Like seagulls on a hot chip, journalists will swoop on Malcolm Turnbull at any opportunity. Whether he's waiting for a bus near his Point Piper home or downing a banana split with Clive Palmer, the Minister for Communications always draws a crowd.
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So it was at Parliament House on Tuesday when Turnbull emerged from an International Women's Day breakfast. While Prime Minister Tony Abbott evaded media questioning, Turnbull entertained the press pack with tales about his use of the self-destructing messaging service Wickr. It was a cordial affair until one security guard placed a rope bollard behind the mass of reporters, photographers and camera operators.
It was a dangerous decision given the media were walking backwards and many were clutching heavy, expensive equipment. The guard smiled, acknowledging he knew what he was up to. This happened in the Mural Hall, an area where media access is classed as unrestricted.
Channel Nine's bureau chief has written a letter of complaint about the incident; so has the Press Gallery Committee.
"We have asked the sergeant-at-arms for an explanation of what happened this morning and to clarify whether this was a deliberate attempt to trip up media crews," Sky News' David Speers, the president of the committee, said.
A skirmish such as this could – like the fight for the Liberal Party leadership or alleged job offers for the President of the Human Rights Commission – be dismissed as "Canberra insider nonsense". But this was no isolated incident.
Press gallery veterans insist that, under the guise of improved security, journalists are increasingly being corralled, controlled and restricted in their efforts to inform the public about what is happening in Parliament House.
"I fear the terrorist threat is being used as an opportunity to manage the media," Fairfax Media's chief press gallery photographer Andrew Meares said.
While security arrangements may have been too lax before – epitomised by NSW Senator Bill Heffernan smuggling a replica pipe bomb into the building – there is a fear the pendulum has swung too far the other way since the Australian Federal Police took over internal security last September.
Once allowed to roam relatively freely, journalists and camera crews now find they are regularly placed in cordoned-off areas, penned in by velvet ropes. It was announced a week ago that a restricted area for filming would be introduced outside the ministerial entrance to Parliament House. The routine task of filming the Prime Minister and other senior politicians arriving at Parliament is now circumscribed.
Journalists can no longer use the ministerial entrance and must tell security guards who they are meeting with in order to access the ministerial wing.
A veteran radio reporter said waiting for politicians at the airport is now the best shot journalists have at an impromptu press conference with senior politicians.
Parliament House, he said, is "becoming more organised, structured and artificial".
A similar cordoned-off system has been introduced for the morning doorstop press conferences. And photographers at last week's electric Senate estimates hearing starring Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs and Attorney-General George Brandis were held behind rope - an unusual decision.
It goes on. As Laurie Oakes recently reported, politicians including Tony Abbott have set up broadcast-quality equipment in their offices so interviews are conducted on their turf, not the media's. This allows them to avoid the "walk of shame" through the press gallery, minimising the chance of any surprise encounters with reporters.
The atmosphere has also changed. Guards with large guns now patrol the entrance to Parliament House; police officers routinely prowl the exterior of the building with sniffer dogs. Many thought the security crackdown approached high farce in January when West Australian journalist Nick Butterly was asked by a guard to remove a T-shirt featuring the "offensive" New York Post headline "Headless body in topless bar".
Meanwhile, this reporter accidentally brought a 30-centimetre, razor-sharp kitchen knife through Parliament's security scans last week. It could certainly have done more damage than a T-shirt.
Not a question was asked, not an eyebrow was raised.