By Peter Fray

Photo: Christopher Pyne has hefty measures of determination, cunning and self-assurance. (AAP: Stefan Postles)

Christopher Pyne knows when to hold, when to fold and when to appeal to a person's needs, something the states should remember as they negotiate education funding, writes Peter Fray.

A few years ago, Christopher Pyne was revealed to be a sneaky smoker by the Sunday Age's back page gossip column. A modest item in every sense, it was only of passing interest because Pyne then held a junior ministerial position in the health portfolio of the Howard government.

Oh, how naughty, the item intoned: a health minister who enjoys a secret puff. Tut, tut, tut.

It wasn't Watergate and is only worth dredging up now, seven years on, because Pyne's actions post-publication attest to his political acumen and capacity to deal with negative publicity. As the premiers and state education ministers are finding out over the Gonski backflip, Pyne is a wily operator. There are, of course, other words for it.

The Pyne smoking item was published on my watch as editor of The Sunday Age and written by the paper's then Canberra political correspondent Jason Koutsoukis.

Pyne is generally liked by the press gallery because, well, he's not boring. He's sharp of mind and tongue, and can be a bit cheeky: qualities that endear him to many journalists. He can also take a joke.

So, both Koutsoukis and I were surprised when Pyne called up the following Tuesday and invited himself to the Sunday Age office for a "little chat".

I expected a polite smacking. But when we did meet a few days later, Pyne came offering a gift.

The Sunday Age had been running hard on the issue of drugs in the AFL, and in particular, the tragic case of West Coast Eagles star Ben Cousins.

A series of stories by Andrew Rule had provoked wide debate about the AFL commission's soft stance on drugs. Rule and I were rightly chuffed about leading the pack, not always the easiest thing for a Sunday paper.

Pyne had clearly been following our success.

Noting the paper's interest in drugs and sport, Pyne mentioned that cabinet would be considering a tough new policy approach to drugs in sport that would be at odds with the AFL.

- Would I like to have a copy?

- Of course.

- Right, said Pyne, I'll get back to you. 

And after a bit more chit-chat, he left, without any mention, let alone rebuke, about the smoking story.

A win, I thought: a pleasant enough chat and a potential splash to come.  

Days then weeks went by. The promised leak never arrived. There was always a plausible excuse for why it wasn't yet forthcoming. George Brandis, then minister for sport, was often cited as the cause of the delay.

In the end, the AFL drugs issue went a bit stale and the caravan moved on.

To this day, I don't really know if Pyne ever intended to leak the document, or whether the roadblocks to its non-leaking were real or imagined, but I do know he achieved the desired effect.

He'd effectively moved our Pyne-watch from his own questionable habit to the much bigger and sexier target of the AFL and drugs. 

It wasn't as if we were suddenly over-nice to Christopher. Or so I'd contend. We wouldn't have held back a negative story about him.

But in the weeks we were waiting for the leak to materialise, it's fair to say we weren't about to nip at a hand that might yet feed - certainly for no good reason. 

A few months later the Sunday Age broke the story, again by Koutsoukis, about Pyne telling a private gathering that he was too young to be the minister for the aging.

He did take exception to that one. But we never returned to his smoking.

I assume he managed to quit.

Dealing with Pyne taught me much about myself - I've ever since guarded against my own gullibility - and more about him.

Here is a man with plenty of front and hefty measures of determination, cunning and self-assurance. Someone, in short, who knows how to use political power: when to hold, when to fold and when to appeal to a person's needs.

State premiers and education ministers probably already know this and much more about Pyne. The NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has certainly been around the Liberal traps long enough to be a fair judge of his character.

But as they duke it out over Gonski, the state pollies ought to be mindful that with the member for Sturt, what you see is not all you get. If Pyne offers them a salve for their education sores, they should get the script in writing - in his blood.

Peter Fray is the editor-in-chief of PolitiFact Australia, a fact-checking website, and the former editor of the Sunday Age, the Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. View his full profile here.

A short history with Christopher Pyne - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)