Remember back to your Year 12 final exams.

A Government lock-up reminds you of the same experience.

When the Federal Government has something big or complicated to announce, like the Federal Budget in May or the Henry Tax Review, they’ll hold a lock-up in Parliament House.

For Henry the lock-up it was 10am until 2.30pm while for the Federal Budget it starts at 2.30pm and finishes when the Treasurer gets up in parliament to start his Budget speech, which is about 7.30pm.

All the media and industry lobby groups are literally locked in a series of meeting rooms. You have to sign in, hand over your mobile phone and promise not to breathe a word of what you’re about to learn until the doors open.

The aim is to allow the media to have time to absorb any announcements so they can give considered views.

As you walk in you’re handed the relevant papers to study. For the Budget it comes in half a dozen volumes and total a couple thousand pages of analysis plus all the press releases and booklets of the relevant Government departments. For Henry is was the 1000 page Review and the Government’s 500 page response.

Each media group is designated their own particular room or section to sit together. The newspapers even bring in their cartoonists, artists and sub editors so they can literally make up the next morning’s newspaper in the lockup which goes to the presses electronically when the lock-up finishes. For television, all the reports and editing are there as well.

It is a fascinating situation because the journalists aren’t allowed to talk to anyone but their colleagues. Remember a journalist thrives on talking to contacts, getting opinions, piecing together information.

In a lock-up they’re on their own, they have to do their own analysis.

It’s amazing over the years how many times the budget opinions change 180 degrees between the day following the budget and the next day when the journos have had time to talk to their contacts. During the Budget they’ll quietly sidle up to people and ask whet they think so they can double check they haven’t anything.

It really is like an exam.

I remember when Paul Keating brought down his revolutionary superannuation budget in the 1980s when he started taxing superannuation contributions and earnings.

I went to air on Seven news that night and in a newspaper column the next morning saying it was a disaster for superannuates. All the news coverage followed the Keating spin and portrayed it as a bonanza.

I was pooping myself thinking I had got it so wrong.

The day after the coverage turned round to my point of view. Thankfully it was something I knew about, it wasn’t because I was any smarter.