Despite this transparency of purpose, The Natasha Factor is hampered by a probably inevitable restriction: an apparent desire to avoid breaking professional and personal confidences. This seems most apparent in the sections that deal with Stott-Despoja’s fractious relationship with former Democrats Senator Meg Lees.

I vividly recall an after-hours discussion between a number of political staffers in Canberra in the late 1990s. It was jokingly agreed by all that none of their best achievements in their current jobs would ever appear in their resumés. Some of these achievements, unusually, concerned confidential issues that had actually remained confidential, and needed to stay that way. Some involved practices or behaviour that were, at best, questionable. Most would never make sense to someone who had not worked in politics. By any measure of the industry, they were achievements, but they were not for public consumption. I suspect that an element of this form of self-censorship has affected the telling of Rogers’s story, but it remains a compelling book, well told in simple and effective language. Rogers describes the media firestorm that surrounded Stott-Despoja on a daily basis, and the approach of the Canberra press gallery, which ranged from sniffy indifference to outright dislike. This was the ‘Natasha Factor’ in operation: ‘bitterness, resentment and a willingness to take the negative angle wherever possible.’

Rogers’s book gives insight into the role of a media adviser: altercations with the likes of Michelle Grattan and Deborah Thomas; gruelling interviews with the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien and Catherine McGrath; and details of political focus-group testing. Unlike the mainstream political media, which largely ignores the political website crikey.com.au, Rogers explains its impact, which was significant during the Democrats’ recent self-immolation. And Rogers shows how the adviser sometimes becomes part of the story – a media adviser’s worst nightmare. Laced through this are frank accounts of self-doubt and anxiety, along with useful discussion of journalistic ethics.

The Natasha Factor is an engrossing account of the inner workings of the Democrats, and the destructive forces that undermined Stott-Despoja’s leadership. Rogers refers to Stott-Despoja’s difficult relations with other Democrats, such as former leader Janine Haines. Greater context regarding these relationships would have been useful. Rogers highlights an organisational feature that has periodically undermined the Democrats: as the leader is elected by all party members, and not just those holding elected office, the best and most regular way to reach those members is through the media. As Rogers noted in relation to Stott-Despoja’s campaign for the leadership of the Democrats, ‘Communication and getting the message out in the media was the key to winning this campaign. We would use the media as the tool to communicate our message that Stott-Despoja was the best person to lead the Democrats to as many people as possible.’

While Rogers loyally counters the argument that Stott-Despoja had more style than substance, she repeatedly argues that Stott-Despoja’s ‘strength was that she cut through to people who weren’t interested in politics’. To be fair, as Rogers has warned, she is telling the story from her own perspective. It is, however, instructive that there is little if any discussion of one of the great challenges of political spin: translating a complicated, long and laboriously written policy into terms that can be easily transmitted to the public through the media. Rogers’s role appears to have been more concerned with image management.

Part of this was countering inevitably sexist reporting – such as the senator’s carefully crafted opinion piece for The Australian about work and family, which Adelaide’s Sunday Mail translated into an article with the breathless headline, ‘Natasha: I want a baby’. Rogers also shows how quickly the media cycle moves, sometimes powered by chance imagery. During the 2001 election campaign, Stott-Despoja appeared to make the erroneous claim that women in presumably Taliban-controlled Afghanistan had better maternity-leave benefits than Australian women. With this story arising only one day after the now iconic photo of Stott-Despoja grimacing as she holds Andrew Bartlett’s newborn baby, the story quickly became not the rights of Australia’s working women, but Stott-Despoja’s attitude towards children.

Rogers leaves largely unanswered the big question of how the Democrats came to treat their popular leader so savagely. And in truth, it is a difficult question to answer. However, Rogers has provided a useful account of her erstwhile pro-fession, and a fascinating political insight. Given that one of Rogers’s stated goals in writing the book was to impart knowledge, then she has succeeded.