By Stephen Mayne, former Kennett government spindoctor

The latest fill-in editor of The Australian’s Strewth column, Michael Bachelard, had an interesting theory in Monday’s column:

When he was Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett regularly ranted at The Age, accusing the newspaper of bias and of being anti-reform and desperate to bring his government down. The ABC’s 7.30 Report suffered from similar views and was banned from interviewing Kennett for years. But last week Kennett appeared on the program to hit out at Health Minister Tony Abbott for his callow jokes about former NSW Liberal leader John Brogden. Swiftly The Age swooped and this weekend not just one but two lengthy, full-page profiles of the former premier appeared, one on Saturday, another on Sunday. Both were nice, soft pieces that began with descriptions of his office decorations and time management before referring to the rapprochement with the ABC and his new role at the Hawthorn Football Club. Both contained vague hints of lingering political ambition. Welcome back into the fold, Jeffrey.

A fair argument indeed, but Bachelard could have made an additional point: that Kennett’s great mate Ron Walker is now chairman of Fairfax and a regular visitor to TheAge’s Spencer Street building.

Shaun Carney’s 2,112 word Saturday feature was trumped by Peter Wilmoth’s 2,353 word epic the following day, and neither laid a glove on the lad. The easy conspiracy theory goes as follows: Age editor Andrew Jaspan doesn’t want to be shafted for Ron’s mate Neil Mitchell so he endeavours to please his new chairman with a soft Saturday profile of his great mate.

Meanwhile, Sunday Age editor Alan Oakley operates independently of Jaspan and commissioned his own soft Kennett feature to impress chairman Ron as he firms into favouritism to be the next editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, provided big red gives him the nod.

That’s almost certainly garbage as both papers simply leapt at the chance to interview the notoriously unco-operative Kennett after his Hawthorn coup and depression commentary over the Brogden affair. So why did Kennett agree to co-operate with the paper he hated so much? Was it after assurances from his mate Ron that he was unlikely to be done over now that friendlier forces were in control at Fairfax?