Where has Costello's cheer-squad been for the last decade?

I feel a great deal of sympathy for poor Peter Costello right now, but it looks like I'm the only one - for who can care for a man with such a detestable smirk? Not the public, and definitely not the press. Like a poor man robbed blind, Pete's spent more than 10 years trying to keep a lid on his leadership ambitions and resolute hatred for John Howard, both carried out with varying degrees of success. This week a level of truth about the succession deal made it into the public domain after former Liberal minister Ian McLachlan admitted that Howard had promised Treasurer Pete the leadership should he win the 1996 election. As we know, Howard won the election and Costello is, 12 years later, still waiting in the wings for his chance to rule.

For a man with such a searing ambition to become Prime minister, and considering the part he's played in keeping the Coalition's economic reputation in the black for the past decade, Costello has been more than patient. In the leaky and murderous corridors of power that run through our nation's Parliament, Costello's resolve to keep his mouth publicly shut about the agreement is no small feat. Hawke made it only five years before talk of a succession agreement between the then Labor PM and his treasurer, Paul Keating, surfaced in the press, which continued to dog Hawke until his very final days as Prime Minister.

So where have Costello's supporters inside the Canberra Press Gallery been for the past 12 years? Sure there has been the recurring talk about Howard's retirement and Costello's ascension, but why has nobody brought up the McLachlan note and the hard evidence of the meeting until now? Surely the easily tripped-over and easily incensed Press Gallery Dwarf, The Australian's Glenn Milne, would have know about the meeting and know that McLachlan carried a recorded of the meeting in his wallet at all times. And although Milne has been Costello's biggest press gallery supporter - a pundit most adroit in the art of leaking something truly damaging to the Prime Minister - it's likely he's been keeping this evidence under his hat for a fair while now. Milne's Howard-hatred is one of the few reasons I keep buying the Aus, especially on a Monday, when, aside from Milne, it's got about as much readable copy as a Mr Men book.

And what of The Age's Shaun Carney, Costello's biographer and main Fairfax confidant - where has he been the last decade? What's the use of having sympathisers in the Canberra Press Gallery if they're not going to publish the dirty truth about Howard's alleged succession plan, citing, of course, "sources close to the Treasurer" or "a number of disgruntled Coalition insiders". That's right, there isn't one. Maybe Costello had the piety to keep the Howard meeting and McLachlan's record of it a secret from even his closest allies on the Hill. This is wishful thinking, even for Peter Costello, because even the most waterproof politicians find a way to leak. Maybe Costello managed to convinced his Gallery mates to keep it quiet until the time came for an assault of the Prime Minister's office, or at least until he thought he had the numbers to come close to kicking Howard out of The Lodge. Maybe that time has come, and maybe that's just what Costello did, but it's surely been a long enough wait for the Treasurer.