political parties exploit this. Most journalists choose not to report it. Like Waugh, they know that it is “frequently untrue and nearly always disparaging of someone”.

But that may be a mistake. Journalists can avoid the content of gossip but should still cover the dynamics. Rumour and innuendo swirl round the political system like smog – from the branches up. Dirt can decide an outcome at a branch AGM, then feed up through all levels of the political process.

There’s no such thing as a dirt unit, of course. Politicians who allege the existence of these bodies make a mistake. They raise the existence of an entity their enemies can immediately deny.

What there are, however, are staffers and MPs wandering the corridors of the Canberra Gallery with their message of the day – and a stab at some political opponent. There are other staffers compiling lists of quotes from rival parties looking for the slightest inconsistency, reading the biographies of retired politicians searching for barbs that might be thrown back at still serving colleagues. Then there are taxpayer funded political party campaign units, like the Government Members Secretariat.

But political dirt is nothing new. Here’s a short trip through the history of gossip, and gossip mongers,  in Australian politics:

  • John Norton, a muckraking journalist, arrived in Sydney in 1884 and ended up editing Truth – and in the New South Wales Legislative Council. By the time of his death in 1916 there was virtually no form of political, media – or criminal – activity he had not indulged in.
  • Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second Prime Minister, reported anonymously on Australian politics for the London Morning Post – even as Prime Minister. The Australian Dictionary of Biography describes his journalism as “vivid in style, intelligent in comment, relatively free from bias and mildly critical of himself on occasions”.
  • In April 1939, Earle Page of the Country Party tipped a bucket on Robert Menzies because he hadn’t volunteered for service in the Great War. The divisions that created ultimately ended Menzies’ first term as Prime Minister and lead to the Curtin and Chifley Governments. Canberra old timers still swear that claims about a liaison between the Warden of the Cinque Ports and the wife of a media magnate are true.
  • Then there are the stories of the Chifley press secretary who seemed to enjoy remarkable luck in the poker and two-up schools that flourished in Parliament House in those days. The losers wondered if his fortune was related to his generosity in feeding the Gallery.
  • More serious is the infamous Document H in the Petrov papers, a dossier on various Canberra identities given to the Russian Embassy by one of Labor leader Doc Evatt’s staff.
  • John Gorton yarns are legion. Everyone knows the tale of his late night visit to the American Embassy with a young lady in tow. Fewer people may have heard just how keen he was to meet Liza Minnelli on her first Australian tour.
  • Claims about Billy McMahon’s s-xuality have never gone away.
  • There was virtually no need for dirt digging with Jim Cairns’ confessions of “a kind of love” for Juni Morosi and the antics at the disastrous Terrigal party conference.
  • Former finance minister Peter Walsh isn’t known for his subtlety. He had a manila folder labelled “Dirt” he used to like to brandish on occasions. The business interests of figures such as Ian Sinclair and Chief Justice Garfield Barwick became the subject of much attention.
  • Bob Hawke laid his past on the table, but in the early years of his government the Liberal Party was keen to know who from the Press Gallery was travelling with a certain minister on VIP flights and in what capacity.
  • The Costigan Royal Commission provided enough for everyone to get their spade into, with allegations of drugs, standover merchants, murder and bottom of the harbour tax deals – not to mention “The Goanna”.
  • At least two sets of slurs about Paul Keating and arts figures have still not gone away.
  • The Victory, the book by Financial Review journalist Pamela Williams on the 1996 campaign, tells in its first few pages how then Liberal Federal Director Andrew Robb was forced to confronted Alexander Downer over rumours about his private life.
  • People who should know better still continue to push a ridiculous story about the Prime Minister and a prominent media figure.

Second guessing your opponents is a vital part of politics. Exposing hypocrisy is a vital role of the media. The gossip and innuendo that swirls around all levels of politics is unavoidable. Unless it has been carefully managed and spun, virtually all news begins with hearsay. But when is hearsay itself newsworthy? That’s the balancing act our media have to manage.