Michaelia Cash's performance in Senate estimates hearings last week was enough to sow doubt in the public mind about her office's relationship with the media. Some of her comments on the public record contrast with other evidence – more on that later.

Frighteningly, in her push to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, established to investigate risks in the trucking industry, Cash denied there was a link between safety and pay rates for truck drivers, even though her own department had received evidence to the contrary – two reports, one from PwC and one from Jaguar, which made clear there were significant links. She backed Aerocare (the company that gave such short breaks to workers they were forced to sleep on the floor between shifts) despite union claims about its very low rates of pay and appalling working conditions. The Fair Work Commission rejected the company's enterprise agreement.

Cash asked former ACT Liberal chief minister Kate Carnell, who is the Small Business Ombudsman, to report on the effect of the tribunal's minimum rates order after the tribunal was abolished. That order said owner-drivers must receive a minimum pay rate and must be paid for all their work. The tribunal was abolished in April 2016. Carnell's office spent $37,000 on a series of regional meetings in the days leading up to the 2016 federal election. Her report says there was a "crippling" effect on drivers yet it also admits "only a relatively small number of truck drivers participated in the inquiry ... it may be difficult to gather factual evidence to show the extent that financial difficulties are attributable to the payments order".

What I'm about to write will be of zero interest to other journalists – they all know it's happening. But maybe you, too, should know how politicians try to control a story by giving it to their preferred outlets first or by talking to journalists who won't challenge them. It's not illegal but this control of the narrative gets in the way of voters knowing the facts. As we all saw last week, it can be hard to ignore the drama of a raid on a union headquarters, even if the raid later proves to be unnecessary.